A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)If you fall in your dreams, you're supposed to wake up before you hit the ground. But what if someone else controlled your dreams, and used them against you--would you die in real life if you died in your dream? That is the terrifying premise behind Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), a seminal slasher film which introduced the movie monster, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), a murderer turned spectral demon who haunts teenagers dreams, slaughtering at their most vulnerable--and none can save them but themselves.
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Although Freddy Krueger proved to be the most iconic element of A Nightmare on Elm Street, featured in numerous sequels, the protagonist of the movie is actually Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), a high school girl who is forced to stand up to the monstrous dream ghost after he starts offing her friends. Nancy's rebellion against the monstrous Freddy would set a trend which continued for the most part in the follow ups, and recalls preceding "slasher" films, like Halloween, where a young woman who at first glance appears defenseless against a terror like Freddy, uses her cunning and tenacity to survive against the odds. Nancy and her friends do not know who Freddy Krueger is at first, or of his past; it is concealed from her by her parents. When her mother, Marge (Ronee Blakley), finally tells the secret story, it reveals a connection between Nancy, her friends, and the reanimated killer of children who somehow has the power to exact his revenge on his own executioner's children. It is implied by Nancy's connection to Freddy that her friends' parents were also involved, only scratching the surface of a deeper conspiracy, and Marge claims that dozens of parents who were looking for justice after Fred Krueger's mistrial were complicit in his immolation. This is interesting, because with the exception of Nancy's mother, no one else--not even police officer Lt. Don Thompson (John Saxon), who is Nancy's father--speaks of the incident, as though they were all deeply ashamed or have repressed it. One theory about Freddy's origin is that because the killers (the parents) have repressed this killing, they have given rise for Freddy to reemerge as a vengeful demon, to terrorize them in a form of "poetic injustice" by haunting the dreams of their children, the surest way to make a parent suffer. There is some brief talk of mysticism in A Nightmare on Elm Street, primarily surrounding how to confront the seemingly insurmountable dangers that threaten the mind in a dream. Nancy's boyfriend, Glen (Johnny Depp), speaks of Balinese myths about depriving the demons that haunt dreams by not acknowledging them--by not feeding them, they cannot have power over you. It is a metaphor for various terrors which can grip the mind--awake or asleep--and is significant since the victims are teenagers, at a point in their lives where they are struggling with maturity, and all the anxiety and doubt which comes with it. This struggle between childhood and adulthood is also reflected in the propensity for children to adopt the bad habits of their parents, despite their rebelliousness; for instance, Nancy chastises her mother for drinking so much, while she in turn is imbibing copious coffee and caffeine pills to stay awake.
A Nightmare on Elm Street proved to be a wildly successful movie, grossing a substantial amount over its original budget. As a result, its distributor, New Line Cinema, has been half-jokingly called "the house that Freddy built". However, this is not meant to imply that A Nightmare on Elm Street possesses low production values; on the contrary, the film boasts some truly ingenious and highly effective set pieces, usually in the form of some monstrous manifestation of Freddy murdering someone in a truly grisly fashion. One of the most jaw-dropping effects involves a bed and a geyser of blood which spouts from it that seems to defy gravity, collecting on the ceiling. This stunning effect was achieved by carefully recreating the room in which the dream murder is featured, upside-down, and then pouring the gallons of fake blood through the ceiling. This creates a wholly surreal effect that helps to encapsulate the supernatural element to Freddy Krueger's ability to warp reality in vivid and ghastly ways. But what helps make this even more effective is that we see a good deal of this room prior to the bloody scene, so when it happens, subconsciously we are still convinced it is the same room, deliberately playing on our perceptions. This effect, and similar ones like it, give A Nightmare on Elm Street an appropriately dreamlike element that few to no other slasher films which dominated the early Eighties possessed. Freddy Krueger is a striking "boogeyman", clad in his iconic, shabby red-and-green sweater and hat, and his scorched complexion and razor-fingered glove--the glove being a particularly theatrical touch. The infamous bladed glove is the most recognizable of his accessories, and speaks to Freddy's personality more than anything. The opening montage shows him crafting the deadly device with malevolent attention and a sick thrill. Although Freddy does uses the glove to slash his teenage victims, it is primarily designed to strike fear into their hearts, to weaken their resolve. To this end, Freddy is often seen dragging the blades across metal surfaces, creating a piercing noise to unsettle his prey, reflecting his sadism--a true totem of his evil. The Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street is arguably a more menacing figure than his incarnation in the sequels, where he comes across as a bit too self-aware, and even darkly funny. In this film, he is monstrous because of his murderously real desire to chase and slash his prey to bits. Freddy represents the ultimate kind of predator, one who maintains his dominion with almost total supremacy--the inescapable realm of dreams--and largely deprives his quarry any hope of escape from his deadly pursuit, befitting the child murderer he was before. And as an ephemeral being, he also stands in for so many other terrors which attack the mind directly, a psychological killer taken to the next level.
Recommended for: Fans of early Eighties slasher films, but one with a subtext of psychological terrors represented in the infamous Freddy Krueger. A Nightmare on Elm Street is highly effective given its comparably small budget, with great special effects and a talented cast (including a first film role for Johnny Depp).
A Nightmare on Elm Street proved to be a wildly successful movie, grossing a substantial amount over its original budget. As a result, its distributor, New Line Cinema, has been half-jokingly called "the house that Freddy built". However, this is not meant to imply that A Nightmare on Elm Street possesses low production values; on the contrary, the film boasts some truly ingenious and highly effective set pieces, usually in the form of some monstrous manifestation of Freddy murdering someone in a truly grisly fashion. One of the most jaw-dropping effects involves a bed and a geyser of blood which spouts from it that seems to defy gravity, collecting on the ceiling. This stunning effect was achieved by carefully recreating the room in which the dream murder is featured, upside-down, and then pouring the gallons of fake blood through the ceiling. This creates a wholly surreal effect that helps to encapsulate the supernatural element to Freddy Krueger's ability to warp reality in vivid and ghastly ways. But what helps make this even more effective is that we see a good deal of this room prior to the bloody scene, so when it happens, subconsciously we are still convinced it is the same room, deliberately playing on our perceptions. This effect, and similar ones like it, give A Nightmare on Elm Street an appropriately dreamlike element that few to no other slasher films which dominated the early Eighties possessed. Freddy Krueger is a striking "boogeyman", clad in his iconic, shabby red-and-green sweater and hat, and his scorched complexion and razor-fingered glove--the glove being a particularly theatrical touch. The infamous bladed glove is the most recognizable of his accessories, and speaks to Freddy's personality more than anything. The opening montage shows him crafting the deadly device with malevolent attention and a sick thrill. Although Freddy does uses the glove to slash his teenage victims, it is primarily designed to strike fear into their hearts, to weaken their resolve. To this end, Freddy is often seen dragging the blades across metal surfaces, creating a piercing noise to unsettle his prey, reflecting his sadism--a true totem of his evil. The Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street is arguably a more menacing figure than his incarnation in the sequels, where he comes across as a bit too self-aware, and even darkly funny. In this film, he is monstrous because of his murderously real desire to chase and slash his prey to bits. Freddy represents the ultimate kind of predator, one who maintains his dominion with almost total supremacy--the inescapable realm of dreams--and largely deprives his quarry any hope of escape from his deadly pursuit, befitting the child murderer he was before. And as an ephemeral being, he also stands in for so many other terrors which attack the mind directly, a psychological killer taken to the next level.
Recommended for: Fans of early Eighties slasher films, but one with a subtext of psychological terrors represented in the infamous Freddy Krueger. A Nightmare on Elm Street is highly effective given its comparably small budget, with great special effects and a talented cast (including a first film role for Johnny Depp).