A Nightmare on Elm Street

An iconic horror movie

I love A Nightmare On Elm Street. Every time i watch this i think it has a terrific energy and strength running through it. I like the way the film starts with Freddy Kruegar making his Finger Knife Glove in his basement cellar, then the music kicks in (what a creepy score) as the first teenager is frantically running around his maze-like Boiler Room in her dream state. Freddy is only hinted at in the shadows or ripping through cloth with his glove and i love the way you can hear animals and creepy noises emitting from all around Tina, as she becomes cornered before Freddy comes out of the shadows. A great opening. Tina Grey is played by Amanda Wyss, who is really good in her role for the short time she is in this film. I always remember her character in this film the way i remember the Chrissie Watkins character at the start of Jaws, i think you know what i'm coming too. Tina's encounter with Freddy in her backyard is my favourite moment in this film, and it is one of the most horrifying deaths I've ever seen. Its frightening to see and if you are faint hearted at splashing blood then look away because it is a screamer. Heather Langenkamp is excellent in this film. Shes very attractive,and gives 100% as Tina's friend Nancy Thompson who starts to have the same nightmares. My favourite moments with Nancy are mostly her scary encounters with Freddy scored to an energetic music beat by Charles Bernstein. I would say part of the movie's success is down to his creepy score. I also love the bathroom scene when Nancy falls asleep, absolutely gross and hilarious at the same time. The thing is, these 'funny' moments are actual imagines of how Freddy wants to prey on his victims before killing them, this is done in this first film with a measured discipline, then you watch The Dream Master and Freddy is basically killing kids while being 100% comic about it as well. One of my favourite other scenes in this film is when Nancy is following Tina's corpse down her School halls (having falling asleep)and runs into a prefect women who states 'Wheres your pass?' Nancy doesn't respond in kind, and as she goes running down the hall, the girl reveals herself to be Freddy 'No running in the hallway' an eerie moment that is funny too. Finally, special mention must go to Robert Englund as Freddy Kruegar. This actor's contribution to the character is 100% superb. I think that Freddy Kruegar IS Robert Englund and vice versa, even though a lot of his moments in this film are about injecting a scary visual presence, he also creates a mystic before the film's revelation: Who is he? Where does he come from? Why is he doing these things? After the third film of the series, Englund would become a Hollywood star and a horror icon. Rightfully so. A Nightmare On Elm Street is a classic horror thriller and, along with Halloween, is one of the best horror movies ever made.

On Elm Street, the teenager Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) has a creepy nightmare with a burned man wearing a glove with blades called Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). She invites her friends Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), who had also a nightmare with Freddy Krueger, and Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) to spend the next night with her, but her boy-friend Rod Lane (Nick Corri) appears in the house and they spend the night together. In the middle of the night, Rod awakes and sees Tina having a nightmare and being sliced. He is accused of murder and arrested by Nancy's father Lt. Thompson (John Saxon), despite the protests of his daughter. When Rod and Glen are mysteriously murdered, Nancy realizes that the only way to defeat the evil Freddy Krueger is bringing him to the real world. The classic "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is one of the best horror movies of the 80's and Freddy Krueger is my favorite villain. The story is original, very well written and directed by Wes Craven and is the debut of Johnny Depp in the cinema. As far as I know, the open conclusion was forced by the producers to give a sequel to the saga of Freddy Krueger. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "A Hora do Pesadelo" ("The Hour of the Nightmare")

What can I say really about Nightmare on Elm Street. It has been said that it is a horror classic, Freddy Kreuger is iconic and it is an all round great film. I have to say, I agree. Is it a perfect movie? Not quite, the characters are not that well developed, but actually with everything else done so well that is a small gremlin. The film is shot in a non-cheap and atmospheric way with good editing and lighting that is never too dark or dim. The music also helps to enhance the mood without being too obvious, the script is smart, the story is compelling but what Nightmare on Elm Street really succeeds in doing is how it incorporates its scares. There is gore, but it is not used in a cheap and excessive way, and there are some genuinely suspenseful touches. The ending is surprising and very shocking. The acting is good, this is all about Nancy and she is very believably played. Johnny Depp went on to do better things but he's also fine. I'll remember Nightmare on Elm Street though for the terrifying performance of Robert Englund, Kreuger is now an iconic villain and after you see how Englund interprets him you would say justifiably so. And Wes Craven directs efficiently. Overall, the first of the series and the best and most iconic of the series. The sequels were mixed with a lot of gore and silliness and not much heart and suspense and the remake is not worth bothering with. 10/10 Bethany Cox

A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the original horror movies. It contains some genuinely creepy moments, but looking at it now, it does show its age. It is a landmark film that helped usher in the "slasher age", but that doesn't make it a good movie. The whole concept of a monster that kills people in their dreams is a wonderfully original idea, it's only too bad that the execution is less than stellar. Wes Craven was still in his directorial infancy here, and it shows. The terrible acting doesn't help matters, but the characters really don't have anything interesting to say, either. The ending drags the film down further by not giving the film a conclusion of any kind. What's good about the picture is Freddy. Here he is a monster, plain and simple. No one-liners, just a cold-blooded killer out for revenge. In short, this is a good movie from a historical perspective. Obviously, the concept of the series is sound in order to carry through six sequels, but the direction and poor acting drag down this particular effort.

Nancy is having grisly nightmares. Meanwhile, her high-school friends, who are having the very same dreams, are being slaughtered in their sleep by the hideous fiend of their shared nightmares. When the police ignore her explanation, she herself must confront the killer in her shadowy realm. This Film Starred: John Saxon, Heather Langenkamp & Johnny Depp. A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984 was written and directed by Wes Craven. In my personal opinion this was a great film, it had it's scary moments which every horror should have unfortunately they did go a bit far on a couple of the sequels which got rather low ratings on here. Not all of the sequels are bad, for example I am a fan of 3 & 4 but sequels like 2 & 5 ARE GIVING THE Freddy movies a bad name and are shadowing the excellence of this movie in particular. People seem to recognise Freddy Krueger as the burnt serial killer with knives for fingers who appeared in all them bad films. A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984 is not one of them films and should be recognised as a the great movie it is. I highly recommend this film to all fans of the horror genre. ****/***** Very Good.

The best part about this movie is the whole idea that sleep can kill you in a horrible and gory fashion. Once that is established, Craven does an excellent job of making normally comforting settings such as a soft bed or a warm bubble bath seem menacing. Never before has falling asleep seemed so scary, and it gets better and better as Nancy tries to come up with a solution before she goes crazy from lack of sleep, while surviving on coffee and caffeine pills. It has a very interesting suspense to it. There is also the nicely done part where they try to apply cold hard science to Nancy's problem ("Something's wrong, the numbers are never this high!"). Very cool. Those are the good parts. The bad parts are the lame acting (excluding Johnny Depp) and the laziness of the script. It really, really hurts this movie that so little attention is paid to the parents. They are barely even IN the movie, even though the entire premise revolves around them! The backstory about these seemingly nice parents, in a quiet suburban town, viciously killing a man (child murderer or not), and keeping it a big town secret, is a neat idea that is just briefly mentioned like an afterthought ("Oh, by the way honey, all of us parents burned a man to death when you were a kid. Now go to bed, OK?"). The implication is that Freddie is getting revenge on the people who killed him by murdering their innocent children, but it's not explained or developed at all. Why is he coming back NOW, for instance? Why not earlier? And why in the world do Nancy's parents completely ignore her? If you murdered a guy years ago, and then your kid, who knows nothing about it, provides an exact description of him in her dreams, wouldn't you think there was something a bit odd going on? It would have been much cooler if they had realized Freddie was killing their kids, and there's nothing they could do about it. I also hate the ending to this movie. Why do horror movies always have to have such bizarro endings? The climactic battle at the end is awesome, but then it takes such a weird turn--(and I'm not even including the nutty twist here, I'm talking about the father NOT CARING that his wife just got sucked into a bed by a demon!)--that it totally runs out of steam and turns into a horrible, nonsensical train wreck. Roll credits. If the movie focused more on the parents, and had a decent ending, it would have been a true classic. Instead, it is a mediocre slasher flick with a few interesting elements, which is a real shame.

Well, this was the beginning of "Freddy Kreuger," who certainly became famous in the horror movie genre. Of those horror films that spawned numerous sequels (this one, Halloween, etc.) this was the best of the "opening" shows. It definitely is frightening. It has the usual crude teenagers, some gratuitous sex and wild Krueger scenes and is probably best-noted for showing Johnny Depp's film debut. Boy, does he look young! He looks about 16 years old, as does Heather Langenkamp, who went on to play in several more of these Nightmare stories. This was the only movie in which she was foul-mouthed. Nice to see Rony Blackley, too. Wes Craven certainly started this series off with a bang.

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" is so original, realistic, and overall terrifying that it is easy to overlook the film's numerous shortcomings. The film deals with a deceased child molester who now lives only through the dreams of the children of those who cooked him to death. Robert Englund is truly frightening as Freddy Krueger, a dark figure whose only purpose is to kill all the siblings of his killers. The knife-styled finger glove has become a trademark of this amazing character who was created by writer-director Wes Craven. The film goes for suspense, drama, and gore and delivers for the most part. None of the characters are developed very well, but most do not live to see the end of the film so it really does not matter. A great horror film that still delivers today. Ignore the endless sequels, they each detract from this truly original and interesting film. Look for a young Johnny Depp as one of the unlucky teens. 4 out of 5 stars

A novel (original is far too good a word) idea that could have made a very good, spooky, mysterious film has instead made a very average, run of the mill horror. "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is a real been their before excursion from writer-director Wes Craven. The cast including Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund cannot help the cause. Truth be known, all the performances in this "Nightmare" are hopeless and Craven cannot even manage a single scare with this lame effort. The only horror achieved is horrific predictability. How on earth did this nonsense become a cult classic? Tuesday, September 17, 1991 - Video