Rent A Nightmare on Elm Street on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Wes Craven
Directed by: Wes Craven
Starring: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
Teenager Nancy Thompson must uncover the dark truth concealed by her parents after she and her friends become targets in their dreams of the spirit of a serial killer with a bladed glove. If they die in their dreams, it kills them in real life.
Verdict
While the horror genre is often light on story and development this concept provides a fair amount of depth. It's a neat concept mixing dreams and reality, but it's the villain that makes this movie a classic. We never know what's real and what's not, and by extension we never know when Freddy will appear around the next corner. Freddy Krueger has surpassed this movie, becoming a horror movie icon. He's the reason you have to watch this. He's a timeless villain, that and what he and the movie have done for the genre.
Watch It.
Review
This was a concept that terrorized me long before I ever saw a movie in the franchise. Freddy Krueger is inherently unnerving which has propelled these movies to the forefront of the genre.
This is all in from the start as we see who we will later learn is Freddy (Robert Englund) crafting his bladed glove. Freddy chases teens in their dreams. We don't know how the spirit of Freddy transcends reality and dreams to terrorize people and the movie doesn't try to explain it. I doubt there is a satisfying answer. Freddy just is.
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| Heather Langenkamp plays Nancy |
This does a great job with the dream sequences. Immediately we question what's real, what's a dream, and when do they intersect. All of these teens are having nightmares about the same monster. Then teens start dying and no one believes Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) that a dream villain is killing people. Everyone writes it off that it's a manifestation of her grief over her friends dying. The only reason the cops don't question the gruesome deaths is that the movie requires it to push Nancy to action.
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| Robert Englund plays Freddy Krueger |
It turns out that Nancy's mom has an idea of what's going on. What's crazy is that her mom wasn't shocked Nancy knew this guy's name. That and Nancy also generates his hat out of thin air. Even crazier is that Nancy's mom has kept the knife glove in her basement all these years. Why would you keep that?
This movie endures in a large part because of Freddy. He's so unique and unnerving. You can't forget him. He attacks you in your dreams. What's real and not is only compounded, when Nancy is afraid to go to sleep. We've all had nightmares, and the idea that your nightmares could kill you is unsettling. While this movie is a neat idea, the villain is timeless. You've got to watch the movie that created a pop culture icon
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