A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
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A Nightmare on Elm Street Movie Review
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 supernatural slasher film directed by Wes Craven and starring Heather Langenkamp. It’s a very imaginative horror movie that is a classic for a reason.
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“Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep“
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A young girl realizes that she must stay awake at any cost to avoid a clawed killer who wants to murder her and her friends one by one in their dreams. This was the first movie that spawned an entire franchise and it’s one of the best and most important 80s horror movies. Wes Craven had made movies such as ‘The Last House on the Left’ before this one, but this was his breakout movie that established him as one of the biggest horror auteurs.
In terms of subgenres, this slasher is obviously supernatural in its dream sequences and setup, but it also contains significant body horror elements with bodies bursting with blood and decomposing quickly with so much fluid present in a couple of particularly gruesome scenes. I didn’t fully care for those scenes, but they are certainly strikingly memorable and featuring stellar special effects work for the time.
The main reason why this movie worked so well lies in its dream logic. We all dream and for those of us who remember our dreams, we are well aware of just how strange they are as they operate in their own logic with their own set of rules. This film makes strong use of that dream premise, resulting in a couple of wildly imaginative sequences where dreams and reality blur. My favorite moment is when the stairs become oozy in what was one particularly brilliant, creepy and grotesque detail.
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The final showdown between Freddy and Nancy was phenomenal and how she managed to beat him was both innovative and striking. It made sense that he would have power over his victims through the mind alone and this idea was very well utilized in that ending. Admittedly, the movie could have been even more inventive given its awesome premise, but for the most part the horror scenes were cool and memorable.
I have to say that the characterization in A Nightmare on Elm Street is quite mediocre. There is an early Johnny Depp performance and he was very good in his debut, but his character was hardly developed at all. Others fared even worse and the parents being vilified and promiscuity being its central theme represented familiar ideas that were tiresome by this point.
But Heather Langenkamp was quite effective in the final girl trope role. She was gorgeous and her performance was much better than most of the other younger cast members here. She was smart, but not too clever and/or superheroic, which was important. As for Freddy Krueger, he is an iconic horror villain that was here both creepy and very well developed with a backstory that made sense and that wasn’t overly intricate, but just right.
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A Nightmare on Elm Street features a great score, strong directing and absolutely fantastic production design that at times even had some steampunk influences in its aesthetic. The cinematography is also quite good. It was a cheap movie, but it never looked cheap due to its sophisticated filmmaking. It isn’t particularly scary for sure, but it has its effectively brutal scenes that made it memorable.
A Nightmare on Elm Street isn’t particularly scary and it had mostly mediocre character development, but this was an excellent first entry in this famous slasher franchise that was particularly imaginative in its dream logic employed. The body horror elements were also memorable and its central villain is truly iconic. The movie was technically stupendous given its small budget while all the dream sequences were brilliantly constructed, innovative and so much fun.
My Rating – 4
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