Wednesday, October 22, 2014

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)

Now here's a funny story. Out of the six Nightmare On Elm Street movies, the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET was the film I saw last. The third in the series, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS was my introduction to the franchise. I found the story and characters compelling enough that I didn't think it was necessary to backtrack immediately. Plus a friend at school told me the first film was super scary!

To this day A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS is my favorite Elm Street movie. I love the look of the film. There's that 80's nostalgic feel to it that I just love. The story is good as well as the cast. It's worth mentioning too that this is the film where Freddy Krueger started being funny with his one liners. I also love the idea of the teenagers teaming together and helping each other out in one another's dreams. No matter how many times I've seen the movie, I just love it!

It wasn't until high school that I finally watched A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. And like I said, the reason being was because the tone of the film was much more creepy and scary than the sequels. Freddy is more serious in the first film. The first time I saw the movie I didn't care for it. I preferred humorous Freddy. But as time went on I started warming up to the film. In fact, I think it was because of WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE that I wanted to give the first Elm Street another shot.

Like I said Part 3 will always be my favorite but let it be known that A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET now comes a close second. I have such a deep love and admiration for it now. From the get go it has this atmosphere of a dream. Something that was lost to me when watching it on VHS that first time. It wouldn't be until DVD that I fell in love with the movie.

Every film had moments where characters didn't know if they were awake or in a dream. This was done so effectively that even the audience would have a hard time knowing what was real or what was a dream. And no film captured that feeling better than in this one.

My favorite creepy scene still to this day would probably be where Nancy falls asleep in class. In her dream she hears the voice of her friend Tina who is dead. Nancy looks out into the hallway to see her dead friend inside a body bag calling for help. Scary stuff!

Another favorite scene is the climax of the movie. We see a montage of Nancy setting traps all around her house for when she pulls Freddy out of her dream and into the real world. I think that's what I like most about the Nancy character. She fights back! It's easy to write off these slasher movies as 'women in peril' films, but not this one, not A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Dream becomes reality more and more as the film progresses. I could be wrong, but I really think that from the moment Nancy's boyfriend dies ( a young Johnny Depp) and till the end of the movie, it's all a dream. All that work rendering Freddy powerless was for nothing because pulling him into the 'real' world was still just a dream. Of course I could be completely wrong on this, or am I?

It should be worth noting that Freddy Krueger is my favorite movie monster of my generation. A big part of that is due to the talented actor that played him, the amazing Robert Englund. Mr. Englund has had the fortunate to play the Freddy character in all 8 films (that's including WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE and FREDDY VS. JASON)! This was rare for horror films at the time because in other slasher flicks the role of the killer would be jobbed out to a stunt man.

Now all you twenty somethings that we're born in the early 90's might be tempted to skip the original and just watch the remake that came out a few years ago. My advice. Steer clear of that piece of garbage and watch the original instead.

Happy October!

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