[8]
A high school girl (Heather Langenkamp) and her friends are hunted in their dreams by Fred Kruger (Robert Englund), a local criminal who died many years earlier. But unlike normal nightmares, if the kids die in their dreams, they also die in real life. Writer/director Wes Craven (Scream, The Hills Have Eyes) works from a marvelous concept and introduces the world to one of the horror genre’s most indelible villains, played with monstrous glee by Englund, who would go on to further embellish the iconic character over the course of many sequels.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is terrific in its broad strokes. I love the atmosphere of Craven’s many boiler-room based scenes, and the deaths of two characters in particular are staged pretty magnificently — both involving gallons of blood and the defiance of gravity. I also love the back story of Freddy Krueger, which our lead heroine learns about from her mother (Ronee Blakley). Turns out Krueger was a child molester let loose by the courts on a technicality, leaving it up to a group of parents to gather up some gasoline and partake in a little vigilante justice.
The acting is uneven from some of the performers, but Johnny Depp (in his first feature film) and Amanda Wyss are solid as two of Langenkamp’s best friends. While there are a few great special effects, there are a lot of unconvincing ones that underscore the film’s low-budget parameters. Charles Bernstein’s score is hit and miss for me, as well. I love the melodies, but it lapses into repetitive, cheesy synth zones at times.
Even though I don’t love some of the details, and the last half has trouble measuring up to the suspense and atmosphere of the first, I have mad respect for Craven, the story, and its villain. More importantly, the film launched a franchise of films that are better, overall and on average, than either the Friday the 13th or Halloween franchises. Even if you’re not a fan of horror movies in general, you owe it to yourself to check this one out. Cinematic boogeymen simply don’t come better than Freddy.
With John Saxon, Nick Corri, Joseph Whipp, Lin Shaye, and Charles Fleischer.