A Nightmare on Elm Street Review

Release: 1984 Director: Wes Craven

Imagine this. You have a 7-layer nacho dip, where every layer is a different kind of cheese, and instead of chips it’s more cheese, plus it’s served on a wheel of cheese. After your appetizer you get an entree of queso a lá fromage. Even after all of that, you still wouldn’t have been as cheesy as A Nightmare on Elm Street. And I love every single second of it. When thinking of a perfect way to count down to Halloween, I just had to start with one of the greatest horror movies of all time.

A group of teenagers, some of whom have sexual activities after school, are killed one by one by a supernatural enemy until one of them (usually female) defeats them. Now you can take that summary and apply it to any number of horrors from the 80’s and into the 90’s. The question is what separates that premise from the many others that follow the format. For A Nightmare on Elm Street; Freddy Krugar is a dream jumping murderer who may have touched kids in bad ways (implied but never shown…thankfully) that kills you while you sleep.

The cast is easily the best part of this movie. Robert Englund is Freddy Krugar. Plain and simple. He melts into the role and has such iconic 2moments that no one else could emulate. Heather Langencamp becomes Nanvy, the girl we want to see defeat the evil that haunts our heroes. And of course…Johnny Depp.

Real quick, I love Jonny Depp. He is my childhood icon. No one is cooler than Johnny Depp. He got the role in A Nightmare on Elm Street because his roommate (Nicolas Cage) got him a job as an actor. From there he went on to star in 21 Jump Street and many more projects that we know him from today. Everything started as Jonny needing a job as an actor in something, and that just so happen to be A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The kills in this are also just perfect. In a dream you can die in any way possible. I will say some kills in future films are way more creative (I’ll get to those movies, don’t you worry) the way some die in this are just specticals of their own. And the special effect mastery on display are jaw dropping. Some moments are legitimately terrifying. The film is centered on how creative and unlimited this idea of dying in your sleep, such as…