Nightmare on Elm Street, A

Nightmare on Elm Street

Released: 1984

MPAA Rating: R

Genre: Slasher/Supernatural

Nuts and Bolts: There is a man who wears a dirty red and green sweater. His face is horribly burned and he wields a set of razor sharp knives sewn into the lining of a thick leather glove. He wants to kill you. And he can find you in the one place where you are the most vulnerable. In your dreams! Whatever you do…don’t fall asleep.

Summary: Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) is having a nightmare. She dreams of wandering around a greasy echoing steam filled boiler room. All at once, something begins to chase Tina. The sight of a horribly burned man wearing a dark brown fedora and an ugly torn red and green striped sweater torments her. But worst of all; he pursues her with a set of straight razors sewn into a leather glove. Tina wakes up screaming only to discover that her nightgown has been sliced open. Her mother thinks its because Tina needs to trim her fingernails. But we know better.

The following day, Tina recalls the story to her friends Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) and boyfriend Rod Lane (Nick Corri). Feeling haunted by the ghastly visions, Nancy and Glen promise to stay over Tina’s house that evening to console her.

But the slumber party is a bust as the surly Rod Lane crashes the party. Rod and Tina go into her mother’s bedroom to fuck leaving Nancy and Glen in the other room with their thumbs firmly planted in their asses.

During the post coitus phase of the evening, Tina drifts off to sleep and is attacked once again by the clawed nightmare villain known as Fred Krueger. But unfortunately for Tina, what happens in the dream dimension is reflected in this dimension. Rod awakens to the sounds of Tina screaming in bloody terror. Even though he can’t see Tina’s invisible attacker, he can plainly see her insides being ripped apart. Tina’s body finally falls to the floor dead. Terrified and confused, Rod escapes through the window.

The following day, the news of Tina’s death is all over town and people are quick to accuse the delinquent Rod Lane of the murder. Handling the case is Lieutenant Donald Thompson who also happens to be the father of Nancy. Thompson knows that Lane might seek out Nancy and he executes a stakeout on his daughter’s whereabouts.

During class Nancy falls asleep and her dream state places her in the same locale that Tina had been trapped in. She finds the murderous Freddy Krueger scraping his knives across some plates of sheet metal. Nancy struggles with Freddy briefly until her arm is knocked into a hot steam pipe. Nancy awakens with a start in class and notices that she now has a fresh burn on her left arm. She is sent home for the rest of the day.

On her way home from school, Rod approaches Nancy swearing that he did not kill Tina. He can’t explain what happened but he knows for certain that he is innocent. Lt. Thompson and his men leap out of the bushes and arrest Rod. Nancy is angry with her father for ‘using’ her to trap Rod.

Later that evening, Nancy has a second dream. In this one, she sees Freddy Krueger attacking Rod at the jailhouse. Waking up, she knows that she has to rush down there or else Rod may die. Nancy and Glen both go to the police station and beg Officer Garcia to let them see Rod. Meanwhile, the sleeping Rod is attacked by his own bed sheets, which curl around his neck pulling him off the bed towards the wall. The sheets stretch to the ceiling and pull tight, snapping Rod’s neck. Nancy and Glen are too late to save him and Rod’s death is written off as a suicide.

That night, Nancy has a third dream wherein Freddy attacks her in her own bath-tube. She only escapes death because her mother is pounding on the bathroom door forcing her to wake up. Nancy is now convinced that somebody is using people’s dreams to kill them. She tries to explain this to her alcoholic mother, but Marge Thompson (as well as Glen) pretty much thinks that Nancy is nuttier than a chunk of squirrel shit.

The following day, Marge takes Nancy to a dream clinic in order to see if her daughter is merely disturbed by the deaths or whether or not she’s a certified whack-a-loon. Once again, Nancy enters the dream state where Freddy attacks her anew. Doctor King wakes her up to find a startling result. Nancy has actually succeeded in pulling something back with her from her dream; Freddy Krueger’s hat. Nancy’s hair is beginning to turn gray at this point.

Being the dutiful boyfriend that he is, Glen decides to research dream phenomena. He tells Nancy that if one were to meet a monster in their dreams, the only recourse open is to turn their back upon it, stealing away all of its power. This does little to cheer Nancy up and her day gets even darker when she learns that her mother has placed bars on all of the doors and windows to their house.

That night, Nancy decides to take the offensive for a change. Using Glen as the go-to guy, she goes to sleep with the intention of bringing Freddy Krueger back into the real world with her. Glen is present in order to “whack the fucker” when she wakes up. This plan fails however since Glen falls asleep himself. Nancy nonetheless survives but she is beaucoup pissed at the boyfriend. Glen returns home with his dick tucked between his legs leaving Nancy to deal with a drunken mother.

At this point, Nancy learns the true origins of her nightmare attacker. Mrs. Thompson takes her down into the cellar and relays to her a story that occurred in their town of Springfield some years prior.

There was a notorious child murderer known as Fred Krueger who had terrorized the neighborhood killing at least twenty different children. He was finally captured and his arrest made headline news. But the search warrant papers were not filled out correctly and Freddy was released on a technicality. Enraged, a group of the townspeople including Donald and Marge Thompson hunted Freddy down. They trapped him in the boiler room where he used to work and set fire to the entire facility. Freddy died and Marge collected his finger knives. Now his ghost has become some sort of dream demon taking his revenge on the children of those who murdered him.

As this is going on, poor ole Glen falls asleep while watching television in his bedroom. We don’t know what he was dreaming about, but there is no question as to the outcome. Glen is swallowed alive by his own bed, which then regurgitates a flowing column of blood. Police arrive quickly on the scene. When Nancy sees the flashing red police lights outside her bedroom window, she knows that Glen is dead.

Nancy calls her father and tells him that she is going after Fred Krueger. She wants him to be at the house in twenty minutes to arrest him. Lt. Thompson agrees but only for the sake of humoring his disturbed daughter. Not willing to take any chances, Nancy sets various booby traps all around the house.

Nancy goes to sleep one final time. In the dream, Freddy appears and this time it is Nancy who attacks him! The two fall through a rose trellis and continue their struggle as the alarm clock sounds waking Nancy up. Her plan works. Freddy is now in the real world and he begins to chase her throughout the house. His attacks are delayed as he falls into each of Nancy’s booby traps one by one. Trapped in her own house, Nancy shouts through the window to her father across the street. Before anything can be done, Freddy kills Mrs. Thompson in her own bed.

Nancy is in a state of shock and her father does his best to console her. He leaves the room momentarily and Nancy knows that Freddy is still in the house. Freddy emerges from the glowing bed to attack her, but Nancy recalls Glen’s advice from the previous day. She turns her back on Freddy and steals away all the energy he needs to maintain his presence in reality. Before he can kill her, Freddy fades away.

In an extremely ambiguous epilogue, Nancy finds herself in the last dream of the movie. In it, her friends and mother are still alive and everything is cheerful and sunny. That crazy ole lush Mrs. Thompson even promises to give up drinking. Nancy trots off to meet her friends. She climbs into Glen’s car and they take off. Then we realize that Freddy is still in control and that they are ALL his children now.

Acting/Dialogue: The dialogue is decent enough, but the acting leaves something to be desired. I get the impression that the actors weren’t quite in tune with their characters at the beginning of the film. As the movie progresses however, the acting becomes more fluid and I think each one begins to fall more in-line with how their characters are supposed to be. Nick Corri (Rod) for example starts off completely dreadful, but come his final scenes, his character is much more fluid and even likable. Langencamp (Nancy) starts off pretty shitty as well. But before long, she falls into her roll really well and it doesn’t take much for the audience to sympathize with her character. Of course Robert Englund stands head and shoulders above the rest. As Freddy Krueger, he is truly menacing. Using a gravely voice and hoarse laughter, it is easy to see why Freddy Krueger quickly ascends to the top ranks of movie serial killer fandom. It’s hard to believe that this is the same guy that played that inarticulate little pussy Willie in the V mini-series.

Gore: The gore level is slightly above average in this. There are several scenes in which we see Freddy mutilating his own flesh. He cuts off two of his fingers and tears open his own stomach lining. At one point, Nancy even rips his face off revealing a bloody cackling skull beneath. The most gruesome scene though is of course the death of Glen. Up until this point, all the deaths seemed believable and could easily be pointed to normal real life origins. However, there is no way to rationalize Glen’s death. There are literally gallons upon gallons of blood being sprayed all about his room. If blood makes you squeamish, then I suggest do NOT watch this scene. You’re probably better off watching re-runs of 21 Jump Street.

Guilty Pleasures: Wes Craven has never been one to film gratuitous T&A. The most we get in this is a teaser shot of Nancy flailing about in the bathtub. Chances are its not even Langencamp that we are seeing, but rather a body double.

The Good: Freddy started out as being the little cousin to heavy weight slashers Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, but in many ways his popularity has not only matched that of his contemporaries, but surpassed it as well. What makes a character like Freddy Krueger so captivating is that there really is no way to escape him. With Jason or Michael you stand a chance of survival. Even Leatherface is fairly slow moving and a would-be victim with a good head on their shoulders and a decently operating motor vehicle may even escape from their killer’s murderous rampage. But with Freddy, you’re pretty much fucked. The only way to avoid him is by not sleeping, and that’s not a very realistic possibility, now is it?

The first Nightmare really stands apart from its sequels. It is a film that is meant to be taken seriously and Freddy is a character that is designed to be feared, not glorified. We ARE talking about a child killer after all. For those of you who are familiar with the slapstick one-liners that are prolific through the other films, you’ll be pleasantly surprised that this flick doesn’t bother with any of that Jerry Lewis inspired horseshit.

Nightmare on Elm Street is a dark fantasy if ever there was one. As I watch it, I can see where Craven drew particular inspiration from John Carpenter. The Bernstein score is highly reminiscent of Carpenter’s signature themes, and Craven’s use of lighting reminds me a lot of Escape from New York.

Nightmare’s best quality is the fact that it immediately draws you in and keeps you rooted to your seat. There are no slow moments and the audience never becomes lost or disinterested. It’s what I like to call a full-bladder movie. Each sequence flows seamlessly into the other and I really like the way Craven represents the transition between dreamtime and awake-time. He gives us just enough of a surreal quality, but it’s not so strange as to alienate the audience. I’ve seen a lot of films where people try to be provocative and avant-garde and it just comes off as amateurish art house crap. Nightmare puts all their ducks in a row and it’s a pretty nice row at that. I don’t feel that there was any scene in the movie that could have been left out. This is probably one of Craven’s better directing jobs.

Some of the creepy elements of the film come from the most unexpected areas. There’s an eerie scene towards the beginning. As Tina is telling Nancy about her dream, we see a man dressed in white run across the lawn in the window behind them. Now at first I thought this was intentional and that it was supposed to be Rod, who enters in the next scene. But this isn’t possible since Rod is wearing all dark clothing. My guess is that it was one of the production staff inadvertently walking onto the set and the camera picked him up. I’m glad Craven left it in there because it adds a very spooky element to the shot.

Some other great shots include the demonic looking hall monitor, the literature student reading Shakespeare, and Tina’s ghost calling to Nancy from within a blood-soaked body bag. But my all time favorite scene is when Marge Thompson reveals the origin of Freddy Krueger. I love hearing the back-stories to film characters and Ronee Blakely delivers the tale with great pathos.

Nightmare on Elm Street remains timeless and is just as enjoyable now as it was watching it 1984. It succeeds as a much-adored stand-alone film, which has shamelessly been degraded due to a string of failed half-ass sequels.

The Bad: The dialogue is kind of choppy in the first quarter of the movie. It doesn’t roll real well and even us geeks of the 80s would be hard pressed to find ourselves saying some of the silly stuff that falls out of these characters’ lips.

The only other bad elements to the first Nightmare come into play during the climax of the film. When Nancy turns her back on Freddy she says, “I know this is just a dream.” But as far as I was aware, that portion of the movie occurred in the ‘real world’. So were we actually seeing a dream sequence or was Nancy just wrong? I vote for the latter personally.

Then there’s the epilogue; an obvious dream sequence in which we see Nancy with her mom and her friends. The drunk gets hoisted through the windowpane of the front door while the kids get trapped inside the Freddy-mobile. I suppose this was done for the sake of ending the movie with a question mark, but this kind of cinematic ambiguity never sat well with me. We get a bit of clarity to this later on in Dream Warriors, when we learn that Nancy does indeed survive and that her mother and friends were actually killed.

Freddy’s defeat was kind of a let down. I understand that movie producers didn’t have CGI effects in 1984, but the way Freddy turned into a silhouette of blue sparkling light always looked kind of cheap to me. Plus, I guess I expected a bit more than Nancy simply turning her back on Freddy.

Great Lines:

“One, two, Freddy's coming for you! Three, four, better lock your door! Five, six, grab your crucifix! Seven, eight, better stay up late! Nine, ten, never sleep again!” --A Children’s jump roping song.

“Screw your pass!” --Nancy shouting to the High School hall monitor, as she is demanding to see her hall pass.

“Freddy can’t hurt you anymore. He’s dead. He’s dead because mommy killed him.” --Marge Thompson consoling Nancy.

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10 severed heads.

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