Nightmare on Elm Street
[DVD Info]

If you've never heard of Freddy Krueger then you must have been living under a rock for the past 20 years (man…it’s been a long time… I’m old ^^;). I will, however, indulge those who are of that rare breed of folk who haven’t seen this classic horror movie (freaks…just kidding ^_^).

Glen, Tina, Nancy, and Rod are all friends. Glen (Johnny Depp!) is a nerdy type who is dating Nancy and lives across the street from her. Tina (Amanda Wyss) is a blonde girl who is dating Rod. She’s the first one to have a dream about someone attacking her. Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) is our protagonist who has an alcoholic mother and a detective father. They are divorced. Rod (Jsu Garcia) is an asshole jock type that is always getting in trouble and carries a switchblade on him.

One night Tina and Nancy share the same nightmare about a man with a dirty striped sweater and finger knives chasing them in a boiler room. Tina is freaked out by the whole dream so she asks Glen, Nancy, and Rod to sleep over. Tina wakes up in the middle of the night to a weird noise and someone whispering her name so she goes outside (by herself) to investigate. While outside she is attacked by the same man from her previous dream and it turns out…she’s dreaming right now! But her dream is all too real and her stomach is sliced open and her body is thrown across the room until she crumples on the floor in a bloody mass. Rod (who witnessed the whole thing) takes off out the window leaving Nancy and Glen to discover Tina’s body.

Rod is being blamed for Tina’s death and is now on the run from the police. On the way to school Nancy is pulled into the bushes by Rod. He babbles about someone is going to get him and that he didn’t kill Tina but before he can explain anymore he gets arrested by the cops that were following Nancy. Nancy continues to school and falls asleep in her English class. In her dream she meets someone named Freddy in the school’s boiler room (being lured there by Tina’s body being dragged by someone). As he’s about to attack her she burns herself to wake up.

Slowly one by one Nancy’s friends die mysteriously. Soon she finds out that the guy from her dream is actually a child murderer named Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). He was caught by police but was set free on a technicality…so all the parents rallied together and burned his house to the ground (with him in it) and Nancy’s mother kept his finger knives hidden in their furnace. Will Nancy be able to defeat Krueger or will she die before she wakes. Mwhahahah!

Never follow a trail of blood into a boiler room.
Freddy K. can walk through steal bars but is deterred by a trash can.
A pillow makes a great shield...NOT!
Johnny Depp contains 100's of gallons of blood.

"He can't get you now. He's dead...'cause mommy killed him..." ~Marge Thompson (Nancy's Mom).

I'm not generally scared of scary movies or the monsters (I dunno why)... But I'm not friggin kidding you...elongated limbs freak the SHIT outta me...and Freddy has them in the beginning... Ahhh! Terrified me.

I have to say…this movie really did stand the test of time. Although it wasn’t very scary (I’m sure it is to some…just not me) it was still…GOOD. It wasn’t cheesy or had lame specials effects (in fact I was really impressed by them!) and the ending wasn’t a cop out. This was definitely the best Nightmare on Elm Street because this is when Freddy K. was SCARY. He wasn’t spouting lame jokes and he was definitely a serious contender. I don’t know what it is about the other movies where Wes Craven just decided to stop making it serious…maybe it’s because we already knew what Freddy was and what his motives were. Oh well. I hadn’t seen this movie since I was in middle school…so even though I knew the plot it was like watching it for the first time. I jumped a few times and was even surprised by the ending. Now that’s a good horror movie. And because it was the original and it actually tried to be scary...I'm going to rate it with normal stars. Because of this, the jury gives this flick:

(Freaked Out...because I can't get the image of elongated limbs touching me outta my mind! *shivers*)

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