Review of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) by Rob M — 31 Aug 2017

Wes Craven creates an intelligent horror film with the aide of an imaginary premise brought to life by state-of-the-art special effects and a uniformly superb cast. Heather Langenkamp plays our main heroine here; Nancy, who is stalked by a severely burned man in her dreams. She soon finds out that other friends are experiencing the same dreams, and when one dies in a gruesome manner that reflects the possible torture our menacing burn victim, Freddy Krueger, intends to inflict, it becomes clear that there is something amiss.

Craven takes on a journey through visceral fear and what is so outstanding about this picture is that he has created a world of dreams that you wouldn't even fathom as something that could be real but in turn lets our minds drift to a plateau of reality. Robert Englund is both menacing and darkly funny as Krueger and John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, and Johnny Depp (in his film debut) shine some star power to show that this little independent film could make something of itself.