Review of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) by Lovro H — 29 Apr 2017

A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of Wes Craven's definitive movies and probably his best one. It spawned a huge franchise! I've never seen the original until now and I was highly impressed! The movie follows a couple of students who have trouble sleeping.

They all seem to have nightmares featuring the same villain, Freddy Krueger, who hunts them and tries to kill them. The students realise that he can only kill them in their sleep so they try not sleeping for days, when that proves impossible, they try to bring him to the real world to kill him once and for all.

What separates this movie from a lot of other slasher movies that have come out in the 80s/90s is that this movie is actually very imaginative! Movies like Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre are good movies, but they're not very imaginative.

In those movies, and other similar ones, there's a killer and there's a bunch of high-school kids; enter madness. Here, it's much more than just that. Because this movie is set mostly in the dream world, Wes Craven did some amazing effects regarding the violence and atmosphere.

Every single death scene here is terrifying and unrelentingly brutal, and is done in a jawdropping way. Still, to this day, I haven't seen such creativity in a slasher movie. It's a very distinctive movie.

Freddy Krueger is a horrifying villain, too. Unlike Jason or Leatherface, Freddy actually talks. He's got this very deep and growly voice that really fits him. Whatever he says, punchline or not, it made me get goosebumps.

Speaking of goosebumps, his knife glove produces such a spine-chilling noise when he scratches walls. It really got to me. The other characters aren't really as interesting as Freddy is, but I'm glad they're not as stupid as in some other slasher movies.

The main character, Nancy, is a badass. I absolutely loved the ending where she tries to defeat Freddy by bringing him to the real world and booby trapping the entire house. I always appreciate when there's a character who doesn't just scream and run from the villain.

Johnny Depp is in this movie, as well! This was actually his very first role in a movie and he is great! His character isn't very intriguing or anything special, but he's a very entertaining presence and when he meets his fate, I actually felt sorry for the character, which can be a very hard thing to do in slashers.

The soundtrack is great, I adore the 80s horror movie soundtracks. They're always so catchy and memorable. The practical effects of the movie are brilliant. One more reason why older horror movies are so much better than the new ones, at least regarding this genre.

All in all, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a perfect slasher movie. It does everything right and doesn't fail on delivering scares. I would highly recommend seeing this movie and I think it deserves every little bit of praise it got since it came out.

It's easily one of the best slasher movies ever released.