Overall Rating
  Awesome: 61.79%
Worth A Look: 21.14%
Average: 2.44%
Pretty Bad: 8.13%
Total Crap: 6.5%
2 reviews, 111 user ratings
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| Nightmare on Elm Street, A (1984) |
by Chef ADogg
"Dude, don't let the sequels fool you--this one is GOOD."
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This movie has everything you could possibly want--an intelligent, imaginative script; visual ingenuity; and enough blood n guts to satisfy the striped sweater madman in all of us. More than just a reminder of a time when Wes Craven made HORROR films (not to be confused with his later, slasher oriented cannon), this is a great movie.Well, it's good. I don't know if it's great. It occasionally takes the low road, and you have to dock points for that--even when said path includes watching a very young, very eighties Johnny Depp being sucked into a bed, and then spewed back in a torrent of cow blood.
This is one of those movies where direction and acting take a backseat to plot, no matter who toils behind the scenes. The premise, quite simply, kicks ass--a hideously burnt man carouses through the dreams of some disturbed teenagers, catching them at the climax of the nightmare and killing them.
And then they wake up dead. Or something. I think that's like the tagline--"They go to sleep and wake up dead!" But, y'know, if you were dead you really wouldn't wake up at all. That doesn't really bear any relevance in any direction, but it's an amusing concept.
Anyhow, the story centers around one teenager, played by Heather Langenkamp, who has these weird nightmares where she's stalked by Freddy Kruger, the neighborhood boogeyman. I think there's like a twist at the end where his identity and back story are revealed, so I won't go into it. I don't remember being surprised the first time I saw this movie, but I probably knew the whole story going in.
If you don't know yet, I won't spoil it.
So Langenkamp gets all weirded out and everybody thinks she's going crazy. And it's so frustrating! It's one of those movies where you see everything and you know its all real n shit, but nobody in the plot can see it, and they all say, "Heather Langenkamp, you must be going insane," and you want to yell "But she's not! It really happened!" at the TV and you accidentally kick over your soda and your popcorn and your girlfriend yells at you to simmer down 'cause she's missing the movie.
And it's pointless anyway to yell at the screen 'cause they can't hear you. So sit down, dunce.
Craven shows a rough mastery of horror technique that always reminds me of John Carpenter on crystal meth. Everything is dank and dark, to create the mood, and it works. It's one of those movies where you want to be let out, 'cause you're like suffocating. You really get put right in the center of everything. Carpenter used to do that, too.
Good texture in every direction. Sometimes in horror movies, you look around and say, "Hey, that's dumb." It could be like a set piece or a could be a shift in tone or anything that distracts you from the film; "Nightmare on Elm Street" comes strapped with none of that. You watch it for awhile and get scared and want to turn it off but you're having so much fun that you just leave it on.
The acting is top notch, for this kind of movie. I try to rate movies independent of their genre, but scary movie acting is so generally piss poor that I give this movie extra points. Call it effort points--sometimes the acting feels a little bit cheesy, but you know they were trying.
Acting, direction, plot--these are all good things. But the real hook of the movie is seeing Freddy Kruger. The first time you see him, you're like "WTF?" He's the only really scary horror franchise villain. Michael Myers was menacing, Jason Vorhees was just plain dumb. Freddy Krueger works because he lives inside the nightmares n shit--he knows what scares everyone because he stomps around the darkest corners of their head.
Real thought was put into this movie, I like that. A lot of movies, especially scary movies, are pasted together for profit and no other real reason. "Nightmare on Elm Street" aspires to something higher than quick cash, you gotta respect that.
This is really well-put together movie. It has the scares and the technical shit down, but the real kick is watching your greatest fears visualized and slapped on celluloid. It's surreal and crazy, and lots of fun.If Salvador Dali lived long enough to see the slasher movie revolution and decided to show everyone how it was done, this is what he would come up with. And I mean that in a good way. (Sorry, TAJ).
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1148&reviewer=123
originally posted: 10/29/99 13:27:36
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Trilogy Starters: For more in the Trilogy Starters series, click here.
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USA
16-Nov-1984 (R)
DVD: 26-Sep-2006
UK
N/A
Australia
16-Nov-1984 (R)
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