A Nightmare on Elm Street

Finishing my look at the seminal films of Wes Craven, I turn to A Nightmare on Elm Street, which spawned several sequels and one of the most iconic villains in modern horror. Amazingly, I had never seen it before, though I did see Freddy vs. Jason. Go figure.

The film was released in 1984, and horror was now in a new era. The slasher film, which was already in full swing when Nightmare was released, was taken to new places by Craven's creativity. Instead of a typical psycho that can't be killed, like Jason from the Friday the 13th movies, Freddie Krueger was a supernatural villain, who could do things that no mortal could do. He could enter your dreams.

While the film was much more luxuriously made than Craven's early films, it still looks crude, and despite the appearance of professional actors like John Saxon and Ronee Blakley, the acting is something stiff. But the film moves along briskly, without fat, and held me in great interest.

We start in mystery, as unknown figure wearing razor-fingered gloves enters a girl's dream. She is Amanda Wyss and, as usual in this sort of thing, is killed first because she has sex. The mysterious man is in her dream and slashes her to death, but to her boyfriend, watching in the bedroom, she is killed by an invisible presence. He is arrested for the crime, and ends up hanging to death in his own cell.

Eventually, after her daughter (Heather Langenkamp) is stalked by a killer in her dreams, Blakley reveals that Krueger was a child murderer who was released from custody on a legal technicality. She and a few other mothers cornered him and burned him to death, which accounts for Krueger's bad complexion. How he came back to life and enters other's dreams is left unsaid, but of course how could that be explained?

Langenkamp sets a trap for Krueger (he's played by Robert Englund), but not before her boyfriend (Johnny Depp in his film debut) is dispatched. The showdown is quite good, but a little fuzzy on the details.

This is not my favorite kind of horror--I prefer the old Universal stuff--but I can see why this film is revered. It's not particularly bloody--as with most good horror films, the violence occurs mostly off-screen, and the thrills are built through anticipation--but certainly raises the hair on the back of your neck. And, as the film gets right, dreams do appear as reality when you're going through them.

I find it interesting that as with other Craven films, A Nightmare on Elm Street has esoteric origins Craven got the idea from Cambodian men who were dying in their sleep. The Gary Wright song "Dreamweaver" was also an inspiration, and Craven got revenge on a bully from his childhood--Fred Krueger. If you hear that name now you picture a sinister man in a floppy hat and red and green sweater.