Classic Movie Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

I've now covered "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" in my series of Halloween-themed movie reviews this year. Now it's time to finish this trilogy of classic slasher horror films with my personal favorite of the bunch, "A Nightmare on Elm Street." Which, yes, that does mean I ended up reviewing these three movies from worst to best. That was completely coincidental, but that works. Like "Halloween" and unlike "Friday the 13th," "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is a movie that I did see when I was younger. Specific age doesn't matter, but I think this was actually the first horror film that I watched. And no, it didn't give me nightmares or ruin my life. I thought it was a fascinatingly creepy horror film and I always loved Freddy Krueger. I dressed up as him for Halloween at least once. It's fun putting on his mask with the sweater, hat and the finger knife claws. For reasons I'll get into, I think he works much better as a villain than Michael Myers does and the movie around him is equally as creepy as "Halloween." I don't necessarily recommend watching this when you're young, but if you like horror films and you need one to watch this Halloween, this would also be the perfect choice as Wes Craven crafted quite the horror masterpiece back in 1984.

As far as this movie's plot goes, this is definitely an unashamed 80's slasher horror film. By 1984, we were well into this genre and filmmakers knew exactly what audiences wanted, so Wes Craven completely takes advantage of that. If that's not your genre, then this is not your movie and that's totally fine. At the same time, though, this is much more than just a movie about a killer wandering around killing people. There's a bit of a mystery element to it. Sure, if you're well-versed in the Freddy Krueger lore, there's no surprises here, but all of our characters in this movie are trying to figure out what the heck is happening. At the beginning of the movie we are introduced to Tina, who we think is our main character. She's having these nightmares where she's getting chased by a crazy, burned psychopath. She wakes up and her clothes are ripped, which is really confusing. So the next night she has her three best friends, Nancy, Rod and Glen, over to keep her company so she doesn't have to sleep alone. They slowly begin to figure out that they are all having these same nightmares, but they haven't quite figured out what's happening yet. These are just dreams, right? They're not real. So they just need to figure out how to comfort each other so it all gets better.

But PSYCH! Tina's not the main character of the movie, despite the fact that she's been the focus for the first part of the movie. When night has actually come, she's sleeping upstairs with her boyfriend Rod when the nightmare happens again and this time Freddy's got her. No escaping. No waking up. But instead of seeing Freddy kill her, we immediately cut to reality where she's being cut up, sliced up and thrown around the room by what looks like an invisible killer from Rod's perspective. It's really quite brutal and graphic. But it's an "Oh my heck" sort of moment. Things are about to get real in this movie. Rod is understandably shaken up, but then he bolts when he realizes that he's about to get blamed for this murder because suddenly his dead, bloody girlfriend is on the ground next to him when the door was locked. Eventually he gets caught and thrown in jail. Then the movie focuses on our real protagonist, Nancy. Man is this girl a boss. All she has is her useless, but charming, Johnny Depp boyfriend (it was Depp's first film role) and her parents, who refuse to believe anything she's saying. But she's bound and determined to figure out what in the heck is happening to her and her friends and how to stop this nightmarish killer from continuing his rampage.

What really makes this movie work so well is the iconic performance of Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. First off, we have his look. With his charred face, his hat, his red and green striped sweater, and the classic claw glove, he is one of the most horrifically awesome looking horror villains ever. Going right along with that perfect look, Robert Englund himself is so creepy. The way he talks is terrifying. When he laughs, it's even worse as that laugh is the laugh of nightmares. I'm sure Robert Englund is a really nice guy, but if I ever met him in real life I just might run away. The man just oozes creepy and evil. If your movie is only as good as the villain, then this franchise's potential is to infinite and beyond. Yet as awesome looking and sounding as Freddy Krueger is, what makes this first movie so scary is how Wes Craven uses him. The lighting and camerawork is perfect. While there's a few jump scares when he shows up, for the most part it's Freddy hiding behind the corners or stalking people in the shadows that wins me over. With the dream sequences mostly being at night, the set is almost always dimly lit when Freddy is around. If it's light outside, we're usually down in the boiler room creeping around or in other dark places with plenty of obstacles.

If you read my review of "Halloween," you'll remember that I was very nit-picky with the character of Michael Myers. I didn't think he had a good enough backstory and I thought there were a lot of plot holes or other things that either didn't make sense or were left unexplained. I have none of those complaints in this movie and I saw these two movies around the same time, so there's no nostalgia factor giving the edge to "A Nightmare on Elm Street." I think the biggest reason that I'm so forgiving of Freddy Krueger is that, when push comes to shove, he's a supernatural villain as opposed to an attempt at a serious, realistic serial killer. So I put on my supernatural horror hat while watching him and I totally buy everything. In fact, I think Nancy's best option would've been to call Sam and Dean Winchester to take care of this guy. Or perhaps Mary and John with this being in the 80's. It totally fits the "Supernatural" lore and I'm 13 seasons into that show and still loving it. Also, despite being super creepy and dark, the movie is also extremely self-aware. Wes Craven totally owns up to his ridiculous premise and has a ton of fun with Freddy. We even get high-tempo 80's video game music when Freddy's chasing someone and it's quite the entertaining blast.

And since I'm such a stickler with this thing called backstory and motive, let's take a look into that. Fair warning, if you haven't seen this movie before, I've been spoiler-free up to this point in this review, but I'm about to dive into those spoilers. You've been warned. When we learn about Michael Myer's backstory, we essentially learn that he was a kid born without a soul and kills people because he has no sense of right or wrong. That wasn't good enough for me. With Freddy Krueger, we don't dive deep into his backstory. We simply learn that he was a serial killer who kidnapped and murdered children. Those people sadly do exist in the world whereas kids born with no soul don't exist. We don't know why Freddy became a serial killer. We just know he is and that's good enough for me. In terms of specific motive in this movie, Freddy was captured and thrown in jail, but when it came to his trial, the justice system goofed up and he was set free. Seeing this as an injustice to the law, the parents on Elm Street got together and came up with a plan. They gassed up his place and burned him alive. Years later, Freddy has come back as a supernatural demon of sorts and he incites his revenge, not by killing the parents, but by killing their teenage kids. That's solid motive.

Freddy's not the only reason why this movie is so great, though. For good reason, in 2017 we are demanding to get more strong female roles in Hollywood. The 80's actually had plenty of them with movies like "Terminator" as an example, but they also had one of the strongest lead females with Nancy in "A Nightmare on Elm Street." This is actually an element of this movie that I didn't pick up on when I was younger, but I was extremely impressed by when I watched it this week. Nancy is awesome. In horror movies, it's really easy to make your lead female a damsel in distress that's being hunted by some sort of evil force who survives pretty much out of pure luck. It takes Nancy a while to figure out what's going on, but when she has Freddy figured out, her goal isn't to simply survive his attacks. She herself is going in all-out attack mode as she's bound and determined to practically single-handedly stop Freddy herself or die trying. Even when Johnny Depp is too lousy to stay awake, thus getting himself transformed into a geyser of blood (that scene makes me break out laughing every time), Nancy doesn't back down and decides go to plan B, which is trusting in her stubborn father to actually help her. And it works! She stops Freddy! Well, kinda...

The very final sequences are a bit ambiguous. That's the one part of the movie that I forgot about and I don't know if I'm a huge fan of, but if we ignore that for a second and focus on Nancy vs. Freddy and how Nancy wins, I think it's a very powerful lesson. It's a very subtle moment and I think I only caught it because I try to be a good Christian boy and search for things like this, but Nancy actually turns to God to help her beat Freddy. The first thing is that part of the creepy song that the little girls in white dresses sing is the line "5... 6... Grab your crucifix." In other words, use the power of Christ to help you overcome evil. In accordance with that, right before Nancy jumps into her final confrontation with Freddy, after doing everything in her power to stop him, she says a prayer. In that prayer she starts by asking the Lord for his help while finishing by asking the Lord to take her soul if she is unsuccessful. The battle of good vs. evil in horror films is a very important one, I think. Specifically I think there is a lot of power when a horror film teaches that good can overcome evil, regardless of how hard it may seem. For an 80's slasher film to subtly throwing in Nancy using the power of God to help her in her fight, I think adds a lot of power to this movie.

No, I don't have any major nit-picks with this film. It's very much a product of the 80's, thus if you don't like these 80's slasher horror films, this is not going to be the movie for you. But if horror is your thing, specifically 80's horror, I honestly don't think it gets much better than "A Nightmare on Elm Street." You could say I'm biased because I watched and loved this film when I was younger, but I was equally as impressed, perhaps even more so, when I watched it this week. We have one of the absolute best horror villains in Freddy Krueger, who is one of the creepiest looking villains who is voiced perfectly by Robert Englund with his maniacal laugh and speech. We have a director in Wes Craven who knows how to use Freddy the right way. Sure, the movie has plenty of violence and gore. But that's not what's used to scare the audience. Craven uses creepy music, perfect lighting, great camerawork and phenomenal timing to go along with a creative supernatural premise that for over 30 years has made people terrified of falling asleep at night. Add onto that a fun, mysterious plot with good characters, led by Nancy, one of the strongest female characters to ever grace the sets of a horror film, and we have a darn near perfect horror film that I'm confidently awarding a 10/10.