Top Tier Slasher
Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street is a classic and one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s one of the best horror films ever made, a masterclass of how to craft an excellent, entertaining story. It contains all the ingredients of a high quality flick. It’s suspenseful. The characters are dynamic. The villain is dark and memorable. The kills are inventive. And the story is phenomenal.
Storyline and Themes
The premise is simple. Freddy Krueger, a child murderer whom local parents burned alive several years before, returns from the dead and targets Nancy Thompson and her friends, Glenn, Rod, and Tina. Nancy must figure out how to stop him before its too late. Don’t be fooled though! There is often beauty within simplicity. This is a rich film that explores multiple themes beneath the surface.
Sins of the Father
The past always effects the present. Life choices and events can echo throughout years and generations. A Nightmare on Elm Street is essentially an examination of how children can pay for the sins of their parents. Nancy and her friends are innocent victims. They didn’t do anything to Krueger. Initially, they don’t even know who he is or why he’s after them.
But their parents know him all too well. They were members of the lynch mob that killed him. So, Freddy is out for revenge, targeting their children in the one place they can’t protect them: their dreams.
Repression and the Unconscious Mind
This film subtly dives into collective trauma and its repression. Quickly, we learn all the teenagers are having nightmares about the same man. This is the first hint there’s a common link between these characters and Krueger and that he already lives within their subconscious.
Tina also tells Nancy her nightmares remind her of a creepy jump rope song from their childhood. The implication is the gang knows the song, but not its origins or true subject matter. In the beginning of the film, they are aware of Freddy’s existence unconsciously.
Their nightmares are traumatic experiences, frightening enough to touch multiple aspects of their lives. They ruin relationships and reputations, create anxiety, bring death, and cause several characters’ sanity to deteriorate. The horror only seems to end when Nancy chooses to face her fears and confront Freddy head on.
Krueger is clearly the symbol for the repressed trauma that haunts the entire town of Springwood. His murder spree and violent end is a dark mark in the history of this all-American, idyllic town. Since then, he’s become an urban legend, a name whispered in fear behind closed doors.
Among children, he is the subject of an eerie nursery rhyme. One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Parents, especially the ones who murdered him, pretend he never existed. Like a bad memory that won’t go away, everyone has tried to purge Freddy from the collective consciousness. But he continues to resurface.
Dreams vs. Reality
A Nightmare on Elm Street blurs the line between dreams and reality. If Freddy kills someone in their dream they die in the real world. If someone grabs hold of anything in their dream right before waking up, they bring it into the real world. There are also moments when characters seamlessly drift into a dream and the audience doesn’t realize they are asleep until they encounter Krueger.
The final act is an extended dream sequence that brings the film to an open conclusion. Near the end, Nancy’s dead friends pick her up in the morning to take her to school. Marge, Nancy’s mother, waves goodbye from the front porch. Freddy’s arm suddenly bursts through the front door and pulls her through it.
At this point, we aren’t sure whose mind we are inside. Are we still inside Nancy’s head? Or have we somehow been transported into Marge’s dream? It seems like Wes Craven is trying to tell us the barrier between dreams and the real world is thin and dreams are an enigma themselves. After all, the strongest dreams are so vivid they are like video shorts of real life. Under the right circumstances, anyone can mistake them for reality.
The Nightmare Sequences
The nightmares have an unpleasant, grimy atmosphere. Tina’s last nightmare is one of my favorites. It’s night. She hears someone call her name outside and goes out to investigate. She runs into Freddy in a dirty, abandoned alley. He chases her back to the house, tackling her right as she reaches the front door.
They roll around on the ground. Tina grabs his face and his skin slowly slides off, revealing the skeleton underneath. He laughs maniacally and Tina screams. Suddenly, we’re back in her bed under the covers, watching Tina fight for her life as Krueger dominates her.
Nancy’s second dream is another impressive dream sequence. She falls asleep in English class, wakes up, and glances in the hallway. Tina is standing there, bloody and in a body bag. Nancy steps into the hall and sees Tina dragged away by an unseen force, leaving a blood trail behind.
Nancy follows the trail downstairs to an old, musty boiler room. Freddy appears and chases her into a corner. It’s a well-crafted scene, underscored by a synth track that raises the tension. Freddy says creepy things to Nancy too, illustrating how crazy he really is.
The Kills
There are four kills in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Two of them are iconic. The first one is Tina. Freddy attacks her underneath the covers. He rips open her shirt, slashes her across the stomach, and then proceeds to manhandle her like a rag doll. He spins her around, throws her against the wall, and drags her across the ceiling. From an outsider’s perspective, it looks like she’s been possessed by a demon and is undergoing an exorcism. Sick stuff.
The other one is Glenn, who is played by a young Johnny Depp. Freddy’s razor glove bursts through his bed and drags him into an unknown abyss, leaving a gaping hole behind. Moments later, a fountain of blood erupts from this spot. The ceiling and walls are stained scarlet red. I’ve never seen anything like this in any other horror film. It’s definitely one of the most creative kills of all time.
Nancy Thompson: The Final Girl of A Nightmare on Elm Street
Nancy is Tina’s best friend and Glenn’s girlfriend. At first glance, she comes across as another wholesome girl next door. But she’s more than that. She’s courageous, a thinker with a dash of sweetheart, and the ability to endure strenuous circumstances. She’s a survivor.
As the story progresses, we see the mental strain the deaths and nightmares have on her. Strands of her hair turn gray, she barely sleeps at night, she stops going to school, and her relationship with her mother falls into shambles. And everyone thinks she’s crazy whenever she mentions Krueger.
Rather than tucking her tail between her legs and crying in the corner, Nancy brainstorms ways to defeat Freddy. She heads to the library and devours books about survival and learns about dreams. She then booby traps her house, brings Krueger into the real world, and fights him.
Nancy is fearless. She goes looking for Freddy in the dream world on two separate occasions. And during their final encounter, she’s bold enough to look him in the eye, tell him he’s nothing, and turn her back on him. Wow! She should’ve been in the sequel. It was a huge mistake not continuing her story. She’s one of the best final girls of all time.
Freddy Krueger: The Antagonist of A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy is one of a kind, one of the most original horror villains ever created. He’s not a masked maniac like Myers, Voorhees, or most other slasher villains. He’s burned, a pizza face. Freddy doesn’t wear overalls, a uniform, or a costume either. He wears a dirty red and green sweater, a hat, and has his own custom-made weapon: a glove with knives sewn into the fingertips.
He has more personality than the average slasher villain too. Krueger runs and talks, often taunting and teasing victims with his sinister sense of humor. He also elevates the genre into surreal and supernatural realms with his preference for hunting teens in dreams. In the dream world, he’s an all-powerful being. He can manipulate the environment, appear out of nowhere, shapeshift, and essentially do anything he wants.
In this movie, Freddy is a sleazy predator. He should’ve stayed this way throughout the entire franchise. Instead, Hollywood creatives dropped the ball and turned him into a lighthearted, wise-cracking, cartoon character by the end. It’s a damn shame because when Freddy is at his darkest, he might be the scariest horror villain of them all. As a former child murderer, he’s certainly one of the creepiest.
