A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)

Horror week Day 3

Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

I have only seen Nightmare on Elm Street once and I admit it was pretty, pretty, pretty scary back in 1984. I remember the third film in the series, Dream Warriors, was pretty good too. Looking at the original now, there’s still a lot of craftsmanship and the Freddy Kruger back story is good, but he’s become a bit of a punchline at this point from overuse. In the first couple of sequels at least, he couldn't slice into anyone without making a quip of some kind. He also won’t die. They kill him. He revives somehow. He comes back. And keeps coming back. I know you can say the same thing about the Frankenstein monster, but that got old after awhile too.

Also, after watching the rawness that The Evil Dead had, Nightmare almost seemed too slick. The scene where Johnny Depp gets sucked into his bed and blood spews all over the room in a gusher is visually impressive, but not particularly scary.

I would still put Nightmare on Elm Street in my 1001 book and would also like to thank the 1001 movies editorial staff at this time for not including any Friday the 13th movies in their publication.

Wasn’t that Johnny Depp? Speaking of Johnny Depp- I showed my fourteen-year-old niece an early scene from this movie with Mr. Depp in it and asked her if she knew who this was. Mind you, this was right after she had been watching Pirates of the Caribbean. She had no idea who it was and when I told her she didn’t believe me. So it goes.

The Day After Effect: Big case of the creeps after seeing this one in 1984. Not too much residual effect in 2011.

Tomorrow: Scream. Another Wes Craven film. I’ve never seen a Scream movie, but it’s in the book so I have to watch it because it is written in that scary book from The Evil Dead that I must do so.