Freddy's Nightmares: A Nightmare on Elm Street - Die Serie

I remember the Freddy's Nightmares series very well (and recently looked into some videos that were released years ago). True, they did sell out after the third movie and turned Freddy into a cartoonish character, but the cartoonish character was perfect for the small screen. The first episode, "No More Mr. Nice Guy," mistells the story in every way (you'd think Tobe Hooper would've watched the first movie before he shot the episode), but after the show took off, the stories became more entertaining. The sequel to "Mr. Nice Guy," "Sister's Keeper," was one of my favorite episodes (though I haven't seen it in years). Some shows had little-known guest stars (such as Brad Pitt) and some featured old favorites (such as Tony Dow). Most Elm Street fans say this show was a huge disappointment (and in a way it was), but it gave Freddy another medium to wreak havok in, so I applaud their efforts.

Its not as good as the movies but its watchable. I enjoyed Sisters Keeper the best as it was a good story and it has a truely disturbing end! If there's nothing on TV to watch then go rent this its not as awful as it sounds.

Very similar to other series of similar nature like Tales from the Crypt and Hitchcock earlier. Roles within relationships and the familiy within a capitalist culture are common themes the scripts revolve around. Vanity and power struggle often central, ultimately leading to the premature deaht of the characters. From this perspective theyre is a moral values, christian in nature, twist to the series. Freddy take on justice for a social Faux pas is a comically grotesque death served up with one of his infamous cheesey one liners.. I only saw a few episodes when I was young and am now really enjoying the full series I recently got hold of. They are fairly well written but its really a nostalgic journey for me back to the 80s. What can you say, the 80s was a strange time, when even grisley fictional charaters like Freddy Kruger could become a cultural icons.Its part of being an 80s baby lol. Its hard to find a series as emblematic of the 80s as this, from the culture struggle of social identity, to the hair cuts, music and sets. Having a morbid sense of humour was also an essential social must.

Of course, the fact that it is different than that series is both good and bad. This one is more of the "Tales from the Darkside" type of storytelling to it, and it actually had something to do with the movie. The Friday series had nothing to do with the movie, but had a nice running story. Freddy starred in this one, but a lot of the times he was more the host of the show rather than an actual participant. However, he did appear as the star of some of the episodes...think "Tales from the Crypt", but with the crypt keeper occasionally doing some of the dirty work himself. The stories varied in type and such as I remember one about survivors of a plane crash or something becoming cannibals and I also remember one involving Freddy and a cop, kind of a look back on how Freddy became Freddy. In the end a bit of an unnecessary show, there were already plenty of shows like this at the time that were superior in storytelling, the only thing new this one brought to the table was having the famous Freddy Krueger as a host.

This series was started after the awful Nightmare on Elm Street 4. Freddy's original character was by now completely obscured by feeble wisecracks and, of course, the money-minded dross industry who realized they had a cash cow on their hands. Actually, some of the episodes in this series are better than some of the later Freddy films. 'End of the World' is an interesting and thought-provoking tale about the nuclear threat. There are also other strong episodes involving crystals which can turn daydreams into nightmarish reality, machines capable of watching dreams and the like. The pilot episode re-writes the Freddy myth but is still entertaining and well-made.

However, there are also a lot of episodes which are no more than an excuse for a series of rather unimaginative surreal images and occasional unfunny 'jokes' from Freddy. These come across as very tedious. 'Saturday Night Special', for example, is just complete trash.

But if you can get hold of the better episodes then do so, as they make good viewing.