Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy

This was the cap on a recent Freddy Krueger marathon, and even though I just finished watching them all, this talking-head / film-history doc's love and comprehension makes me wanna dive right back in. Beautifully breaking down every single Nightmare movie, and holding no detail or story or opinion back, it's a perfect companion for any franchise fan, and even a solid intro into the world.

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010)

**** (out of 4)

Four hour documentary covering the entire series (minus remake) is without question one of the greatest things ever produced for the horror genre. Both HALLOWEEN and the Friday THE 13TH series have had documentaries done on them but there's no doubt that this film here is above both of them and ranks as one of the most well-informed ever produced. I prefer both Jason and Michael but it's impossible not to be impressed with this film because the filmmakers were actually able to bring pretty much everyone back (with the exceptions being Depp and Arquette). Not only do you get all the directors, writers and main actors but we also get several who had very small parts like the "where's your hall pass" girl from the first film. All seven movies and then the cross over are given a large amount of time so that we can hear about them being made, hear about the various production issues and we also get to see some deleted scenes that I don't believe have ever been shown before. The entire film is one big highlight but some of the most memorable moments can be found in the section on part 2, which has become known as the gay Freddy. It's funny seeing the writer, director and cast talk about the gayness to the film and it's even funnier to see how most of them didn't realize while making the film. The troubled production here is also very interesting as if Craven's thoughts on a sequel to a film he had planned on keeping single. The Craven aspect is another one of the most interesting things here because, again, I don't believe he's ever really talked about any of the sequels outside the ones he was involved here but he comments on all of them here. His opinion of them is rather low, which is to be expected to a point but it's funny to see other directors, especially the man behind part 2, dishing on the original. FREDDY VS JASON gets a lot of time given to it as we hear about the dozens of screenplays that were denied before they finally came up with a winner. There were years of rumors and fake reports about what was going on with this film so to finally hear some true stories was a nice tough. The various endings were discussed as well as an alternate version that featured more of Freddy. The cast list is too large to even start with but fans won't be disappointed because all the majors are here as well as most of the smaller characters and we even get Alice Cooper for good kicks. Horror fans can always debate which series is the best or which films are the best of a series but I don't see how it would be possible for someone to sit through this thing and not be impressed. The passion of this thing hasn't been touched by any other documentary of its kind and I'd be willing to bet that those other guys are going to have to step up their game if they want to come anywhere near this. Everything you want to know will be answered here and it really gives one a major respect for what a small studio ended up doing with one character.

This is basically the review I did on Amazon in 2010!

I could write a ten page review about how much I loved this, but I'll spare you all! In a nutshell, this is a comprehensive and detailed look at not only what went on behind the scenes while making the Nightmare films, but it's full of great interviews with actors and crew.

We get to learn what everyone involved experienced before, during and after being in their respective films and it is absolutely riveting!

Special mention has to go to Heather Langenkamp for her work and dedication on this project!

It's impossible to be a fan and not love this!

I had a feeling the "Elm Street" documentary was going to be something special, but I had no idea just HOW special until the pre-ordered disc arrived early. Initially I presumed that the 240 minute running time listed was for all the material on the 2-disc set, but to my great surprise and delight, that's actually the running time for the main feature. A few cast members (Ronee Blakely, Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette, etc) are noticeably absent, but practically everyone else who worked in front of and behind the camera on an "Elm Street" film is interviewed.

There's something here for even the hardest of hardcore Freddy fans (of which I am one), with lots of interesting stories and previously undisclosed revelations, never-before-seen photos and behind-the-scenes footage, some pretty nifty stop-motion animated recreations of key scenes from the films, laugh-out-loud anecdotes and much more! This puts every bit of bonus material that New Line's ever released to shame (excepting, perhaps, the long out of print Anchor Bay special edition of the first film -- though a few clips from that are included here too).

"His Name Was Jason," the documentary on "Friday the 13th" franchise already proved that the best way to do a documentary on a horror movie is to turn it over to the fans, but "Never Sleep Again" has raised the bar even higher. Kudos and thank you to the production team for putting together this incredible documentary!

This was an excellent documentary and is probably going to cover any questions you would have about the series. The interviews are great and the cast and crew of every movie seemed to all have a great time with the films so they enjoy talking about the experience. This keeps the film fresh and enjoyable throughout and will keep even the most hardcore fans entertained.

The film goes through the movies one by one, speaking with various cast and crew about production and the film itself. It answers some questions and may even surprise you with some information ( IE NoES 2 having strong homosexual undertones completely surprised me. ) on each of the films. While the doc is 4 hours long, it never seems to drag and each film in the series is covered equally.

It's a wonderful companion to the series and I doubt any doc is going to come this close to being so complete and well done on any other horror series or horror flicks in general. A must own for any Freddy fan.