A Nightmare on Elm Street

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" is so original, realistic, and overall terrifying that it is easy to overlook the film's numerous shortcomings. The film deals with a deceased child molester who now lives only through the dreams of the children of those who cooked him to death. Robert Englund is truly frightening as Freddy Krueger, a dark figure whose only purpose is to kill all the siblings of his killers. The knife-styled finger glove has become a trademark of this amazing character who was created by writer-director Wes Craven. The film goes for suspense, drama, and gore and delivers for the most part. None of the characters are developed very well, but most do not live to see the end of the film so it really does not matter. A great horror film that still delivers today. Ignore the endless sequels, they each detract from this truly original and interesting film. Look for a young Johnny Depp as one of the unlucky teens. 4 out of 5 stars

A legendary horror with one of the most popular slasher killers of the 80s-90s. The beginning of this franchise turned out to be more than successful, an original idea with a mysterious maniac and an atmosphere, it is in this part that the intrigue of horror is most sustained.

The young cast is quite good, it was here that Johnny Depp started, Freddie has not yet become that charismatic killer with his jokes, as in subsequent parts. So far, he is more secretive and tries to instill fear in all the victims.

Many people at that time were afraid to sleep after watching, nowadays it's hard to scare you with this movie, but you'll still get pleasure!

On Elm Street, the teenager Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) has a creepy nightmare with a burned man wearing a glove with blades called Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). She invites her friends Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), who had also a nightmare with Freddy Krueger, and Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) to spend the next night with her, but her boy-friend Rod Lane (Nick Corri) appears in the house and they spend the night together. In the middle of the night, Rod awakes and sees Tina having a nightmare and being sliced. He is accused of murder and arrested by Nancy's father Lt. Thompson (John Saxon), despite the protests of his daughter. When Rod and Glen are mysteriously murdered, Nancy realizes that the only way to defeat the evil Freddy Krueger is bringing him to the real world.

The classic "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is one of the best horror movies of the 80's and Freddy Krueger is my favorite villain. The story is original, very well written and directed by Wes Craven and is the debut of Johnny Depp in the cinema. As far as I know, the open conclusion was forced by the producers to give a sequel to the saga of Freddy Krueger. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Hora do Pesadelo" ("The Hour of the Nightmare")

Every small-town neighborhood has an old legend that never dies. For the residents of Elm Street, Fred Krueger is the demonic soul that plagues their nightmares. Krueger was an evil child molester, burned alive by the parents of the children he had slain in the past. Now, years later, he has reappeared in the nightmares of Elm Street's teenagers. Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) continually experiences these haunting visions in which the permanently scarred man chases her through the shadows of a boiler room -- the same room in which he used to slay his helpless victims. Nancy considers her dreams to be typical nightmares one of her best friends is apparently "sliced" to death during a deep sleep in her home.

Soon Nancy's dreams become worse, and her boyfriend Glen (Johnny Depp) admits that he has also been experiencing unpleasant nightmares. Together they uncover the truth behind Krueger's death years ago, and vow to stay awake as long as they can and strategize a plan to bring Krueger back into the "real world" and kill him once and for all.

Loosely based on true events, Wes Craven's inspiration for the tale originated after he reportedly read that a number of people across the world had died in their slumber. Blending fantasy with reality, Craven wrote and directed one of the most iconic horror films of all time, which -- similar to "Halloween" before it -- spawned an inferior legion of sequels and imitators, all of which continue to pale in comparison to the original.

The brilliance of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is that it relies on psychological fear vs. cheap exploitation tricks. "Halloween," directed by John Carpenter and released in 1978, had re-sparked interest in the Hitchcock-style horror/thrillers, and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" builds upon this, cleverly channeling the mystery surrounding dreams and using it as a gateway for chills and thrills. Midway through the movie, a doctor played by Richard Fleischer tells Nancy's mother that the process of dreams -- where do they come from? -- has yet to be explained, and the fact that all humans tend to have dreams on a regular basis is essentially why this film remains so scary, even by today's standards. Some of the special effects are quite outdated but, unlike the "Nightmare" imitators, gore plays second to the plot and characters -- something rare in a horror film.

The sequels became sillier and gorier. Fred's name changed to the less menacing "Freddy" (which we all now know him by), he was given more screen time, the makeup on his face was not quite as horrific, he began to crack jokes more often and his voice evolved into a less demonic cackle. In the original "Nightmare" it is interesting to note that Freddy is rarely given screen time at all -- we see his infamous hands (wearing gloves with butter knives attached on the fingers to slice his victims), we see his hat, we see his sweater, we see his outline in the darkness of the shadows, but even when we finally see Freddy up-close, Craven manages to keep the camera moving so that we never gain a distinct image of the killer. Now, twenty years later, there's no mystery anymore -- Freddy's face is featured on the front cover for most of the films and his very presence has become the cornerstone of all the movies in the franchise. But in 1984, long before Craven predicted his character would become a huge part of modern pop culture, Freddy was mysterious and not very funny at all.

The acting is one of the film's weaknesses -- Heather Langenkamp is never totally awe-inspiring as Nancy, truth be told (although she does a decent job); Depp -- in his big-screen debut -- shows a sign of talent to come but basically mutters clichéd dialogue most of the time. The co-stars are acceptable at best. However the greatest performance is -- not surprisingly -- by Robert Englund, as Freddy, who is in the film barely at all. Ironically, as mentioned above, this only makes the film succeed at scaring us.

The direction is not as superb as "Halloween," and for that matter either is the film. Over the years, "Nightmare" has arguably been given an overrated reputation, although it is inferior to "Halloween." However, compared to some of the other so-called "horror films" released during the '80s -- including "Friday the 13th" and other dumb slasher flicks -- "A Nightmare on Elm Street" does seem to stand as one of the best horror films of the decade. Despite its flaws it is quite smart with a surprise "final" ending and one of cinema's greatest villains lurking at the core.

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" is really Nancy's story. The film focuses on Nancy's troubles, Nancy's dreams and Nancy's actions. The ending of the film becomes a bit muddled -- the booby traps are unfortunately a bit goofy and Freddy helplessly (almost humorously) chasing Nancy around her home supposedly trying to murder her is something the film could have done without -- but overall it is a satisfying mixture of horror, thriller and fantasy, a movie that taps into two seldom-recognized everyday events in human life, which are sleeping, and dreaming. Craven's ability to realize this unknown fear in a movie is, needless to say, quite fascinating. "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is not a great movie but for horror buffs it is a must-see and for non-horror-buffs there is a fair amount of other elements to sustain one's interest.

Nancy is having grisly nightmares. Meanwhile, her high-school friends, who are having the very same dreams, are being slaughtered in their sleep by the hideous fiend of their shared nightmares. When the police ignore her explanation, she herself must confront the killer in her shadowy realm.

This Film Starred: John Saxon, Heather Langenkamp & Johnny Depp.

A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984 was written and directed by Wes Craven.

In my personal opinion this was a great film, it had it's scary moments which every horror should have unfortunately they did go a bit far on a couple of the sequels which got rather low ratings on here. Not all of the sequels are bad, for example I am a fan of 3 & 4 but sequels like 2 & 5 ARE GIVING THE Freddy movies a bad name and are shadowing the excellence of this movie in particular. People seem to recognise Freddy Krueger as the burnt serial killer with knives for fingers who appeared in all them bad films. A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984 is not one of them films and should be recognised as a the great movie it is. I highly recommend this film to all fans of the horror genre.

****/***** Very Good.