FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS: A Nightmare on Elm St. (1984) “I’m Your Boyfriend Now, Nerd.”
Well now, time sure does fly doesn’t it kids? We’ve finally arrived at the last installment of this year’s Friday Night Frights and we’re gonna wrap it all up with none other than the one that started it all: Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm St. The timing worked out perfectly as we’ve been counting down the mainline series from Freddy’s Dead leading up to the release of a special 4k blu ray which landed on my doorstep just the other day. That’s right, this year marks Mister Krueger’s 40th anniversary, the ruby anniversary if you will. And as I’m sure you all know, the ruby is a gem which is said to symbolize passion, loyalty, and devotion.
I’d say that sums up Freddy pretty well.
Ok so confession time: Wes Craven is in my opinion, not remotely close to being a good filmmaker. In fact, outside of liking this one idea he had this one time, I’d have to say that I actively dislike his output. For me, the best thing he has going for him is a cool sounding name. I know, I know…but what about the Scream movies? Well, most of those are fun but they owe all of their success to the screenplays and flavor of the minute casting, not some pedestrian directing and editing. There’s no real tension in any of them, it’s all good dialogue and witty commentary on the genre. And I’m not going to even begin ranting about the two films that people always point to when discussing his “Master of Horror” moniker. The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left are tasteless, tacky and borderline offensive, exhibiting little more than self satisfied shock value.
That being said, the guy did kick off an iconic franchise with A Nightmare on Elm St., creating one of the truly all time classic cinematic villains in Freddy Krueger in the process. Ok, fine. However this really cannot be undersold: Decades before The Lord of the Rings movies came along and made a metric fuckton of money for New Line Cinema (arguably home to the coolest studio logo of all time), this first Elm St. would go on to be known for keeping the company afloat by establishing a reliable annual cash cow. In fact, New Line would eventually be known as the house that Freddy built delivering new money making installments in this series every year or so over the next decade.
The movie was a massive hit.
And the reason why this movie instantly connected with horror fans all over the world is right there in the title, It’s the concept: Fall asleep and die in your Nightmare and you’re going to die in real life. How beautifully simple. That alone would probably be strong enough to carry any scary story all by itself but when you throw in the fact that there’s some burned up old child molester actively hunting down the children of the parents who murdered him, c’mon…now we’re getting into stone cold mythology territory.
"Dreams are telling us much more than something just about us. They're about many things, tapping into our lives not only on an ego level but into a much larger place as well. The place where Freddy Krueger lives." - Carl Jung
The original Nightmare on Elm St is an excellent example of a movie where every piece fell perfectly into place. It all works: The score, the tone, the wonderfully effective nightmare set pieces, not to mention a strong cast (Englund’s performance of course standing out in particular). Talk about a recipe for a good time. It all adds up to a film that genuinely offered film lovers something they had never seen before.
Who doesn’t go to the movies for that!?
We’re actually celebrating a little early as this didn’t technically land in theaters until November 9th, 1984 (way to not capitalize on the spooky season marketing guys wth). But watching it again last night it’s easy to see why audiences connected so strongly with it, creating a franchise that would go on to spawn 5 sequels, a meta-prologue, an epic crossover event and apparently a remake(?). This movie laid down the template that the following sequels would pick up and run with.
So go pop some popcorn, turn out the lights and join me in welcoming Freddy to his 40’s. The guy looks pretty damn good for his age.
(A quick note on this new 4k transer: Speaking of looking good, unlike many pedantic nerds on the internet, I found this restoration visually stunning and that giant pimple on Nancy’s forehead that appears throughout a good chunk of the movie really pops in high definition!)
