Census Bloodbath: G Is For Giggles

Today's Blogging From A to Z Challenge is a continuation of an old tradition - the return of Census Bloodbath! I've been meaning to get back to my bone-deep exploration of the 80's slasher genre and my new essay prompt about the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is a great entry point.

Year: 1987

Director: Chuck Russell

Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Patricia Arquette

Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors opens with a solemn Edgar Allen Poe quote, so you know Wes Craven had something to do with it. Slasher movies were never more literary than when ole W-Crave was around. And in fact, he did produce this film and write the story treatment, after sitting out the first sequel (which ended up having absolutely squat to do with the rest of the series but is pleasingly homoerotic).

Craven's presence means that this is pretty much the best Nightmare sequel until New Nightmare came around in the same year I did - 1994. Although his raw power was diluted somewhat by co-writer Frank Darabont (yes, this guy) and director Chuck Russell (who would direct my favorite 80's remake, The Blob), Dream Warriors is a delightful and clever script that introduces the new, more comedic, elements of Freddy's character while still maintaining a solid aura of horror.

As perfectly evidenced by this still of Freddy slashing Zsa Zsa Gabour.

This is the film where Freddy truly gains his black humor and affinity for puns. Although people certainly do like to remember the original Nightmare as a laugh riot, that kind of thing really didn't come around until this sequel. It's quite similar to how people view The Evil Dead through the filter of Evil Dead II. Casual horror fans have very poor memories, it seems. Although at least they're watching Evil Dead.

That's one of the really interesting thing about slasher franchises. The most memorable aspects of key characters don't usually come in until the third entry in two of the genre cornerstones. Freddy didn't get his puns until Dream Warriors and Jason didn't get his mask until Part 3: 3D. I suppose the filmmakers know they have to shake things up at some point and why not now? When you're two movies in and swimming in the dough, you have all the confidence in the world to twist a thing or two around.

Freddy's newfound sense of humor represents the turn to self parody that inevitably strikes long-running horror franchises. Jason didn't chime in until Part VI and Michael was late to the game with Halloween H20 in 1998. Chucky lost his edge with the fourth film, Bride of Chucky, and Prom Night figured it out with The Last Kiss. 

Because, at some point, the basic trappings of the slasher genre are picked clean and you can't pull the same characters out of the gate for the eighth time over and expect the same kind of magic. The always intelligent Craven knew this and so he turned his bright eyed demon of the night into a clownish huckster, still a dark figure, but one whose work is immensely fun to watch. Freddy would eventually beach himself as the humor dried up during three more installments, but the clever sparkle is what helped teen horror fans fall even more in love with the character.

Either that or they're fans of phallic imagery. Come to think of it, maybe it's the second thing.

But anyway! The movie!

Our Meat this time around is a group of teens who are in a mental hospital due to insomnia-related illnesses and attempted suicide. What the doctors don't realize is that the injuries that they incur during the night aren't of their own doing, but rather the angry man with knives for fingers who haunts them every time they fall asleep.

The protagonist du jour is Kristen Baker (Patricia Arquette in her first film role), a spunky young blonde with the ability to pull people into her dreams, but her ragtag band of inmates includes Joey (Rodney Eastman, previously a featured extra in Chopping Mall), a kid who has lost the ability to speak due to Freddy-induced nightmares; Kincaid (Ken Sagoes, who I met at a convention. I am unhappy to report that he is a terrible, rude, cheap little man and as a result I perhaps unfairly hate his character), an angry young man who spends most of his time locked up alone in the "Quiet Room"; Taryn (Jennifer Rubin, who I also met and is lovely), a badass ex-heroin addict; Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow), a sweet young woman who wants to be a TV star; Phillip (Bradley Gregg), a marionette maker; and Will (Ira Heiden), a wheelchair-bound nerd who adores tabletop fantasy games.

With so many characters to keep track of, it's easy to see why it's a near impossibility that this film would have the terror and impact of the original. It's hard to fall in love with so many people at a time so, when they inevitably die, it has to be funny or else it's just kind of sad. Throw in the three-person hospital crew (One of whom is played by Laurence Fishburne. I'll pay you $500 dollars if you can sit through the entire movie without making a Matrix joke.) and add in a little Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) to class up the proceedings, and you have a veritable parade of human flesh.

The return of Nancy, the Final Girl from the original film, is another huge benefit to the success of this sequel. Despite still being a remarkably atrocious actress, Langenkamp has a charismatic magnetism that makes you want to love her. And having a Krueger survivor in the mix deepens the mythology and allows for a character to learn from her mistakes in the past and use it to save a new generation of Final Girls.

 Basically, Wes Craven should write all sequels. He knows what's up.

Although the kids are thinly characterized, they each have a particular weakness that can be overcome in their dreams. For example, the wheelchair kid can walk again and gains the powers of a magical Dungeons and Dragons wizard. And the heroin addict is beautiful, bad, and powerful. The introduction of this element, that which lends the film its title, provides a powerful thematic through line as the teens battle Freddy on his own terms in Dreamland.

He uses their weaknesses against them (the celebrity wannabe is thrust into her TV set - "Welcome to Prime Time, bitch!"), but they must find the internal strength to overcome them by utilizing their dream skills. It's a tremendously fun battle to watch and it resonates with teens across the world as they battle their own personal demons. Theirs might not be a burned man in a battered fedora, but every high school problem feels equally as dangerous and deadly as Freddy's razor glove when you're the one living through them.

With such a powerful theme to hang its hat on, the film is a remarkable success at combining comedy and horror, typically the two hardest genres to mix - like oil and water. The gonzo special effects of the Dream World are also a huge draw, although it's clear that the budget was poured directly into their realization, leaving the real world sets looking thin, cheap, and a little worse for the wear.

And no matter how many times I watch and enjoy this movie, I still can't force myself to truly believe that Patricia Arquette turns in a good performance. But despite its flaws, Dream Warriors is a fun tour of the new Freddy and the absolute best of the comedic Nightmare films.

Killer: Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund)

Final Girl: Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette)

Best Kill: Freddy rips out a sleepwalker's tendons and uses them as marionette strings to walk him off the roof of the hospital.

Sign of the Times: Half of the soundtrack is by Dokken. The other half is by Cyndi Lauper's synth falling down the stairs.

Scariest Moment: Freddy turns a drug addict's needle scars into gaping mouths and stabs her with his hypodermic claws.

Weirdest Moment: The backstory in which it is discovered that Freddy is quite literally the "bastard son of 100 maniacs."

Champion Dialogue: "In my dreams, I am the Wizard Master!"

Body Count: 6; Not including Freddy because come on.

1. Phillip has his tendons pulled out and is used as a marionette, falling off of the tower when Freddy cuts his strings.
2. Jennifer is shoved into a TV set.
3. Taryn is stabbed with Freddy's needle claws, overdosing on heroin.
4. Will has his heart ripped out before he can use his wizard powers to good effect.
5. Donald Thompson is impaled on a car fin.
6. [Nancy Thompson is stabbed in the stomach.] 

TL;DR: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is less powerful and character-driven than the original, but its sense of humor and special effects extravaganzas make it a truly enjoyable sequel.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1507

Reviews In This Series

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Sholder, 1985)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Russell, 1987)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (Harlin, 1988)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (Hopkins, 1989)

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Talalay, 1991)

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Craven, 1994)

Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Bayer, 2010)

Women In Horror Month: Is That Your Final Answer?

What do you know, but it's already a week into February. Where does the time go?

I don't know whose job it is to decide these things but we are officially celebrating Women in Horror Month, and I would be loathe to ignore my calling. Throughout the month I will have several features celebrating women and their contributions to the horror genre, but first the obvious.

Because I'm me, I'd like to open with my

TOP TEN FINAL GIRLS

#10 Alice Johnson (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child)

Played By: Lisa Wilcox

A character that manages to survive in my esteem even in spite of the entirely terrible and incoherent Part 5. Alice is essentially the Tommy Jarvis of the Nightmare franchise, a late-to-the-game player that defeats a horror icon multiple times - and lives to tell the tale. Where most Final Girls who have a return get their comeuppance, she sticks to her guns and makes Freddy her chew toy.

#9 Ginny Field (Friday the 13th Part 2)

Played By: Amy Steel

One of the smartest of Jason's victims, child psychologist Ginny Field manages to get inside his head and trick her way to survival. She's one of the only Final Girls to actually outwit the killer instead of wail on him with a machete for 20 minutes. Although she does get a few good whacks in during an especially memorable chainsaw sequence.

#8 Marybeth Dunston (Hatchet II)

Played By: Tamara Feldman, Danielle Harris

Although she was certainly a sideshow in the first Hatchet film, perennial 21st Century Final Girl Marybeth Dunston was given new life when genre veteran Danielle Harris stepped into the role. Having appeared in four Halloween movies (two of them as a child!), she was the perfect choice to sass up what needed to be a punchy role opposite King Jason himself, Kane Hodder.

#7 Jannicke (Cold Prey, Cold Prey 2)

Played By: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal

Sexy. Norwegian. Badass. Jannicke has seen more than her share of trouble, so she decided to make some of her own. Despite one terrifically dumb decision that extended the finale of the sequel for a good fifteen minutes, she is still one of the most consistently intelligent and entertaining slasher protagonists of them all.

#6 Sidney Prescott (Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, Scream 4)

Played By: Neve Campbell

Darn but I do love myself a sarcastic heroine. Sidney hates horror movies for being a series of reductive and insulting clichés, so her worst nightmare comes true when she is trapped in one. She's still alive and kicking though, so hats off to seeing herself through four installments of a notorious director's franchise.

#5 Sarah (The Descent)

Played By: Shauna MacDonald

Savage womanhood at its finest. She's minding her own business, just trying to get over the death of her cheating husband and daughter when she is attacked by a horde of underground flesh-eating monsters. However, she quickly turns the tables and although her ending might not exactly be happy, it's absolutely fitting and resonant.

#4 Nancy Thompson (A Nightmare on Elm Street)

Played By: Heather Langenkamp

So good they brought her back. Twice. Decades apart. Nancy is everything a teen protagonist should be: lovable, smart, a little bit silly, and, most importantly, a teenager. Although Langenkamp's acting isn't exactly top drawer, it matches perfectly with the genre and keeps Nightmare going strong a good 30 years after its release.

#3 Laurie Strode (Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later)

Played By: Jamie Lee Curtis

How could I not include her? She's not gonna be number one due to her unfortunate habit of dropping weapons right next to masked serial murderers, but she's one of the most persistent and incredible Final Girls due to Jamie Lee Curtis' unmatched slasher performance. She was so good they retconned her offscreen death from Part 4 to bring her back in a blaze of glory.

#2 Tina Shepard (Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood)

Played By: Lar Park-Lincoln

AKA Carrie. This telekinetic teen kicks some serious Voorhees butt. This is no small feat, especially considering that in this installment the masked galunk was played by Kane Hodder for the very first time. Definitely one of my favorite installments of the series, in large part due to Tina's incredible prowess at being awesome.

#1 Erin (You're Next)

Played By: Sharni Vinson

Who couldn't have predicted this one? The only Final Girl I've ever seen who is more proficient with an axe than her pursuers. Pitted against multiple foes, she easily outstrips any of her single-villain peers, all with a flawless Australian accent.
Word Count: 781

Living The Dream

Year: 1994

Director: Wes Craven

Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Miko Hughes

Run Time: 1 hour 52 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

It's 1994. Since its release ten years before, A Nightmare on Elm Street has seen 5 sequels of increasing inanity, a Freddy-hosted horror anthology spinoff series, and enough cash to fill a thousand Scrooge McDuck-style swimming pools. The series proper ended in 1991 with Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, the sixth installment overall - one that featured mystical demon worms, Freddy dressing up as the Wicked Witch of the West, a 3D final act, and cameos by Roseanne and Tom Arnold.

Things had come a long way since Craven's ethereal masterpiece shocked audiences by bringing something entirely new and exciting to the genre. He personally hadn't been involved with the series since 1987's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, for which he produced a story treatment. 

Although it had been three years since they put a stake in the franchise, fans were still clamoring for more. God knows why after the one-two punch of The Dream Child and Freddy's Dead, but this was before I was born so the world was a much more unstable place.

I would never have let this happen.

Seeing an opportunity for capitalizing on fan interest, New Line tapped Wes Craven to head the tenth anniversary Nightmare movie, the seventh in the franchise. He agreed, but once he watched all the previous films, he found he couldn't follow the through line. Considering that it made about as much sense as a Baha Men reunion concert, this was a reasonable reaction.

Whereas your average Joe hack director would up the ante by throwing Freddy in space or sending him somewhere ridiculous like, say, (cough) Manhattan. Being the genius he is, Craven decided to turn it all around and make the absolute gosh darn best horror sequel ever released, an astoundingly postmodern, stunningly intellectual, thrillingly vibrant and terrifying film that is second only to the original film in quality.

The fact that it made about twelve cents at the box office just goes to show that there is no God.

There is, however, Freddy.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare, you see, isn't a Nightmare sequel. It's a real life Nightmare. Heather Langenkamp (Heather Langenkamp) is ten years off of her defining role as Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street. She's married to a special effects technician named Chase Porter (David Newsom) and they have a lovely son named Dylan (Miko Hughes). 

Although she'd really rather forget about horror films, the furor over the ten year Nightmare anniversary  has led to a lot of interviews and talks of a sequel, a film which New Line producer Bob Shaye (Bob Shaye) is begging her to appear in. You see, Wes Craven (Wes Craven) has been having nightmares again, which are the inspiration for a brand new screenplay that's gonna blow them away.

But when Heather is plagued by a series of earthquakes and a crazed fan who likes to call her at home pretending to be Freddy, all she wants is to get out of the Nightmare bubble. When she runs into Robert Englund (Robert Englund) at an event, he laughs her off. But when her husband turns up dead after falling asleep on the highway, displaying a telltale line of four gashes across the torso, Heather begins to suspect that maybe, just maybe, she isn't being crazy (although a history of mental illness runs in her family so... who knows?).

When her son starts sleepwalking, muttering "1, 2, Freddy's coming for you...," and generally behaving like a child in a horror movie, Heather's worst fears are realized. Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund, doing double time) is at it again.

And he's dressed in his Sunday best.

You see, Mr. Krueger isn't fictional. He's a manifestation of an ancient demon whose sole purpose is the murder of innocents. His one weakness is storytellers who, if they come up with a tale captivating enough, can trap him in the story like a genie in a bottle. But once the story becomes too familiar or watered down, the demon is released into the real world.

Much like Hansel & Gretel and several of the more violent fairy tales, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a vessel for this evil presence. The endless string of crappy sequels is cracking the protective seal around the story (nice meta commentary there, Wes) and he likes his Freddy manifestation so much he's gonna bring him to the physical world to play.

Heather, the girl who gave Nancy Thompson her strength, must act as a gatekeeper to keep Freddy away from her world - and her son. The only way to stop Freddy is to trap him inside another great story, and what better story is there than what's actually occurring to her now?

Real life Nightmare actors and producers appear left and right (including Tuesday Night, Nick Corri, and Lin Shaye, who played the schoolteacher in the original) and the actual script for the film makes a cameo as it exactly mirrors real life conversations.

As the world around her begins to blend together with the world of the films (including a lovely confusing bit with the man who played her father, John Saxon (John Saxon)), Heather and Freddy must enter a climactic showdown of wills.

Are you ready, Freddy?

The fact that it takes about nine paragraphs just to get out the basic plot is a perfect example of what a glorious high concept this film has. It also explains why almost nobody really wanted to watch it. Despite being the only actually scary sequel to a horror film, people weren't too pleased being asked to use their brains.

But the fact remains that New Nightmare is one of the smartest horror films out there, and it set the stage for the meta themes of Scream, which would come two years later. While Scream is a meta slasher masterpiece in its own right, New Nightmare approaches its self-awareness with much more subtlety.

For all intents and purposes, this film is set in reality. The earthquake scenes mirror the major quakes that took place in Southern California that same year and actress Heather Langenkamp really was pursued by a deranged stalker who was inspired by her stint as Nancy Thompson (and she did end up marrying a special effects guy!). Not to mention that a major plot point of the movie involves making the very movie you're watching.

I... I... OK.

This film is exactly like what people imagined watching Inception is like (honestly, I found that film much more straightforward than its reputation). The intricate layers of fiction and reality begin to blend together in that effortless Wes Craven fashion that made Freddy Krueger a big star to begin with.

New Nightmare is a blast. It's keenly witty, one of the only slasher movies captivating enough to justify being longer than 90 minutes long, and features the gorgeous Langenkamp essentially reprising one of her most famous roles.

Honestly this film could just be her riding in a car and pouting and I'd be fine with that.

It's clever. It's self-aware without beating its themes to death. It's full of loving callbacks to the classic original. The "reality" scenes are so thoroughly grounded that the horror becomes even more immediate and terrifying. This isn't a movie. This is actually happening. And the justification to get Freddy into the real world is airtight. 

This film's black magic singlehandedly brought Freddy back from the edge, updating his look, and making him legitimately menacing as he'd never been before.

And honestly, Wes Craven is a pretty good actor. It's great fun to see him on the other side of the screen for a change.

Even a couple creaky 90's effects are unable to mar a film this close to perfect. And it's the sixth sequel! Everybody marvel at that for a second, please. By Jason's sixth sequel, he was fighting a telekinetic teenager (actually pretty great, but still a terrible film). By Michael's sixth sequel, he was stalking Josh Hartnett and Michelle Williams around a California boarding school.

It's atmospheric. It follows nightmare logic. It nails the old horror standby of the creepy possessed child. I can't sing this film's praises enough, but I guess I should stop in order to keep my word count lower than a Leo Tolstoy novel.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Please. If you're in any way a Nightmare fan, watch this film. It's definitely worth your time.

Killer: Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund)

Final Girl: Heather Langenkamp (Heather Langenkamp)

Best Kill: Chase is gutted like a fish while driving on the highway.

Sign of the Times: Everybody's massive cell phones and green text computers; Chase falls asleep singing "Losing My Religion."

Scariest Moment: Dylan sleepwalks across a freeway; Seeing Robert Englund out of makeup.

Weirdest Moment: Freddy's tongue wraps around Heather's neck. Also, the whole concept of the entire film.

Champion Dialogue: "Screw your pass!"

Body Count: 4; further proof that high body counts don't prove that they're good movies - this seems to be Wes Craven's personal mantra.

1. Chuck gets a glove in his throat.
2. Terry gets a glove in his chest.
3. Chase has his chest slashed open while he's driving down the highway.
4. Julie is slashed and pulled onto the ceiling of the hospital room. 

TL;DR: Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a meta masterpiece that doesn't ever deserve to be forgotten.
Rating: 10/10
Word Count: 1586
Reviews In This Series
A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Sholder, 1985)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Russell, 1987)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (Harlin, 1988)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (Hopkins, 1989)
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Talalay, 1991)
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Craven, 1994)
Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (Bayer, 2010)

Census Bloodbath: Night Terrors

If you're new to Census Bloodbath, click here.

Year: 1984

Director: Wes Craven

Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

This entry was due to come up much later in my Census Bloodbath series, but I've been cravin' some Craven. Also I'm writing an essay in my horror class about him (!!!) so I've been screening his movies all week.

So before we get into this film, let me take this opportunity gush for a little bit, please. Wes Craven is my favorite director of all time, not just of horror. The man started off as an English teacher, made the wildly depraved The Last House on the Left (Could you even imagine? I want you to picture your high school English teacher directing a grindhouse flick where a criminal gets his penis bitten off. Things just got very un-Pride and Prejudice.), reinvented the slasher genre twice with A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, and is the only 74-year-old alive who is actually good at Instagram.

He even made a Game of Thrones reference! I can't even with this guy...

But you'll get more and more Wes Craven history as we go along. For now, our concern is his first foray in changing an entire film genre as we knew it. Slashers, which had been going strong since Friday the 13th opened the floodgates in 1980, had begun to run out of steam. The well of ideas had already run dry by the first whispers of "Part 2" and increasing opposition by the MPAA (and the horrors of diminishing returns) meant that the slice-and-dicers were considering closing up shop permanently.

In fact, Paramount had already put a stake in their tentpole franchise, announcing that the next Friday the 13th film would be their last (it was not). But just after Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street blew in like a hurricane, sweeping up the desiccated husks of slasher cinema (Splatter University and Murder Rock: Dancing Death also came out that year) into its whirlwind of dazzling imagery and twisted,  quasi-European sensibilities.

Craven's first masterpiece, A Nightmare on Elm Street is an aggregate of influences as far and wide as the cinema of Dario Argento, newspaper articles about a mysterious dream disease, a study on primal fears, Val Lewton, and a childhood experience with a menacing vagrant. With his literary background and vast intelligence, Craven did what others could not: create Freddy Krueger, arguably the single most iconic villain in horror history.

The rush of creativity and the introduction of paranormal elements to the slasher formula initiated the second wave. Suddenly the supernatural was in vogue, and cheapie filmmakers traded in their machetes for high concept brain-throbbers. Late-to-the-game sequels like Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II and The Slumber Party Massacre II saw massive restructuring and even Jason and Michael got in on the fun, the former by becoming an undead behemoth resurrected by lighting and the latter by something something druid curse.

But let's not think too hard about that, here's a sheep.

People remember Freddy as the cackling prankster of the later films, but most forget what a menacing presence he has in the original. He might get more hoots than hollers these days, but the first Nightmare is still utterly terrifying.

The story goes like this: Plucky teen Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp, who'll return to Census Bloodbath in several other Wes Craven flicks) and her three friends - jock boyfriend Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp, in his first ever film role), best friend Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss), and her juviebait boyfriend Rod Lane (Nick Corri). 

The fact that there are so few characters - and that each of them have last names - reveals the essence of Nightmare's horror: Nobody is disposable. Each of these characters has a distinct personality, worldview, set of life goals, and relationship with each other member of the group. This is not merely a body count movie where the only draw is watching teens get killed in outré manners. Yes, the kills are exceptionally awesome in this film, but each one of them packs a punch.

These are characters we don't want to see die, and I don't know why more filmmakers haven't realized how scary that concept is.

Anyway, these four have all been having the same nightmare - being stalked through a boiler room by a man with a burned face, a battered fedora, a dirty red and green sweater, and a glove with razor blades for fingers. It doesn't take Nancy long to realize that they're in danger. Unfortunately she realizes this too late to save Tina, who is sliced open during her postcoital slumber in her parents' bed (Why do teenagers in 80's movies have such a fascination with the parents' bedrooms? If I were trying to sneak around and boink my dreamboat boyfriend, I couldn't think of a worse place.).

Tina's death scene is, in a word, glorious. It encapsulates everything Nightmare is about as the wounds she receives in her dream manifest themselves in reality. She is clawed open, dragged up her bedroom wall, and pulled onto the ceiling in a crescendo of blood, shrieks, and despair. It is brutal and affecting no matter how many times you watch it, visceral and powerful yet at the same time ethereally beautiful.

I could talk about Italian influence here but come on, just look how cool this is.

The lines between dream and reality begin to blur as Nancy attempts to discover the secret behind Freddy's rampage and save her friends - and herself - from a rendezvous with the business end of a manicure gone bad. What follows is a surreal phantasmagoria in which it is never absolutely clear what is or isn't a dream. 

Craven's masterfully delicate handling of imagery keeps one immersed in the dreamworld better than Inception ever could (I went there). With scenes pulled directly from the audience's own nightmares, centipedes and snakes pour out of a corpse, the staircase turns to gelatin, and claws stretch through a plaster ceiling. The longer Nancy goes without sleeping, the more danger she puts herself in, both in the real world and the dream world.

Nancy fights her way through Freddy's taunting, more beautiful and awe-inspiring murders, the supernova of heartburn she must have gotten from all that coffee she's been drinking, and the resistance of her policeman father (John Saxon) and her alcoholic mother (Ronee Blakley), who just don't understand why she refuses to even take a nap. What can she say? She's into survival.

Also featured: The medium from Insidious (Lin Shaye) as a schoolteacher.

and glorious glorious Johnny Depp midriff.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is beautiful because it is a slasher movie. It has everything - the (mostly) silent killer, teen victims, inept cops, a terrible 80's score, sex = death, the murders occuring as revenge for some long ago crime, and a virginal Final Girl. The fact that it manages to work within these well-established parameters and still be the elegant and surreal masterpiece of horror that it is is nothing less than a triumph.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is scary because it hits close to home. Our nightmares might all be different, but we have one thing in common: We all sleep. And in that sleep of death, what dreams may come must give us pause. 

Sleep is necessary for survival. We can only stay awake for so long before we expire. Just straight up death. And the longer we go without it, the easier it is to fall asleep. But with that sleep comes certain death. It's a lose-lose situation and the ticking of the clock makes for immense tension, even during the non-scary scenes. 

Not to mention that, during sleep, we are totally defenseless. That's bad enough in the physical world of violence and murder, but if the murderer is in your head? Chilling.

It's even worse when he's in your mouth.

I've already raved about the gorgeous savagery (call me a gorehound, but when you need over 50 gallons of blood onscreen for a single person's death scene, I am sold) that almost entirely holds up today despite a few effects that show their seams, but nearly every aspect of Nightmare works at full steam.

The sound design is superb, but it's altogether impossible to describe the immeasurable way that this enhances the film's dreamlike qualities. Just trust me on this one. Same with the production design. Yeah, all that stuff.

What I really want to talk about is the cast. For once the cast all look like actual teenagers, a rare accomplishment in a film like this. Although I'm still on the fence about whether Langenkamp's acting is charmingly incompetent or believable for her over-the-top predicament, the cast brings their characters to life in a totally believable way.

They're believable, they're likable, and they all have realistic reactions to the deaths of their friends. What is this? It's almost like we're watching a movie or something. One of the things I love the most is that Nancy isn't played by some teen starlet in a low cut top (cough cough Rooney Mara in the remake COUGH). She's just a kid, and that enhances the impact even more than everything else already had. 

I'd also like to do a dance of gratitude to the Casting Gods for picking an actual actor to play Freddy as opposed to an anonymous stuntman. Robert Englund is Freddy Krueger and without him at the wheel, this movie would have been nothing. That wicked glimmer in his eye as he hunts down his prey is as unsettling as his diminutive stature.

It's weirdly terrifying to watch a short man tear somebody apart.

Although the film does have flaws (it was created by a human man, after all), none of them are fatal or even mildly damaging. In fact most of my complaints are highly personal and miniscule, like the fact that I think the poster is weird or that I'm annoyed by how many fade-outs there are.

The two biggest flaws are the studio mandated ending, which is just plain peculiar and Ronne Blakley as Nancy's mother. With her caked-on pancake make-up and line delivery so stilted that it seems like she's reading off of a Russian teleprompter, she seems like she's a soap opera star who was on a break and just happened to wander into the Thompson household and get lost.

Aside from that, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a rousing success. And as if the whole concept wasn't showing off enough, Craven displays his intellectual vigor and filmmaking prowess in moments big and small, my favorites of which are the incorporation of a rose trellis to suggest an intermediate stage of Nancy waking up from a dream (you'll just have to watch it, but it's incredible), and the fact that at one point she hits Freddy in the face with a coffee pot, which is metaphorically what she's been doing the whole time - defending herself with caffeine.

OK, maybe those moments are just for me. But Nightmare is the work of an egregiously underappreciated auteur who would soon go on to become one of the most important figures in horror cinema. A showstopping practical effects extravaganza, this franchise starting film is one of the best slashers of the decade, one of the scariest horror films ever released, and one of the most creative American films on the market.

And that's good enough for me.

Killer: Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund)

Final Girl: Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp)

Best Kill: No contest: Fountain of Blood.

Sign of the Times: Johnny Depp is an itty bitty baby; the soundtrack would have been dismissed by Duran Duran as "too cheesy."

Scariest Moment: This. Nope Nope Nope.

Weirdest Moment: Nancy rejects the advances of Johnny Depp. I bet she regretted that later.

Champion Dialogue: "He's dead, honey, because mommy killed him."

Body Count: 4; proving you don't have to have a slew of corpses to be a great slasher film.

1. Tina is slashed with the glove and pulled onto the ceiling.
2. Rod is strangled and hanged by his bedsheets.
3. Glen is dragged into his bed and explodes into a fountain of blood. 
4. Mrs. Thompson is burned in her sleep. 

TL;DR: A Nightmare on Elm Street is an eerie masterpiece that teeters delicately on the precipice of reality and singlehandedly resurrected the moribund slasher genre.

Rating: 10/10

Word Count: 2074

Reviews In This Series

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Sholder, 1985)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Russell, 1987)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (Harlin, 1988)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (Hopkins, 1989)

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Talalay, 1991)

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Craven, 1994)

Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Bayer, 2010)