A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - Will's Review

A Nightmare on Elm Street was the first movie box set I owned on DVD, even going so far as to import the North American version (back when that meant shopping with relatively small companies based in Canada, because the likes of Amazon weren't importing / exporting then) to make sure I got all 7 movies and the bonus disc (the UK version at the time only had the first 6 movies, and we're still waiting for an official release of the 8th disc). A few years ago Never Sleep again was released, and I knocked out the whole thing (a 4 hour documentary, 8 hours of extras, and the documentary again with commentary) in a couple of days.

It's fair to say I am a huge Freddy fan... But that hasn't always been the case.


I first saw (parts of) this movie on pirate VHS at a friends house when I was about 6... It scared the shit out of me. Don't get me wrong, I was a horror fan even then, but I'd only ever really seen Hammer and Universal movies, so Nightmare on Elm Street was the first (and possibly last) movie to really terrify me.

And that's the thing; I'm desensitised now, and find "scary" movies to be scary only in theory... But to those uninitiated to the world of horror A Nightmare on Elm Street is a genuinely frightening film.

It's easy to forget, in light of the increasingly wise-cracking sequels that this is the story of a child-killer, who returns from the dead to murder the children of those who punished him when the courts could not; and its played entirely straight.

Although we have come to love Freddy, and revel in his kills, A Nightmare on Elm Street is absolutely not that kind of film!

Wes Craven does a terrific job with a very limited budget (the movie cost a scant $1.8 million) and his effects team pulled out all the stops, pulling off effects that no one would even attempt to do physically today; see the god awful CGI rendition of Freddy pushing through Nancy's wall in the 2010 remake and you'll see what I mean! And Robert England was born to play this roll; his voice, mannerisms... even the way he walks, rotating his hips forward in a slightly unnatural way, is perfect.

Not much of a review, I know, but if I haven't made it obvious by now: if you haven't seen this movie; see it!