Nightmare on Elm Street, A (1984)

Jane FlamE (janeflame34@hotmail.com)

Date: 26 January 2001
Summary: Genre defining

If Sean Cunningham, John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper defined the horror genre in the late 70's, early 80's then Wes Craven destroyed it, not only once, but twice, with Scream. However, before Scream, there was A Nightmare On Elm St and before there was the ghostface, there was Freddy Krueger, bastard son of 100 maniacs. Up until this point, horror was very predictable, most films adhered to the 'rules' of horror (if you have no idea what the rules are, they are simply, the 'virgin' survives, if you have sex, you die, if you drink or get high, you die and never say, "I'll be right back" cause u won't, for more details, see Randy in the Scream Trilogy). In 1984, this little film came out about a murderer who killed you in your dreams.

It was a seemingly simple concept, but it was terrifying to see the main character Nancy, (played brilliantly by a young Heather Langenkamp) battling not only her adversary, (the irrepressible Robert Englund) but the trauma's of her alcoholic mother, smothering and absent father, their divorce, her idea that she might be going crazy and sleep, as she deduces from fairly early on that if she sleeps, she dies. Nancy was a character that you cared about. She wasn't devoid of emotion or reduced to simply running and screaming from her attacker, she had emotion, she had issues, she was like most teenagers in America.

The film begins pretty typically enough. Freddy Krueger stalks those who according to the rules, deserve what they get. Freddy himself is frightening, with a very limited dialogue and terrifying persona. In later sequels, he becomes a humourous villain, but in the first of the series is where we see Krueger at his menacing best. But somewhere along the line, it all goes haywire, culminating in the death of Glen (Johnny Depp)Nancy's boyfriend, polite and sweet who doesn't have sex during the course of the film.You find yourself saying,"hey this can't be right, he shouldn't be dead". But that is exactly the kind of reaction that Craven wants from you.

The horror, doesn't end with the apparent death of Freddy, Craven still pays homage to the typical ending of his genre, with the 'he's-not-quite-dead-yet' ending, but it is the way in which he does it. Craven makes you comfortable by having you believe that everything is ok, that it was all just a lil dream and dreams can't really hurt you, that is until the very end. It shocks you, leaving to come to your own deductions, similar to the ending of The Exorcist, it is up to you to judge who triumphed, good or evil.

When you think about it, what was worse for Nancy, the stalking of Freddy or her gradual sleep depravation, how long can anyone survive in their right mind with no sleep. Plus it also demonstrates that at the core of those sleepy American towns, something is rotten. The image of these surbanites in the form of Nancy and her friends parents, forming a mob and setting fire to Freddy Krueger, is in a sense more frightening than the child molesting, murdering image of Freddy himself. Craven like Stephen King, likes to illustrate in his work that some of the most horrid things happen in small quite towns. Maybe because around these times, America was reeling from the emergence of numerous serial killers. Whatever the reason, this film is a classic for so many reasons, and I dare anyone to tell me different!!