High School student Nancy Thompson, and three of her friends, are haunted by nightmares about a mysterious and frightening man with knives for fingers. When her friend Tina is horrifically murdered, the police suspect her boyfriend, Rod, of the crime. But Nancy begins to believe that the man from their dreams is killing them in her sleep.
She deprives herself of rest in a desperate attempt to stay alive. Finally she learns that the man is Freddy Krueger, a child murderer who was burnt alive by the townspeople years ago. Yet as more of her friends are killed, she realizes that Freddy is alive and dangerous in the dream world. She must face him on his turf if she wants to survive.
Nightmare on Elm Street is undoubtedly one of the greatest horror films of all time. Few slasher films have successfully created such an all encompassing atmosphere of tension, suspense, and terror. The film features a mix of decent and poor acting, with some of the better performances coming from Heather Langenkamp (Tina), Robert Englund (Freddy), and Johnny Depp, who plays Tina's boyfriend Glen and dies in one of the most classic scenes in slasher history. Nightmare is brilliant from start to finish, even if a couple of the special effects are a little cheesy, and some of the music is a bit hokey.
Of course Nightmare on Elm Street has the dubious reputation of being one of the greatest horror films, but also spawning one of the worst series of sequels. Seven sequels followed the 1984 original, most of which were relatively poor all around. Freddy rapidly deteriorates into a wise cracking comedic character and the films transforming into cheese-fests composed of goofy kill scenes and plentiful female nudity strung together with feeble plots. The main exception to this sad rule being the 1994 sequel Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which saw horror master Wes Craven's return to the franchise as writer and director. The film was also remade in 2010 with additional unfortunate results, although nowhere near as dismal as the majority of the sequels.
5 finger knives out of 5
RatedR for bloody horror violence, language, sexuality, and some disturbing images.
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