We’re getting so close to Halloween...One of my favorite classics is the one and only A Nightmare On Elm Street! Wes Craven had already shocked the world with The Last House On The Left but in 1984 A Nightmare On Elm Street made him one of the masters of horror.
The movie follows Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) a high school student that is as innocent as can be. Her friend Tina has these awful dreams of this mysterious man that chases her around in her dreams. Tina wants Nancy and a few friends to sleep over her house.. One of the pals is Glen Lantz, who is played by the one and only Johnny Depp. Everything is fine until Rod Lane comes over and crashes the party. He winds up scoring with Tina while Glen is bored to tears because he isn’t scoring with the prude Nancy. Everything is calm until Freddy comes and brutally kills Tina! Whipping her around the room and slashing her body, dripping in a pool of blood. Rod takes off and leaves Nancy and Glen confused.
Rod is on the run for his life thinking he’s going to be accused of murdering Tina. Soon– Lt. Donald Thompson, Nancy’s father, played by a favorite of mine, John Saxon. comes in the picture and arrests Rod. Well then things happen to Rod…so who is killing these people?! Nancy unravels a wild mystery about who Freddy Krueger is and why he’s killing everyone on Elm Street.
This movie is a real classic. In my opinion The Last House On The Left should’ve blown Wes Craven up because that movie scared the crap out of me. Still does. A Nightmare On Elm Street is more commercial horror, so it does make complete sense why this movie made him who he is today. This movie started the career of Johnny Depp as first movie!
The cast did a phenomenal job in this movie , another powerful performance by the best John Saxon! Heather Langenkamp was actually really attractive in this movie too, or was it just me who thought that? Amanda Wyss (played Tina) she was hot too!
My favorite scene is definitely the part where Tina gets murdered. The way they filmed that with a rotating room and everything was just visually amazing and bad ass. Bonus features on dvd’s show the making of how they did that and it’s seriously one of the coolest things. This movie was also the movie that built New Line Cinema or should I say the house that Freddy built. New Line Cinema was a no name company until ANOES came out and put them on the map. Later producing movies like Menace II Society, Friday trilogy, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and so many other big titles.
ANOES wound up having six films in the franchise. They’re all very entertaining movies but there are only a few in the franchise that are worthy. The second one was all right. Not bad but it had this really weird vibe to it--watch part 2 and you’ll be a little confused.
The third one is probably my favorite throughout the whole franchise. Heather Langenkamp returns, John Saxon returns, Wes Craven wrote it. It was a good movie. Hey, Patricia Arquette is in it too! Chuck Russell directed it!
The fourth one for some reason is another favorite of mine in the franchise. It has characters from the third one in it.This one was just real bizarre like. Renny Harlin directed it and that dude makes like all these big Hollywood action movies now but this was his first movie. I love the scene when Alice keeps running in circles with Dan to get to their one friend before Freddy does. It’s exactly how dreams are and it replicated that so perfectly.
The fifth one got a little weird and was random and silly to me but it is still entertains-lets move on.
The sixth one was my favorite for the longest time when I was a kid. It was goofy and all but it was pretty bizarre and I liked seeing the origin of Freddy and stuff. That was pretty cool. Alice Cooper is in it! Johnny Depp comes back! Rosanne and Tom Arnold are in it! Pft, this movie is great! Oh yeah! Spencer! Breckin Meyer is in this one too! Damn, I do love this movie. This was supposed to be the final nightmare...oh Hollywood.
Wes Craven returned to the directing chair with Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. This movie was pretty cool and a solid way to bring back the franchise in an appropriate manner. Heather returned, Saxon returned, Wes returned. New Line was back in business and kicking ass. This one was what if Freddy was real? Cool concept.
Just recently ta 3 and a half hour documentary was released: Never Sleep Again. It covers every single movies in the franchise with interviews, behind the scenes, etc. It’s really awesome and definitely a watch if you’re a fan of the franchise.
So there ya have it! Check out the entire A Nightmare On Elm Street franchise if you haven’t already and enjoy the series that birthed one of the most iconic horror monsters!
4 days till Halloween.
-Jay
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