The 9th of November 1984 saw the release of one of the most refreshing and influential horror films of all time. A Nightmare on Elm Street is 40 years old this year and seeing as it is Halloween season, it kind of makes sense for me to have a look at the franchise… all of it. The films, the TV show, and a load of other stuff that I can find that’s Nightmare and Freddy Krueger related. Well then, I guess I’d better delve into the depth of the nightmare that is the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. This part of the retrospective is going to explore all of the official films and yep, it is back to 1984 with the first film in the franchise. But first, how it all began…

Written and directed by Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street (like many great fictional stories) does have some roots in reality. The basic idea for the film came to Wes after he read several newspaper articles in the Los Angeles Times covering stories of young men mysteriously dying in their sleep. As Wes himself explained when he was interviewed by Cine Fantastique Online:

“It was a series of articles in the LA Times, three small articles about men from South East Asia, who were from immigrant families. One was the son of a physician. Everybody in his family said almost exactly these lines: ‘You must sleep.’ He said, ‘No, you don’t understand; I’ve had nightmares before – this is different.’ He was given sleeping pills and told to take them and supposedly did, but he stayed up. I forget what the total days he stayed up was, but it was a phenomenal amount – something like six, seven days. Finally, he was watching television with the family, fell asleep on the couch, and everybody said, ‘Thank god.’ They literally carried him upstairs to bed; he was completely exhausted. Everybody went to bed, thinking it was all over. In the middle of the night, they heard screams and crashing. They ran into the room, and by the time they got to him he was dead. They had an autopsy performed, and there was no heart attack; he just had died for unexplained reasons. They found in his closet a Mr. Coffee maker, full of hot coffee that he had used to keep awake, and they also found all his sleeping pills that they thought he had taken; he had spit them back out and hidden them. It struck me as such an incredibly dramatic story that I was intrigued by it for a year, at least, before I finally thought I should write something about this kind of situation.”

While Wes had an idea for a story of people dying in their sleep, he didn’t yet have a reason why the people in his story were dying in their sleep. Eventually, that too would come from real life. The iconic Freddy Krueger (kind of) really did exist. As Wes has told the story himself over the years. When he was a child, he was in his bedroom and saw an old man (wearing a tatty old hat) walking past his home. As Wes watched the man, he suddenly stopped his walk and stared directly at the young Wes Craven, scaring him. Instinctively, Wes ducked out of sight and waited a few moments for the old man to walk past. When young Wes finally plucked up the courage to look out of his bedroom window again, the old man was still there and still staring. Eventually, the old man just walked away. But that scare stayed with Wes and it evolved into Freddy Krueger. Even the name came from Wes’ childhood, as he had a bully at school called Fred Krueger. Wes Craven named the main villain of his earlier film, The Last House on the Left, after that same bully. In fact, two of the villains from that film were named after Wes’ childhood bully, Fred “Weasel” Podowski and Krug Stillo.

After he finished the screenplay in 1981, Wes tried to sell it to various studios. At one point, Disney showed an interest, but they wanted Wes to cut back on the violence and make it a scary film suitable for kids. Obviously, that didn’t happen and eventually, Wes came across the company New Line Cinema, which was only a film distributor and a very minor one at that. New Line’s founder, Robert “Bob” Shaye began by distributing little-known and very low-budget films, often foreign-language flicks. New Line really was a small-time operation and the company hardly had two pennies to rub together. Bob has gone on record as saying that, at the time, his office was the trunk of his beat-up car, where he used to keep the films he would distribute to sleazy cinemas. When the script for A Nightmare on Elm Street came across Bob’s desk (car trunk), he didn’t just want to distribute it, he wanted to produce it too. The trouble was that New Line didn’t have the money to produce a feature film. Long story short, Bob Shaye managed to get a few investors involved to help fund the film. Then, in 1984, A Nightmare on Elm Street was released and from a $1.8 million budget, the film brought in an impressive $57 million box office, in 1984 money (roughly $173 million today). New Line Cinema went from a minor film distributor – to one of the biggest production studios working in Hollywood. Yet, even with multiple massive film successes over the years (The Lord of the Rings, IT, The Mask, Austin Powers and many, many more), the studio is still known as “The House that Freddy Built”, because New Line Cinema really began after the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street. And with all of that out of the way, it’s now time to take a look at every official film in the Nightmare franchise.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Written and directed by Wes Craven, the basic plot of A Nightmare on Elm Street tells the story of a notorious child killer called Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). The backstory is that, due to an oversight by the police during his arrest, Freddy is set free. A group of vigilante parents track Freddy down to his hiding place and burn him alive. The vigilante murder is covered up, but years later, Freddy comes back for revenge by killing the teenagers of Elm Street in their sleep. Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) is the teenage girl being haunted by Freddy in her nightmares, to the point where she becomes too afraid to sleep, especially after two of her school friends have seemingly died while having nightmares. With some help from her boyfriend Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp), Nancy plans on bringing Freddy out of the dream world and into the real world to try and stop him.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is the very definition of a classic and a film that still holds up very well today. What Psycho did for showers and what Jaws did for swimming in the sea, A Nightmare on Elm Street did for sleeping. Freddy Krueger was so iconic throughout the 1980s that the character became a genuine superstar. Freddy Mania was an actual thing that saw the character pop up in all sorts of unusual places, some of which I’ll look into later in this retrospective. The actor who played Freddy, Robert Englund was catapulted into horror stardom. Heather Langenkamp is still considered to be one of the finest on-screen horror heroines, 40 years later. And then there’s that Johnny Depp fella in his first-ever acting role, which he got by accident just because Wes Craven’s daughter thought he was cute (true story). I don’t think Johnny went on to do anything of note though.

Released at a time when the horror genre was seen as cheap schlock, A Nightmare on Elm Street felt very refreshing and new. Really and at its core, the film is nothing more than just another slasher flick, a genre that was everywhere back then – thanks to the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween. However, it was Wes Craven’s concept of a killer hunting kids in their dreams, when they are at their most vulnerable, and his fresh take on horror that really gave the film a unique lift. Some of the scenes in the film have gone down in horror cinema history as being truly memorable. Freddy pushing himself through a wall, a very simple and cheap effect done with a bit of stretched spandex material. Nancy lying in the bathtub with Freddy’s glove appearing between her legs. Oh, and let’s not forget the bloody demise of Glen. A Nightmare on Elm Street is, for want of a better phrase, iconic.

Even now and four decades since its original release, I feel that the original film still packs a punch. It is genuinely creepy and scary with some wonderfully grotesquely horrific imagery and surreal dream scenes. This is a testament to Wes’ vision and ideas of what a horror film should be. This film felt highly unique at a time when horror films were getting stale and samey. A Nightmare on Elm Street was/is dark, it was/is scary and it was/is brilliant Something that can not honestly be said about the sequels… which I will get to in good time. Until then, for me, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a true horror classic. The birth of Freddy Krueger and the launchpad for Johnny Depp’s career.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

Released in 1985 and gone is Wes Craven. You see, Wes had no interest in making any sequels and always intended the first film to be a one-off. Wes even had a bit of a falling out with Bob Shaye of New Line Cinema over how the first film should end, as Wes wanted a definitive and happy ending that outright killed Freddy off. However, Bob wanted a more open end that could pave the way for sequels. The two had a massive argument and Wes moved away from the franchise after the release of the first film. Anyway, instead of Wes Craven, we get a film written by David Chaskin and directed by Jack Sholder.

Set five years after the events of the first film, a new family have moved into the Thompson’s house, the Walshes. The focus is on Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton), a very typical high school kid who finds Nancy’s diary left in her old bedroom. When Jesse starts to have his own nightmares featuring Freddy Krueger, he notices similarities to what Nancy wrote about in her diary. Jesse’s dreams get more intense and he starts to feel that Freddy is somehow possessing him. With help from his girlfriend Lisa Webber (Kim Myers), Jesse tries to stop Freddy from taking over his body.

This was the first Nightmare film that I ever saw. My older brother rented the VHS from a local shop and I remember staying up late one weekend and watching it after my Mom had gone to bed one night. I was probably not much older than 10 or 11 at the time and it scared the shit out of me. Depending on who you ask, this is either one of the worst or one of the better sequels in the franchise. For me? I love it. I think that the fact it was the first of the Nightmare films that I ever saw gives it a few bonus points. Not as great as the original, but this was the last time that Freddy Krueger was genuinely scary for a good few years. In fact, I may even be so bold to say that this first sequel was even scarier than the original. It may not be as great an overall film, but it sure is dark and really bloody scary witrh nightmarish imagery. What was with those creepy dogs with baby doll faces?

Often called “the gay one” as it has undeniable homoerotic overtones. Plus, there is the fact that Jesse is played by a gay actor, though Mark Patton was not openly gay at the time of filming. Jesse is often seen as the first male scream queen, due to how the character was portrayed with a lot of feminine-like screaming. Fans and critics have picked this film apart due to its (none-too-subtle) gay subtext, Wikipedia even has a specific entry detailing the homoerotic nature of this film. All of which was lost on me as a 10-year-old watching this on VHS all those years ago. But watching it now as an adult? Yeah, it’s kind of hard to miss. Mark Patton even produced and starred in a documentary in 2019 looking at how the film became “gay” and how it affected his career, it is well worth a watch. Still, homoeroticism (intended or not) aside, I honestly think that A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is a great horror sequel. It has a few problems, but it holds up very well all these years later. Freddy is really dark and scary here, something he won’t be for several years due to the comedy elements added to the character in the other sequels. And with that, I now get into, what I feel, is the decline of the franchise and the Freddy Krueger character.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

With a story by Wes Craven and Bruce Wagner, while being directed by Chuck Russell in 1987. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is a massive fan-favourite and often cited as the best sequel in the franchise… just not for me. While Wes did come back to pen the story for this one and does have a writing credit, a lot of his ideas were changed when it was written into a screenplay. Wes’ original concept of this film was much more macabre, dark and cerebral, and his original story is almost nothing like what was used in the film. Info about the original script(s) that Wes Craven and Bruce Wagner wrote can be found here and I think we lost something with a lot of great potential in favour of something far safer.

Of course, Freddy is back and this time, he’s terrorising the last of the Elm Street children (not counting all of the other “last” Elm Street children in the other sequels). A young lass called Kristen (Patricia Arquette) begins to have nightmares about Freddy. Kristen’s mother thinks she’s going a wee bit crazy, so she has her daughter admitted to Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital. Here, Kristen crosses paths with some other Elm Street kids and they learn that they have powers in their dreams that turn them into the titular Dream Warriors. They team up to try and take Freddy down on his home turf, the dream world. Oh, and Nancy from the first film is back too.

I know that this is a huge fan-favourite and that it is often seen as the best sequel or even the best film in the franchise. I honestly can’t agree. Nightmare 3 is the point where the franchise begins to take a nosedive, this is the film where scary Freddy starts to disappear, to be replaced by “funny” Freddy. Now, there are things that I really do enjoy about A Nightmare on Elm Street 3. I like that there are some very creative and great-looking dream/death sequences, the puppet/Philip death being a particular highlight. In fact, all of the sequels got more creative with the deaths. I have a theory that the worse the films got, the better the death sequences became. It’s great that Heather Langenkamp came back as Nancy and the way her character is used makes a lot of sense. But, it’s not scary and that is mostly due to Freddy with his shit puns and wisecracks. This is a decent, cheesy horror film, it’s just not a particularly good Nightmare film. I really do like the teaser trailer though, it’s better than the actual film.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

Once more, Wes Craven was approached to write the script for this one. From what I gather, Wes’ story involved time travel within dreams. However, the producers didn’t like that idea and went for an extension of the previous Dream Warriors concept instead. Directed by Renny Harlin with a story from William Kotzwinkle and Brian Helgeland. The survivors from Nightmare 3 cross paths with the new girl, Alice (Lisa Wilcox). As the previous survivors and Alice’s friends are killed off by Freddy, she gains their dream powers to become the titular Dream Master. Several great (and one truly terrible) death scenes later, Alice faces Freddy herself using all of her powers to defeat him… again.

I’ve always felt that this was a step up from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3. I’m still not much of a fan of comedy Freddy and his bad puns are worse than before but, as an overall film, I enjoyed this much more than the previous instalment. A lot of it comes from the great death scenes but before I do get to those, I have to quickly cover the really bad one. Yep, it’s the martial arts fight against an invisible Freddy. Originally, there was going to be a much more elaborate death scene, but the budget couldn’t cover it… so they just filmed an actor fighting nobody on a really cheap-looking set that probably cost about $15, and made out that Freddy was invisible. It’s awful, which is a shame because the other death scenes are great and are very much a highlight of the film. Cockroach Motel anyone?

Then there’s the déjà vu/time-loop dream. It’s brilliant and probably the most dream-like dream in the whole franchise. The icing on the cake is Lisa Wilcox playing Alice. now, don’t tell anyone this but… I actually much prefer Lisa and Alice over Heather and Nancy as the heroine. Yeah, Heather is the original Freddy girl and she is great, but I just prefer Alice as a character and think that Lisa Wilcox played her brilliantly. Oh, and Freddy gets brought back by a dog pissing fire on his buried bones. As stupid as that sounds, it’s a wonderfully crazy resurrection scene with some fantastic effects work. The dog being called Jason may even be a little nod to Friday the 13th. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master has some fantastic scenes and one or two not-very-great scenes. Not-scary Freddy delivers crap puns and one-liners, and his demise at the end is a bit poo too. But I’d be lying to myself If I said that I didn’t enjoy this one to some degree.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

As enjoyable as the previous film was, this isn’t. For this sequel, Stephen Hopkins was in the director’s chair with John Skipp, Craig Spector and Leslie Bohem penning the story, and the three writers may just explain why this is such a mess. Alice is back and she starts to have visions of a nun called Amanda Krueger (Beatrice Boepple), Freddy’s mother. One of these visions shows Amanda giving birth to a deformed baby that runs off to the church where Freddy was defeated in the previous film. Alice follows the baby and it finds Freddy’s remains, and yep, Freddy is back. This is despite Alice being the Dream Master and able to control her dreams. Long story short, it turns out that Alice is pregnant and Freddy has been able to come back via her unborn child’s dreams and not Alice’s. Alice finds out and she has to do battle with Freddy, not only to try and save her friends – but also her unborn son.

To be honest, there are some elements that I enjoyed with this one. I think the idea to explore Freddy’s lineage was a good one. The Amanda Krueger character was introduced back in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, but she was older and post-Freddy’s birth. This is a younger Amanda and we learn that she was raped by inmates of an asylum when she was accidentally locked inside, and Freddy became the “bastard son of a hundred maniacs”. But, the story also has a lot of unnecessary crap that really should’ve been cut out and the plot becomes pretty convoluted for a slasher flick, probably due to the story having three writers. There are some good death sequences but apparently, they were censored by the MPAA and what we see in the final print is a very sanitised version. Then there’s the fact that this film was rushed into production because A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master did so well at the box office. Nightmare 4 was released in August 1988 and Nightmare 5 was released in August 1989, that’s an incredibly fast turn around and the rushed nature of the film really shows on the screen too. When talking to Fangoria magazine while promoting Predator 2, director Stephen Hopkins said of this film:

“It was a rushed schedule without a reasonable budget and after I finished it, New Line and the MPAA came in and cut the guts out of it completely. What started out as an OK film with a few good bits turned into a total embarrassment. I can’t even watch it anymore.”

Yup, that just about sums it up. This one is a very weak film overall and even with the fantastic Lisa Wilcox returning to play Alice, it’s not enough to give this film a decent lift. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is far from being a terrible film – because it does have a handful of redeeming qualities – but it is a very lax Nightmare film that feels flat, messy and (thanks to the MPAA) it was released not as the director intended.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare

Well, this is it. The very last Nightmare film. It’s right there in the title, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. That’s two finalities in one title and they wouldn’t lie… would they? Maybe I am being a bit unfair here because this really was the intended end for the franchise, they really wanted to kill Freddy off and the series with him. But I’ll get to all of that soon enough. This sixth entry of the films was directed and written by Rachel Talalay (who has worked behind the scenes on some of the other films in the franchise).

Set in the future of “ten years from now”, Freddy is back. No explanation as to how as with all of the other sequels, he’s just back and has killed pretty much every teenager on Elm Street… except for one. A young fella only known as “John Doe” (Shon Greenblatt), who suffers from amnesia and has been having some Freddy nightmares. John ends up being taken to a troubled teenager’s shelter where he meets several other troubled teens. The shelter’s resident doctor is Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane) and she discovers some newspaper clippings in John’s pocket about Springwood, the home of Elm Street and Freddy. So, to try and help with his amnesia, Maggie takes John to Springwood to see if that will get his memory working again. Of course, taking the last Elm Street kid back to Elm Street is exactly what Freddy wanted and John learns that he may not just be the last Elm Street kid, but he may even be Freddy’s son.

This sequel is kind of hard to summarise – but I’ll try. It’s like what a live-action cartoon version of a Nightmare film would be if written and directed by someone who hates the franchise. It is utter nonsense and a really piss-poor way to kill off a horror icon. Yet, I kind of like it. I don’t know, maybe after the average-poor sequels, I’ve just been so worn down that expectations are on the floor. Don’t get me wrong, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is an utter shit-show – but it has a certain charm. The deaths are pretty creative and Robert Englund seems to be having a ball. But, the film is a mess and it makes very little sense, or it’s just being used to force in cameos that have no reason to be there… why are Roseane and Tom Arnold here? Why is Alice Copper here (actually, that was pretty awesome)? Why does Johnny Depp get a cameo? Yes, Johnny Depp is in this doing a parody of those “your brain on drugs” ads. The tagline for this one was “They saved the best for last”, utter bullshit.

Oh, I can’t forget the 3D finale of the film. Yep, this has a 3D element, and not the good 3D used today, but the old red and cyan glasses, anaglyph 3D stuff. Even by 1991 when this was released, the idea felt about a decade out of date. It’s a crap gimmick that really didn’t add anything to the film. Then there is the death of Freddy himself, it is so anti-climatic and despite it being a literal explosion, it’s more like a damp squib going off. They even held a mock funeral for Freddy that was held at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles as part of the promotion for the film. This could’ve been great and they had plenty of time to write a fantastic send-off to a true horror icon… and they went with something stolen from a Road Runner cartoon. Still, I guess that it does fit in well with my calling this film a live-action cartoon. It just needed Porky Pig to pop up at the end to say “Th-th-th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

So I guess that with Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, Freddy didn’t die and it wasn’t the final nightmare then? I remember reading about this being announced in a newspaper. It didn’t have a title at the time and it was just being called “another sequel” or something like “Nightmare 7”. I could not muster up any interest in watching another bad sequel after the previous film, so I ignored it, which was very easy to do back then as we didn’t have websites ruining everything about a film months before it was released. Then I saw the trailer and I had a lot of questions. I also suddenly became very interested purely because Wes Craven was the writer and director. Oh yeah, if the title of the film hadn’t clued you in, the creator of the franchise is back.

This is a very bizarre sequel to describe because it’s not really a sequel in the traditional sense. It is a sequel in that it sequentially follows the previous films, it is a sequel in that the events in the film take place due to the previous films. But it’s not a sequel that continues the story from the previous entry in the franchise. In many ways, it is stand-alone, yet this film would not exist without the original. In fact, it is so reliant on the first film that you can watch the original, skip every sequel after it, jump right into this one, and miss none of the plot. Do you know how there are sequels made today that ignore previous films and create a new timeline? Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is kind of like that, only it did it nearly three decades before it became a trend.

The story follows Heather Langenkamp, but she’s not playing Nancy from the franchise, she is playing herself and the film is set in the real world. Anyway, Heather has a nightmare about someone being killed on the set of a new Nightmare sequel that’s being directed by Wes Craven. She’s also getting phone calls from a stalker pretending to be Freddy Krueger. Heather is invited to a meeting with Bob Shaye at New Line Cinema about making one last Nightmare film. In fact, Wes has already been writing the script, and the lines between the real world and the film world begin to blur.

Released in 1994 to mark the 10th anniversary of the first film – so it’s the 30th anniversary now… within this 40th anniversary celebration. For me, this is the best film in the series since the first one. It’s really clever, imaginative and even better, it’s genuinely scary. Freddy is back, but he’s not as it’s not the fictional Freddy from the films. It is an evil entity that was trapped in the films, but becomes free since the franchise ended and this entity takes on the guise of Freddy. The writing is sharp and I’d even say that this is the best film that Wes had ever scribed. This version of Freddy is dark and scary, no longer making crap jokes and puns. The film gets very meta before Scream did it (also directed by Wes Craven) and I’d even say this does meta horror better than Scream did too.

Unfortunately, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare ended up doing really badly at the box office and it is even the lowest-grossing film in the franchise. That may have had something to do with the fact that it opened on the same day as Pulp Fiction. Quentin Tarantino was this massively popular writer/director following the release of Reservoir Dogs a couple of years earlier. Wes Craven was the old has-been who hadn’t had a hit for years. Pulp Fiction had already won several accolades including the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare was seen as just another pointless sequel to a long-tired franchise. You can understand why this film was (unfairly) overlooked at the time. Over the years though, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare seems to have found its audience and its modern-day reception is far better than when it was originally released. A brilliant and clever flick and a worthy sequel to the first.

Freddy vs. Jason

Now it’s time for two of the biggest horror icons of the ’80s to finally clash. Released in 2003 and directed by Ronny Yu, Freddy vs. Jason was a long time coming. This was meeting was teased back in 1993 with the ending of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. In fact, New Line Cinema purchased the rights from Paramount Pictures so that they could make this team-up happen. However, the project was stuck in development hell for over a decade.  But I’ll cover that later. For now, the plot.

So Freddy is stuck in Hell and unable to use his powers to invade people’s dreams. People have moved on and Freddy is long forgotten about, as he is forgotten, he is not feared and if he is not feared, then he has no power. While in Hell, Freddy resurrects Jason and manipulates him to kill by pretending to be Jason’s mother. As Jason kills, the people of Spingwood begin to believe that Freddy is back, they remember and fear him once more, giving Freddy the power he needs to invade people’s dreams. Then Jason learns that Freddy manipulated him and used his mother’s image… which just pisses Jason off. The two go at it in a bloody orgy of violence.

A confession. I forgot that this film even existed. I remembered all of the other films, all of the bad sequels and even the remake (which I cover next). I wrote the first draft of this retrospective and I did a couple of follow-up drafts, edited, and added some pictures and such, and it was ready to be published, I thought I was done. Nope. It was when I was scrolling through social media that the trailer for this film appeared. That was when I realised that I hadn’t included it in this retrospective. I can kind of understand why I had forgotten all about this too… it’s a bit dull. Don’t get me wrong, it has some good moments. The opening is great and really captures the style and tone of the Friday the 13th series. The final battle with Freddy and Jason is amazing – but pretty much everything in between is poor.

It’s ‘yer standard sequel-foddder gubbins. Stupid teens doing stupid things and getting killed. Most of the characters are forgettable and I don’t think that the writers had a clue what they were doing. Still, I’m not sure if I can blame the writers here. As I said before, this film was stuck in development hell for ages. The first time the idea of bringing Freddy and Jason together on film dates back to 1987. Multiple attempts to get the project off the ground failed over the years. Almost 20 writers had a go at coming up with a story and script for this film, along with numerous different directors being attached to the project. It was an utter mess behind the scenes and the end result is a bit of a mess too. Freddy vs. Jason isn’t a terrible film – I’d even say that is one of the better sequels of both franchises… but that’s not saying much. It’s rather underwhelming, given the vast history that these two titans of horror have. A great opening and a fantastic finale, but all the stuff in the middle is where this film breaks under its own weight of unnecessary guff with too many characters being forced into an over-bloated plot. I think this would’ve been better as a two-parter with more time to flesh out the characters and story.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

I guess it was inevitable, the remake had to happen at some point. In 2010, Director Samuel Bayer and writers Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer brought us A Nightmare on Elm Street – the remake. In terms of the basic plot, this film doesn’t detract too far from the original. There are some new characters, but the basic gist is that Nancy (Rooney Mara) and her friends are being terrified by Freddy (Jackie Earle Haley) in their nightmares. As her friends start dying off, Nancy decides to try to take Freddy on herself. As I said, the basic plot is pretty much as it was in the original film. However, this remake does offer some new ideas.

In the original film, the intent was to make Freddy a child molester – but the idea was dropped when a real-life case about child abuse appeared in the press. There were still hints of this backstory in the film though, it was just left as a suggestion rather than explicitly spell it out. With this remake, they outright tell you that Freddy is a nonce. Yet, there is a bit of a twist as Nancy suggests that Freddy could’ve been innocent and that when they were kids, they just made up the stories about him… but then the film switches it up again to explicitly spell it out that yes, Freddy was a bit of a Jimmy Savile. Interestingly, the original script for this did have Freddy being innocent and the parents still killing him. I think this would’ve been a far better idea and it would’ve provided a reason for Freddy to come back. Even in the original film, it made no sense for Freddy to come back for “revenge” when he was guilty.

Most of the iconic scenes from the original are updated for this remake. Nancy in the bath, Tina’s death and being in the bodybag are referenced as are others. Most of them are done really well too. Then there is the infamous Freddy pushing into the wall over Nancy’s bed. In the original film, this was done cheaply with a bit of spandex stretched and the actor pushing himself into it. It looked great, it still does too 40 years later. In this remake, it’s a CGI shot – and it looks bloody terrible. I don’t understand why they spend several hundred-thousand dollars on making a CGI effect shot look really bad, when they could’ve gone to the art department of the production studio and got some spandex for nothing. Still, awful CGI work aside, I quite like this remake. Is it as good as the original? No, but it is better than most of the sequels.

This A Nightmare on Elm Street is dark, it has some good scares, it adds more to the story and best of all, Jackie Earle Haley is a great Freddy too. There are no crap puns and jokes, there is some dark humour as Freddy toys with his victims though. Freddy’s makeup looks good because it was based on actual burn victims, the original Freddy’s makeup was based on melted cheese on a pizza – true story. There were a slew of horror remakes around this time and A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the better ones. It did pretty well at the box office too as it brought in around $117 million against a $35 million budget. However, the “fans” didn’t like it because, let’s be honest, a lot of fans are small/narrow-minded idiots.

The Future?

As of writing, the future of Freddy Krueger and the Nightmare franchise seems to be a bit uncertain. Wes Craven sold the rights to New Line Cinema to make the first film and he lost all creative control. However, due to US law, those rights came back to Wes in 2019 as the law allows writers to reclaim ownership of their work after 35 years. However, Wes passed away in 2015, so the rights to the entire franchise and the names of the characters are now in the hands of Wes’ estate. There have been rumours of both Blumhouse and New Line Cinema bidding to get the rights to make another film, but nothing has ever been confirmed. As it stands, there are no future plans to make any more Nightmare films, at least none that can be confirmed… yet. I do hope that a deal is made because there is a lot of scope for this franchise and the Freddy character. It would be nice to see something different and not just another remake, something a bit more cerebral – something a bit more like Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.

In the meantime and until some news does come about, there are several fan-made films that you can watch – like this fan-made (unofficial) sequel short to Wes Craven’s New Nightmare called Dylan’s New Nightmare. Honestly, it’s pretty good. As for what’s in part two of this retrospective, next I take a look at several A Nightmare on Elm Street copycat films… of varying degrees of quality.