A Nightmare on Elm Street: Films (1984-2003)

01. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Dir. Wes Craven

Prior to re-watching the first of the Elm Street movies recently, it had been well over a decade — perhaps even closer to two — since I'd last seen it, but I remembered almost every scene as if it was yesterday. It's because I'd watched it many times on an ex-rental VHS as a teenager. In all honesty, and accounting for nostalgia, it holds up rather well.

If you're not familiar with the set-up, it's the story of a group of teenagers, all of whom reside on the titular Elm Street, whose dreams are haunted by a killer with blades on one gloved hand. The killer's reasons for doing what he does are part of the film's plot, so I won't delve any deeper than that.

One of the movie's strengths is its atmosphere, and by polluting the safety net of the unconscious, by turning a place of retreat into a realm of pure terror for the story's protagonists, it sticks in the mind.

The killer's design is an iconic one. I'm not just referring to the four deadly blades that are fixed to his glove. The hat quickly identifies him in silhouette and the stained green and red colouring of his sweater, an uncomfortable combination for the eyes, adds to his evil aura - the pairing was probably a nightmare of a different kind for cinematographer Jacques Haitkin. If you want more information, a search for 'chromatic aberration' is a good starting point.

- Elm Street's Freddy Krueger. -

In addition to Krueger's evil intent, he has a sick sense of humour, which plays into the horror of his character - he toys with his victims like a cat with blades in place of claws, delighting in their attempts at escape. Dreams are his playground, his hunting ground, and his killing ground.

The skipping rhyme is a clever addition, suggesting that Freddy's deeds have passed into legend, the urban myth kind that gets passed down in school yards and whispered about behind bicycle sheds by frightened children. The feeling that it may even have evolved over time (e.g. the 'one' to 'six' part could've been in existence before his savagery supposedly ended, with the 'seven' to 'ten' part being added at a later date) adds weight to the notion that his power has grown bit by bit over the intervening years. (On a side note, the rhyme was probably inspired by Ringa Ringa Roses, which sounds friendly but is believed by some folks to have a deeper historical meaning.)

Ultimately, through either careful planning or blind luck, the individual elements of costume design and personification of psychological terrors gel to produce something that works on a number of levels. It's by far the best of Wes Craven's films that I've seen, to date.

02: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

Dir. Jack Sholder

I remembered Freddy's Revenge as being the Elm Street movie with the school bus, and as being absolute garbage. Both memories were accurate.

Robert Englund is still enthusiastic as Krueger, and the story, about a new resident on the titular street who's targeted by the undead fiend, does attempt to do something different, the youth isn't just another victim, but it's as weak as piss and descends into a 1980s teen-horror pool party shit-fest.

It has one astonishingly good FX scene (around 55 mins into the running time) and Christoper Young's music is good, but overall it's a movie that I've no desire to ever watch again and, having written these words, now hopefully have no reason to, either.

03. Dream Warriors (1987)

Dir. Chuck Russell

The first NoES is arguably the best the series has to offer, but Dream Warriors is my personal favourite.

It's a bit of a misnomer, seeing as how events don't take place on the street at all. It could be more accurately described as a nightmare of Elm Street.

It's set instead inside Westin Hospital, a psychiatric ward in which all of the resident teenagers suffer from some kind of sleeping disorder. Taking place one year after Freddy's Revenge (which was six years after the first one), it has a familiar face in a returning role - besides Englund, that is, who stars as Krueger in all of the movies mentioned here.

Of the new faces the most important character is Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette), a young girl who dreams of the house that the original movie's Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) once lived in.

She's the most important for reasons that are, once again, spoiler, and there's no proper explanation given for why she can do the things she does, but it serves the plot well and like part two's change of objective it tries to add something new and interesting to the formula.

The opposing viewpoints of the patients' condition, i.e. the voice of direct experience vs the objective voice of clinical reasoning, isn't particularly original but it's at least believable.

In addition to that, part three offers up an intriguing backstory for the murderous antagonist, one that gets explored further in a later sequel.

Weirdly, there's at least one scene that feels like it belongs more in a Stephen King adaptation than an Elm Street one. And on a personal note, I loved the Ray Harryhausen homage.

04. The Dream Master (1988)

Dir. Renny Harlin

NOTE: THIS SECTION CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS FOR THE THIRD FILM.

A direct sequel to Dream Warriors, in which an angry Freddy returns to claim the last descendants of the original Elm Street parents; i.e. the kids from Westin Hospital that weren't killed off last time.

And now that he's got a taste for ridiculous kills, the original kids aren't enough for him, so he seeks out a conduit that'll allow him to kill their friends, too.

The Kristen character, previously Patricia Arquette, is recast with Tuesday Knight, who has a great name but does a terrible job. But she's not alone in that, because almost everyone else is terrible, too.

The best of them is Lisa Wilcox as daydreamer Alice Johnson, the sister of the boy that Kristen is dating.

Alice experiences a kind of awakening of spirit and confidence, but the script fails to make best use of it and as things progress towards the final confrontation it grows increasingly stupid.

The occasional nod to other horror works was a fun addition (e.g. there's a poster for Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977) movie and one character has a dog named Jason), and some of the practical effects are commendable, but overall The Dream Master is another shit sequel to a decent odd numbered entry - it's like the Star Trek movie phenomenon in reverse, thus far!

PS. Scream queen Linnea Quigley has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo near the movie's end.

05. The Dream Child (1989)

Dir. Stephen Hopkins

NOTE: THIS SECTION CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS FOR THE FOURTH FILM.

I don't understand what's going on with the poster art. Part four had Freddy's left eye protruding, but now it's his right eye that's popping. It's baffling.

Incongruous key art aside, it's another rubbish entry that further reduces the credibility of the character in the horror pantheon. Set one year after The Dream Master (1988), it picks up the story of Alice (Lisa Wilcox), and provides a minor insight into the life of Freddy's mother, Amanda (Beatrice Boepple).

And that's about all I can remember. I've lost the page of scriblings that I made while viewing. I've did that before, with other films, and ordinarily I'd feel foolish, but on this occasion I feel lucky because I won't have to write any more about part five.

06. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Dir. Rachel Talalay

Originally meant to be the final Nightmare film, part six is an utter travesty. The poster art is a hint of what you're in for. Notice how Freddy is reaching out toward the viewer? Yup, it's moved beyond mere ridiculousness into gimmick territory; the finale of the film is in 3D. You'll know when it starts because the use of anaglyph glasses (the red and blue kind) is shoehorned into the pathetic script.

There's some gubbins about one final teenager (Shon Greenblatt) with a connection to the events in Springwood. He's a hapless sap with convenient amnesia through which Freddy can influence the dreams of other folks, via a series of nonsensical scenes that are painful to watch. The video game scenario is particularly bad; I've seen some woeful things in horror movies, but it wins the shit-cup.

The story offers an explanation for Freddy's return from the grave; not just since the previous film, but from the very beginning. It tells of how he gained the ability to invade people's dreams after his mortal body was destroyed. It's not something that I wanted to know, I'd rather it had remained a mystery, but no doubt some Freddy fans will be accepting or even pleased with the result.

There seems to be no definite line between real and dream, but it may be that I zoned out when that was being defined. I'll never know for sure, because it's another I'll never watch again.

07. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

Dir. Wes Craven

The Final Nightmare wasn't very final, but before it was continued we got New Nightmare, which is technically a Freddy Krueger movie but is set in the real world, not a part of the series continuity.

Wes Craven is back on director duties; he got his name in the title, too, in case there was any doubt. But, more than that, it has relevance to the plot.

Reworking an unused idea that Craven reportedly pitched to the studio many years before, New Nightmare has Krueger terrorising the cast and crew of the films in their real world, That means we have Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, John Saxon, and Wes Craven playing themselves.

The basic premise is that writer/director Wes Craven is quietly working on a new Elm Street movie that's set to feature the original film's Nancy (Langenkamp), pitting her once again against the undead child killer. But Craven has been using ideas from his own nightmares, which somehow enables an evil entity to take on the role of Freddy in the stars' real lives, stalking and killing people in fan-pleasing and self-referential ways.

The famous glove was redesigned, because stupid ideas aren't exclusive to just mainline entries.

Craven's movie initially seems more sophisticated than the weak sequels that we were subjected to previously, and it manages to claw back some dignity for the series antagonist, but as it drags toward the finale it crumbles and Freddy's dignity goes down the shitter once more.

08. Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Dir. Ronny Yu

In case a viewer isn't familiar with both horror icons, there's some helpful recapping. And because it respects the continuity of both franchises, the NoES one excludes any reference to the non-canonical Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994).

In the Friday the 13th recap the machete-wielding masked slasher Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) is in the sleep of death, dreaming of the lake, into which wanders an obligatory skinny-dipping screamer with fake tits, fodder for the killing-machine.

The key words there are 'sleep' and 'dreaming', a vulnerable state that provides an avenue for Freddy to worm his way in. Under the influence of Krueger, the resurrected Jason makes his way to Springwood to slice and dice some unlucky Elm Street residents.

The two evil antagonists work surprisingly well together: mute Jason kills methodically in the real world, while talkative Freddy kills creatively in the dream world; one of them died in fire and the other in water. In both respects, they're opposites that nevertheless complement each other.

Freddy needs belief and fear in order to survive, but Jason wants to kill everything that moves. If there's no one left to fear him, Freddy will wither away. The differing agendas give the duo a legitimate reason to go head-to-head, while also providing straight-up fan-service. It has more in common with the slasher genre than fantasy-horror, but both are allowed time to shine.

At it's best, Ronny Yu's film is ridiculously good fun. The ending could've been better, but it also could've been a lot worse (as evidenced by most of the films mentioned above this one).

NOTE: I bought the entire collection on DVD from a charity shop for the princely sum of £2.50. The first seven discs were in a box set, while the eighth was a separate release. I don't know if the current Blu-ray fares much better, but the PQ of part one on R2 DVD is atrocious; it looks to be taken from a poorly made release print. I can understand why someone donated it.

I also don't know if it was the discs or some kind of incompatibility with my player (a Sony BDP), but every now and again it would throw up subtitles in a random language, often a few seconds after the corresponding dialogue had passed. It was bizarre and as annoying as hell. It happened on all seven of the NoES discs, but not once on the (separate) Freddy vs. Jason (2003) disc.