A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

“Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep” – Nancy Thompson

All things considered – A Nightmare on Elm Street has a pretty low body count compared with some of the movies I’ve lined up for this section. In fact, only four onscreen fatalities at the hands of the man of your dreams, Freddy Krueger. Another thing, the character name here is credited as “Fred Krueger” – throughout the film only Krueger himself refers to himself as “Freddy” during his scant seven minutes of screen time. More trivia – his iconic red and green striped jumper was originally planned to be red and yellow, until writer/director Wes Craven read an article is Scientific American, which stated that red and green was the combination most contrasting to the retina. And oddly, the name “Elm Street” isn’t actually mentioned at all in the film. Not even once.

Late summer 1985 – I was on a weekend break in London. My first visit to the city. I was on one of those package holidays that were pretty popular at the time. I had met up with some friends, and not being particularly a drinker even then, entertainment was called for on the evenings. Entertainment equalled a trip to the cinema even then and that’s how, on the Saturday night, the second night of its opening, I was in attendance. Literally all I knew about the film was it featured a strange looking scarred guy in a fedora. And the only reason I knew that was he featured on a box-out on the cover of the latest Fangoria magazine, which I subscribed to and I’d glanced at quickly before heading out on my adventure the previous day. The film made a strong impression but it wasn’t until its home video release and the ensuing word of mouth that the movie became a massive cult hit and Freddy Krueger was suddenly a cultural icon.

In his debut, Krueger keeps mainly to the shadows, haunting the dreams of his victims. We don’t really get a good look at him, and he wasn’t the wisecracking villain he would later become. He was more of a threat, the less we saw of him. His later mass exposure vastly diminished his menace, in my opinion. And really – what a strange time it was when a child murderer becomes a kind of anti-hero, albeit a fictional child murderer.

Even the rhyme “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…” became as well known to horror fans as the Universal Pictures “Even a man who is pure in heart…” from the Wolfman films of the forties.

It has a strong, if somewhat confusing storyline, hampered by a clumsy ending that has always baffled me, but the let-down of the film lies in the weak, stiff and unconvincing performances of several of the actors – particularly Ronee Blakey who plays Nancy Thompson’s alcoholic mother, and teenage thug Rod Lane, somewhat “acted” by Nick Corri. On the flipside, we have the film debut of Johnny Depp and the breakout for Robert Englund, previously known as a stock villain/henchman on TV and the vegetarian visitor from the V miniseries.

As the film opens, we see someone construct a glove, with sharp knives for fingers. Obviously, he’s not going to be using this to chop some tomatoes. In the next scene, this person is stalking a young blonde girl through a boiler room. As he catches her, she wakes up from her nightmare – but discovers that her nightdress is slashed exactly where her attacker caught her with his glove.

This is Tina (Amanda Wyss), and she’s been experiencing these bad dreams for a few nights. As she discusses them with her friend Nancy Thomson (Heather Langenkamp) they discover that they’ve both had the same dream, with the same man after them. And so has Nancy’s boyfriend Glen (Johnny Depp). We later discover that Tina’s boyfriend Rod (Nick Corri) has also seen the same assailant in his dream.

Afraid to spend the night alone while her mother’s out of town, a sleepover with Nancy is arranged, with Glen and Rod in tow. And here’s something I didn’t spot until this particular screening – after doing what horny teenagers do, the blanket that Rod pulls over himself is the same red and green striped pattern as Freddy’s jumper, foretelling perhaps that Krueger is about to strike. (Not that it’s a recurring theme – or that anybody seeing the film for the first time, or in my case over a dozen times – would’ve spotted it.)

Luring Tina out of the house, Freddy makes his presence felt, first appearing with elongated arms before chasing her, catching her and attacking. Meanwhile, in the “real” world, Tina is convulsing, with deep gashes suddenly appearing in her skin. She seems to levitate, rolling up the wall and along the ceiling as Rod watched helplessly. Prior to this, we’ve seen Freddy’s face appear in a wall just above where the virginal Nancy sleeps. Now awake, Nancy and Glen investigate the commotion. Tina has been slaughtered, and Rod has run away (understandably – I’m with you, brother)

Rod is now wanted for the murder of Tina (though, how the police think he rolled her across the blood-stained ceiling is beyond me) and he’s soon picked up, still protesting his innocence. This carries no weight with Lieutenant Thompson (John Saxon) – Nancy’s divorced father. It also doesn’t stop Freddy (Robert Englund) from making Rod his next victim by hanging him with a sheet in his prison cell and making it look like a suicide.

It's Nancy who realises that the guy from their dreams is somehow killing them, after falling asleep in class and almost becoming Krueger’s next boiler room victim before she deliberately burns herself on her arm in her dream, in order to wake up. Awake – her arm is still burnt.

Her tiresome mother Marge sends Nancy to a sleep disorder clinic where another dream happens – but this time, Nancy has brought something back, out of her dream – a dirty, battered fedora with a name label reading Fred Krueger. So now, they have a name.

The name doesn’t help much. Marge has a story to tell. Krueger was a child murderer who lured kids to his boiler room, where he killed them. Arrested but freed on a technicality, the parents of the murdered kids cornered him and set him alight. In a scene cut from the final movie, Marge revealed that Nancy had a brother who was a victim of Krueger’s and that Krueger hadn’t actually died in the fire, it was she who had shot him! (If that had been kept in, her speech would’ve had more resonance and her descent into alcoholism would’ve been not understandable, but something to sympathise with. As it stands, she’s an annoying nuisance who kept Krueger’s glove as some kind of half assed trophy.)

Nancy has a plan – not only has she read a manual on home defence, but she has also talked Glen into helping her capture Krueger when she drags him out of her dream. (Poor kid hasn’t slept for days, even nodding off in a bath almost got her drowned when Krueger dragged her underwater)

But Marge has had all the windows barred. The place is locked down tighter than Alcatraz. Nancy has made one critical misjudgement. She assumed that she was the next victim. She isn’t. Glen is.

Napping on his bed, Freddy drags him into the bed and a geyser of blood flows out, hitting the ceiling. It’s a scene that is stunning, yes. Memorable, definitely. But makes no real sense. What the audience aren’t told is that’s supposed to be not only Glen’s blood – but the blood of ALL Freddy’s victims. All twenty of them. (But twenty kids couldn’t have generated the 500 gallons of blood seen here – hence the senselessness.)

Freddy taunts Nancy by calling her on her phone – the lower half of which turns into Freddy’s mouth and foul tongue. Now, this is in the physical real world – so is it happening? She’s wide awake, not asleep.

The police arrive to investigate Glen’s gory demise, Marge has blacked out with a bottle of vodka by now, and Nancy calls to her father, through the bars to come over in 20 mins – she’s going to catch the villain!

So, in twenty minutes, this mere slip of a girl booby traps the house with trip wires, bolts, a sledgehammer on a hinge and exploding lightbulbs. (????) Her work is up to CIA black ops standards.

Dragging Krueger out of her dream after a nap – there’s a chase through the house, Thompson takes his time getting there, and arrives just in time to see Krueger in flames kill his Marge on her bed, both of them disappearing. Nancy asks to be left alone, and Krueger reappears but Nancy has one more trick up her sleeve. She denies him her fear and thus, his energy so he disappears. Just fades away.

Walking out into bright sunshine, it seems that all the preceding events have been a dream. Everyone who died is still alive. Marge even says she’s stopping drinking. Tina, Rod and Glen pick her up in an open convertible – but the canvas roof suddenly closes and it’s striped red and green. The kids scream, Marge is dragged into the house through the tiny window in the door and we’re done.

(I have to say… what the hell was THAT?) Was the end bit another dream? A dream within a dream? If so, at what point in the film did the dream start – exactly? Are they all dead now? The sequels will throw more confusion on this.

But as I understand, Craven wanted a happy ending, showing it had all been a dream and the cast survived. Producer Robert Shaye wanted a more open ending showing Freddy was alive because he could smell the money in sequels.

So, Freddy will return.