HALLOWEEN REVIEW OF THE DAY: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street is considered to be one of the classic and most famous of "slasher" films. The film's main villain Freddy Krueger is considered to be one of horror's greatest villains, if not one of all cinema. When seeing this first time I have to honestly say that a lot of the goofy and cliched elements surprisingly blend in well the more serious and dramatic moments. That's right, this film does have well done dark and dramatic moments, I did not even expect that when going into this movie. Sure you have the typical hormone raging and sex prone teenagers like in many modern horror slasher films, but they do set a good amount of time in character development and dark and dramatic scenes, especially in scenes between our heroine Nancy Thompson and the villain Freddy. Sure Freddy as expected does have his silly moments, like for example when he tries to lick Nancy through the phone, but he has is dark and intimidating moments as well which I got to say are well done thanks to everybody who contributed to the performance like director Wes Craven and of course the actor Robert Englund. Freddy is a great villain because he has everything that a great villains usually have, over the top moments, intimidating moments and appearance, an interesting backstory, and an equal match against the brave protagonist. The protagonist, Nancy Thompson, is also a good character. She may look like the typical "last girl" of horror films but like some at the time she was a well developed character who we want to see save the day and who we sympathize with. She's smart, witty, beautiful, brave, and knows how to stand up to the razor-wielding villain. What I like most of all is the concept of the movie. I personally think the idea of a monster that could visit your dreams and turn them into nightmares for a method to kill you is beyond creative, and I could always tell when watching this movie that Wes Craven used that creative premise to his advantage to make creative settings and situations in order to build suspense. A Nightmare on Elm Street maybe goofy at some parts, but has a creative horror story and villain that you don't want to run into in your dreams anytime soon, or your nightmares. Grade: P