A Nightmare on Elm Street - at least Freddy has a good time

 The movie starts like no other before it, with a menacing figure in the dimly lit workshop putting on the signature glove on, topped with steely knives.  Each time I watch this scene, I am somehow always surprised with how unsettling the scene is.  The screen is minimised significantly, which makes me feel like I'm voyeuristically watching Freddy (Robert Englund) carry out his gathering in his man cave through a small window.  Within the first few minutes, I feel like I am not welcome into this world because of the cinematography, from this I can only expect the movie to surprise me at every turn.

This opening scene is accompanied by heavily creepy organ music, very similar to a church hymn. (The Church of Freddie and Fedora's perhaps?) Jarringly, the goofy graphics that next appear on screen makes me feel strangely nostalgic, and I wasn't even alive in the 80's.  I really wish horror movies these days embraced goofiness more in horror movies, it's always more fun when a horror movie embraces its silliness, even if it ends up being terrible.

The next character to be introduced is Tina (Amanda Wyss), who is unfortunate enough to find herself being pursued by Freddy in her dream.  Thankfully though, she survives, and awakes to find that her night gown is slashed, where Freddy had swiped at her in her dream with his deadly glove.

The next morning, we get to meet the rest of the characters, which includes Nancy (Heather Lagenkamp), Glen (Johnny Depp), and Rod Lane (Nick Corri), a borderline sociopath and certified bad boy.  Glen drives a pretty groovy red convertible to school, and Tina confides in her friends about the horrible dream she had, which Nancy is pretty quick to dismiss.  So much for friends.  Not even her supposed boyfriend does little to calm her nerves, which is the least of his crimes as will be discussed later.  It doesn't help that Rod looks 15 years older than Tina, and every time he rears his head on screen, I feel that I'm about to witness a crime.

So those are the main characters, at least the teens.  The lovely Glen, despite being the only decent male adolescent in this movie, has a tough break with his girlfriend, Nancy.  All the man wants to do is smash, but he is rejected at every turn.  Anytime he even tries to be in the mildest way affectionate and caring, Nancy shuns him away like a stray dog.  If it isn't bad enough that his own girlfriend cares very little for him, the following night Glen is forced to listen to the unnecessary howling noises coming from the room Rod and Tina share.  Morality sucks indeed.  I'm also not gullible enough to believe that Glen is considered a "jock" by Nancy when he is the height of preppy pretty boy.

That night after school, Nancy and Glen spend the night at Tina's house to comfort her since her parents are out of town that night.  The whole concoction of this plan is pretty ridiculous, as the only reason that Glen is over is because he told his family he is staying with his cousin, who lives near the airport.  He plays a tape while on the phone with his mother to trick his mother that he is near the airport, but since he is a dunce he does not realise that the tape contains sounds of airplane crashes and screams until he hears it on the tape.

The heroes are then scared by noises coming from the back garden, and they go to investigate.  As Glen goes further to check it out, he is attacked by Rod, holding what looks like some ye olde whisk in his hand, to foreshadow the imminent arrival of Freddy.  Which is strange, because why did Rod raid the kitchen for utensils before leaving and decide to bring one for no discernible reason other than to keep the audience wary?  Rod and Tina proceed to have sex in her room later that night, and Glen is understandably pissed that he cannot have sex with his own girlfriend, because their 15 year old friend had a nightmare and she is too scared to sleep alone.

However, it is not all fun and games, as soon Tina falls asleep.  Unlucky for her, she is back in Freddy's fucked up dreamscape, and she walks outside of her house (without shoes and trousers on, however that is a very nightmare thing to do.)  Freddy appears before her down a dark, empty street with gigantic arms and proceeds to chase her and torment her.  He gets on top of her as he attacks her, and the sexual suggestion is further amplified, as the scene shifts from Nancy's nightmare to the real world, where Freddy is attacking her viciously under the covers of her bed.  She is catapulted to the ceiling, and Rod can only watch helplessly as she is slashed and torn by an invisible presence.  Hearing the screams of Rod and Tina, Glen and Nancy barge into the room, and see the bloody body of Tina, and notice that Rod has escaped from the bedroom window.

The next scene Nancy is at the police station with her mother discussing the events that just unfolded.  The audience are introduced to Lieutenant Don Thompson, Nancy's father, who argues with his ex wife over why she allowed their daughter to stay over at Tina's house in the first place.  This scene allows us access into the clashing personalities of Nancy's parents: her mother who she lives with, is very withdrawn and almost unresponsive to what is happening around her, whereas her father is extremely concerned for Nancy's welfare.  A fucked up line from the mother during the police interrogation was when Nancy discussed how Tina and Rod had a small argument and that "it wasn't serious" and her mother responds "Maybe you don't think murder is serious" and I would have slapped that bitch over that, mother or not.

The following morning, despite her mother's protests, Nancy walks to school.  The scenes during the day are a great contrast to the dark and creepy moments during Freddy's attacks, as during the day everything seems dream-like with the perfect sunshine and peaceful suburbia.

During the walk, Rod grabs her and pulls her into a bush, and tells her that he is innocent, which Nancy understandably does not buy.  Soon, the police arrive and Nancy puts herself in the way of possible gunfire to protect Rod, who for all she knows is a psycho killer who kidnapped her.  

After Nancy's stalling, she makes it to school and struggles to stay awake in her English class.  As another student reads from a passage of a book, Nancy falls asleep.  This transition is marked from the reader starting reading as normal, and then he begins to creepily whisper the words monotonously, with a blank expression on his face, as the rest of the class silently watches on.  This is one of my favourite moments of the movie, as it was such a subtle transition, and the actor (John Richard Petersen) does a great job in acting possessed and robotic.

Nancy follows the blood trail where Tina's body was dragged away in a body bag down the hall, and has an almost non-sensical interaction with the hall monitor, which is another great example of showcasing the madness of nightmares, as events playing out do not usually have a linear and clear structure.  

As Nancy enters the school boiler room that definitely is not real, we realise quickly that Freddy is about to appear.  Nancy puts up a much better fight than Tina did, and she is smart enough to burn herself on the arm in order to wake herself up, and she takes the burn mark with her back to the real world.  

Out of fear of experiencing another nightmare and getting killed, Nancy decides to stop herself from falling asleep.  She has a garbage conversation with her mam and she stays up all night watching horror movies (which is the worst idea imaginable, watch cartoons you freak!)  Glen crawls into Nancy's bedroom, and she decides to enlist her boyfriend to help her with an experiment: to watch her while she sleeps, and to wake her up if anything bad happens.

What confuses me about this is that when Nancy has began dreaming, she calls out to Glen asking if he is still watching her, and he appears from behind a hedge and says yes, and I don't understand how he can be both in the real world, and respond to her in her old dream? In reality, that is only the start of this convoluted logic behind this franchise.  

Nancy walks to the jail where Rod is being kept, and she is horrified when she spots Freddy walk into Rod's cell and he begins to wrap the duvet around his throat.  With this logic, I guess Freddy is somehow in Rod and Nancy's dream, or is he only in Nancy's dream?  The experiment does not work out so well for Nancy, as unfortunately she is not quick enough to save Rod from being hung by Freddy.

What really irks me next, is that Rod gets a whole funeral scene, when Tina never got one, despite everyone believing that Rod murdered her.  After the funeral, Nancy's mam takes her to a sleep disorder, as she is finally trying to get her daughter help.  This venture proves mostly useless, as the doctors watch her sleep, and Nancy manages to grab Freddy's hat with her from her nightmare, and none of the doctors think about studying how this happened. Isn't that their job? They blew the chance of discovering a new dream phenomenon and becoming famous and rich.  

When Nancy and her mother get home, she is so frightened by the findings in the clinic, that she threatens to throw out the hat, which is the only evidence of Nancy's powers, and then proceeds to hide a vodka bottle from her daughter.  Proof that the mother is a bigger villain than Freddy.

Later that night, Nancy calls Glen with help in defeating Freddy, however his parents are now sceptical of her and do not allow her to talk to Glen.  Thank God mobile phones now exist so you can call your boyfriend directly if you need help to defeat a monster in your dream, rather than running the risk of his parents picking up the phone first.  Before this, Nancy urges Glen not to fall asleep, only to fall asleep herself.

In her dream, Nancy's mother becomes even more of a drunken mess than usual, and it makes me believe that perhaps the mother's drunkenness may be an exaggeration done by Freddy, or it may just be how Nancy sees her mother.

During her dream, Glen falls victim to Freddy, as he is sucked into a wormhole in his own bed, and his blood shoots out onto his ceiling (a little similarly to Tina's death) as his mother barges into the room and utters a blood curdling scream.

In order to defeat Freddy, Nancy employs many booby traps throughout the house.  For the most part, he navigates through the traps easily enough, although he does seem to get injured.  Nancy appears to defeat Freddy, by saying that she does not believe in him, stripping Freddy of his power.  He disappears, and all seems well, as Nancy exits the house in new clothes, and she meets her sober mother and her alive friends who are driving a red convertible.  In a twist, it turns out that this is all just an illusion, as the car locks itself, trapping the teens inside, and Nancy's mother is pulled back into the house by Freddy, and the car is driven away from the house, as a group of girls sing and are playing with a skipping rope.

With that, the movie ends.  While it is extremely fun and goofy, and equally horrifying, I find myself left with so many burning questions at the conclusion of the madness.  One is, why does Freddy let Nancy survive at the end?  Perhaps it is to let his legacy move on, and it allows him to access other teenagers to kill if he has a source alive, but Nancy also caused a lot of conflict for Freddy to battle through and overcome.  Perhaps he had a level of respect for Nancy's resilience and enjoyed the challenge so much that he allowed her to live.

Was most of the final night just a dream? Watching the film so many times, it seems that Nancy's booby traps and the cooperation with her dad was all just orchestrated by Freddy, as the execution felt too flawless.  After all, Freddy is in control of the dreams no matter how hard the victim fights back.  I believe that like with the final scene, the entire dream was just created by Freddy, to get Nancy into a false sense of security, so that he could kill her mother.

I know I did not include every single detail of the film in this review, as I wanted to leave some of the magic to be discovered during a watch of the film.  Overall, I recommend this movie to horror lovers, it's a classic and really cemented Wes Craven's reputation as an excellent director.  While there are some inconsistencies throughout, I still find the movie enjoyable.  The acting ranges from decent, to excellent, with Heather Lagenkamp and John Richard Petersen as particularly excellent.  If I had to rate the movie, I would give it an eight out of ten.  Out of all the movies, this one remains my favourite in the franchise.

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