A Nightmare on Elm Street

Name: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Genre: Horror
Released: 09 Nov 1984
Rating: 7.33
Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Johnny Depp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley

Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world...

Year: 1984

Genre: Horror

Studio: New Line Cinema, Smart Egg Pictures, Media Home Entertainment, Cinema 84, The Elm Street Venture

Director: Wes Craven

Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Johnny Depp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss

Crew: Wes Craven (Director), Stanley Dudelson (Executive Producer), Joseph Wolf (Executive Producer), Gregg Fonseca (Production Design), Robert Shaye (Producer), Sara Risher (Producer)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Release: Nov 09, 1984

IMDb: 7.33/10 by 5,289 users

Language: English

Budget: 1,800,000

Revenue: 57,004,513

Comment

John Chard 2015, May 03

Dream Attack. The kids of Elm Street appear to be having the same bad dream, one in which a scarred faced bogeyman in a stripy jumper hunts them with knives attached to his fingers. When the dream becomes a reality for one of the kids, and the worst happens, Nancy Thompson risks all to bring the bogeyman into the open. Stupendous horror movie, one that not even the ream of sequels, spin- offs and cartoons could ever diminish. Wes Craven creates a film of utter terror, unleashing one of the genres most famous monsters on the unsuspecting film loving public, with Robert Englund as the hideous Fred Krueger having the time of his life slashing away and delivering oral venom. A number of scenes and sequences are staggeringly memorable, in the process shifting into horror movie folklore. The youthful cast are sensibly written (Craven's screenplay that took inspiration from a true story he read about Cambodian refugees literally dying of nightmares!), they are not dumb these kids, just vulnerable, but led by Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) there may be hope of some survivors? The blurry line between dreams and reality gets a bloody make-over here, creating biblical snoots in the process. In short, essential horror movie for those inclined. 9/10
John Critic 2022, Apr 03

5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My personal favorite slasher horror film that goes well with my Halloween costume, which itself is an accessory to this horror treasure of the 1980s decade!!!
Andre Gonzales 2023, Apr 17

The nightmare that started it all. Made us all scared to go to to sleep. My favorite horror series next to Friday the 13th. Love this movie.
CinemaSerf 2023, Jun 08

This is the ultimate in slasher-horror that thrives on the basis that it is, at times, genuinely quite scary, and it doesn't take itself too seriously. Robert Englund is super as the legendary "Freddie Krueger" who, complete with his razor sharp right hand, takes over the dreams of the teenage children of parents who had been responsible for his gruesome death many years earlier. When a terrorised "Nancy" (Heather Langenkamp) begins to put two and two together she sets out with cute boyfriend "Glen" (a first outing for Johnny Depp ) to trap him in her world - and that means drinking enough coffee to sink the Titanic and staying awake! Ronee Blakely does a mean impersonation of Faye Dunaway - as the girl's almost permanently drunk mother (whose battles seem to get larger as the film progresses) too. It doesn't hang about - Wes Craven keeps the pace almost frantic, and there is plenty of humour to keep it's tongue in it's cheek. The effects are limited, but fun, and the whole thing raises more smiles than goosebumps but it's still an entertaining watch 35 year later.