A new and original approach to the slasher film

Rating: 7/10 (24 March 2012)

It's quite hard separating A Nightmare on Elm Street from the franchise it spawned. Freddie Krueger became one of the icons of the 80's. Because of this he became completely unscary. You can't really blame the first film for this development however. What director Wes Craven did here I guess was to reimagine the possibilities of the slasher film. On the back of first Halloween and subsequently Friday the 13th, there was a bucket load of these types of movies released in the early 80's. It wasn't the most diverse genre either, and by 1984 it had more or less run its course; Craven's film took the basic idea of this sub-genre but expanded with a much more original approach. Out was the faceless killer who stalked a group of dumb half-naked teenagers and instead we had a weird supernatural villain who attacked his victims via their dreams. This was a much more original idea for a slasher film. It still had murder set-pieces but these ones involved people being dragged over ceilings and fountains of blood erupting out of beds. The surreal and dream-like moments are ultimately what make A Nightmare on Elm Street an interesting movie. Another unusual aspect is the teens themselves. They're actually sympathetic and not merely there to be killed in a state of undress. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the more typical sleazy approach but it is notable and commendable that Craven chose to do things a different way for a change. It's not a perfect film by any means though and there are some cheesy moments. For example the scenes near the end where the heroine constructs home-made traps to snare Freddie in were dangerously close to MacGyver territory. But overall, it's an interesting movie in places.