It deserves its rightful place in horror movie history

Rating: 8/10 (8 December 2017)

Aside from its clunky ending, A Nightmare on Elm Street is my favorite horror movie of all-time. For starters, Freddy Krueger does not discriminate, and he will haunt your dreams no matter your age. Aside from Alien's "In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream," "Don't Fall Asleep" is the second-best horror movie catchphrase of all- time.
After Friday the 13th and the 80s slashers took the scene, Wes Craven came through with a whole different evil villain in Freddy Krueger, a former child murderer that kills kids in their dreams. I'm sorry, what?
He got the idea from a string of stories ran in the LA Times about a young child that had survived the field killings in Cambodia. After a slew of nightmares, the young boy was found dead in his house after dying in his sleep. The police found a coffee pot in his closet with an extension cord running up under his bed and plugged into the wall. He obviously didn't want to fall asleep either.
Craven ran with the story and created the most heinous, vile monster in horror movie history. With some Hitchcock elements spun throughout, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a fantastic ride from start to (almost) finish. The mood, music, atmosphere, shots, effects, blood, kills, and nightmares are all perfect. There are a few scenes that you watch and say "Wow, that's a classic cinema shot," or "Holy hell that's terrifying". Some scenes make you feel like Freddy Krueger is actually out there waiting for you to fall asleep tonight.
Heather Langenkamp, aka Nancy Thompson in the film, works perfectly here. All of the characters do really. There are some missed opportunities, sure, but it all works out and there are times throughout the film where you feel trapped inside a boiler room, a terrible nightmare or a dangerous place and think, "Is this really happening to me?" The ending is a bit clunky and takes the fear away a bit, but I also think that is part of the point. As Nancy fights back and becomes the ultimate bad-a#$, Krueger becomes less and less of a threat.
Facing your fears is difficult, but Nancy shows us the courage and tenacity it takes to destroy an evil entity like Freddy Krueger. Or, does she?