A classic Horror flick, but even classics have their problems

Rating: Null/10 (10 October 2003)

*Attention* The following contains spoilers
I'm sure there are plenty of devoted horror fans out there who will consider what I am about to say blasphemy. But, keep in mind that I too love horror movies and am a fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street series. But just because you like something doesn't mean its perfect, or even close to perfect; and A Nightmare on Elm Street certainly isn't perfect. The concept of the movie is fantastic: a boogeyman that can kill you in your dreams. Wes Craven does an excellent job of blurring the lines between dreams and reality, as well as providing the audience with some cheap scares and genuine suspense along the way. However, the ending to the movie is one of the worst "cop-outs" I have ever seen in a movie. Just when you think that Nancy's confrontation with Freddy is going to lead to some conclusion, be it her death, Freddy's death, or whatever, Nancy simply utters the words, "It's just a dream Freddy, I'm not going to play your game anymore," or something to that effect. At this point Freddy disappears and we are shown Nancy and her mother leaving the house on a beautiful, yet eerily foggy day. Nancy gets in her boyfriend Glenn's car with the rest of her friends as her mother waves goodbye. Now, just as soon as the gullible audience starts to believe what they're seeing, the top of Glen's convertible comes down to reveal its red and green stripes...wait a minute that looks a lot like the colors of Freddy's sweater...and then Freddy's are breaks through the front door of the house grabs Nancy's mother and pulls her in...could it be, are they still in a dream?
I guess so, there's simply no other plausible explanation. Apparently, when Nancy told Freddy that she knew that it was all just a dream and the jig was up, Freddy decided to stop toying with her and just kill everyone in one fell swoop. So apparently, everything we've seen in the movie up until this point was just a dream; it was all one intensely elaborate plot to drive Nancy to the brink of insanity and then kill her. It was supposed to be some huge twist to have the audience scared to the very end, to have everyone leave the theater terrified by the unexpected ending. Instead, all it did was ruin what had been a good horror movie up until that point. Apparently everything else that happened in the movie was pointless because Freddy never intended to kill Nancy, in fact, he never actually killed anyone, he was just messing with her and the audience, making us watch a movie that didn't actually matter until the end.
I'm not sure if Wes Craven originally intended the movie to end this way. I would like to hope that he had some better finale in mind, or even on paper. I want to believe that it was some idiotic movie exec that decided the end should have some scary twist at the end and had to be changed. Whatever the case, I want to know who wrote Nancy Thompson into the script of Part 3, which is simply ridiculous considering she drove off in a car apparently possessed by Krueger at the end of the first movie. Call me crazy, but I assumed she was dead.
Now, I'm sure that many of you, whether you're huge fans of the genre or not, are thinking that I've been way too critical of this movie. And perhaps you're right, maybe I should just accept the flaws of this movie like I do all the others of the countless horror movie sequels I've seen. But there's one problem with that: major flaws are intrinsic to horror sequels. Consider the fact that the bad guy that died in the previous movie always inexplicably returns. I expect flaws in the sequels, not in the original. The first Halloween, Friday the Thirteenth, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and etc. are all classics not only because they scare you, but because they're not full of glaring holes in the plot or ridiculously stupid endings. The fact of the matter is that the ending of A Nightmare on Elm Street is awful, it leaves so much to be desired, and falls far short of being classic. If you don't believe me ask yourself, what could have made the end better, how would I have done the ending? If you find yourself with a pretty long list, then I think I've proved my point.