One, Two, Freddy's coming for you!

Rating: 10/10 (24 June 2005)

So the song begins. And continues with some very useful facts of survival if you ever happen to encounter Freddy Krueger. But it doesn't really matter how many precautions you take. Since most people who run into Freddy very rarely live to tell about it! A Nightmare on Elm Street was the film that established (and stereotyped) Wes Craven as a master of horror. It also introduced audiences to one of the most terrifying and menacing creations (before he became a franchise) ever seen on the cinema screen, Freddy Krueger.
ANOES is one of the most intriguing horror films to ever come out of Hollywood, because of the way it skilfully blurs the line between reality and illusion.
The opening scenes are extremely eerie. For one reason because we get to see Freddy's infamous weapon being created. A glove of finger knives. And also because we are thrust into one of the film victim's dreams. It starts with a girl called Tina, lost in a seemingly endless boiler room. She is not alone. A scary man wearing a hat, a red and green striped sweater, with a badly burned face, is stalking her. Just as he catches up to her, she wakes up.
She's quick to tell her bad dream to her best friends Nancy Thompson and Glen Lantz (a very young Johnny Depp!). The next night, Nancy and Glen stay for a sleepover, and eventually Tina's boyfriend Rod Lane joins in the fun. Tina is about to have another nightmare about Freddy.
This time Tina is not so lucky, and she ends up being slashed to death in her dream. As I said before, this is where the distinction between reality and illusion converge. If Freddy kills you in your dreams, you really are dead. Rod gets the blame since he and Tina were sleeping together, and goes on the run.
ANOES takes on more terrifying dimensions as it goes on. Nancy than starts to have dreams about Freddy. One eerie dream in her high school, and an even scarier one in her bath. No sooner has she dozed off Freddy's glove comes out of the bath water, and pulls Nancy down into a bottomless abyss inside of her own bath.
Nancy eventually discovers from her mother that Freddy Krueger was once alive. He was a child murderer who killed over 20 kids in the neighbourhood. He was eventually caught, but released on a technicality. Most of the parents in the neighbourhood tracked him down, found him in an old abandoned boiler room, and set fire to the place. Now Freddy's come back to get revenge, on the children of his executioners.
As more of Nancy's friends get killed (Glen's death is shocking and gives new meanings to the term bloodbath) she takes it upon herself to deal with Freddy once and for all.
ANOES is a truly inventive horror film, and some of the dream sequences are deliriously surreal. Freddy Krueger is an awesome presence in this film, as he is a completely original bogeyman. He takes tremendous glee out of scaring his victims to death. As more sequels were made though, the character of Freddy Krueger became more ridiculous, and lost the ominous presence the brilliant original had.
The ending is a little unusual, because it makes us wonder if what we've been watching all along is all just a dream. The ending is disappointing and strangely intriguing at the same time.
Don't bother with the sequels. They're not a patch on the original Nightmare on Elm Street. The first is frightening, clever and insightful. Something the sequels never were.