Introducing Mr. Krueger...

Rating: 7/10 (28 April 2007)

After years of tepid stalk 'n' slash films, Wes Craven's A Nightmare On Elm Street gave the horror genre a much needed shot in the arm with an altogether different kind of scary monster: Fred Kruegera dead child killer who is able to attack and kill people in their dreams.
Unfortunately, the victim of a bad case of sequilitis, A Nightmare on Elm Street was also responsible for spawning that staple of the 80s and 90s chillerthe bad guy that makes bad puns whilst slicing up his victims. With each subsequent chapter in the franchise, the mystery behind Fred was stripped away, and he became less and less a figure of fear, and more of a wise-cracking pop culture icon to be loved and not loathed.
Is it still even possible to watch the original movie and put this image out of one's mind? After many years of not having seen Wes's 1984 'classic' I decided to sit down and revisit Elm Street to find out.
Craven's film starts with a credits sequence in which an unseen person crafts a pair of wicked looking razor-fingered gloves (all the better for slicing up teens with). We are then plunged into the first nightmare of the movie, as experienced by terrified teen Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss): the poor girl is stalked by a hideously scarred man wearing the lethal gloves. This, of course, is Fred Krueger (Robert Englund), back from the dead to slaughter the children of those that took the law into their own hands years earlier, and sentenced him to death by fire.
It seems that Tina is not the only one suffering from night-time visits from Fred: most of the other teens on Elm Street have been seeing him in their dreams too. And when the kids start dying in mysterious circumstances, it is up to plucky Nancy (Heather Langenkamp), daughter of local policeman Lt. Thompson (John Saxon), to stand up to kiddie-killer Krueger.
Whilst not perhaps deserving of its almost legendary status, A Nightmare On Elm Street is still, for the most part, a solid, fun and innovative movie which is well worth a watch. Craven makes good use of the whole dream idea, delivering some suitably nightmarish visuals accompanied by unnervingly creepy sound effects (most notably, the sound of Fred's 'fingers' scraping on metal). I can't say that I found the film particularly scary, but am willing to accept that this is probably due to my over familiarity with the whole Elm Street franchise.
Craven builds the tension well, and the likable cast (including a young Johnny Depp) give reasonable performances, making the silly premise seem almost believable. And when the story threatens to drag, the savvy director has the good sense to pop in some creative and very bloody death sequences in order to regain the interest of the viewer.
In fact, the film is pretty good up until the final showdown between Nancy and Fred, when Craven's script becomes a bit of a nonsensical mess, with our heroine dragging the killer into reality and luring him into several rather hastily set-up booby-traps. It is here that the film falters badly, with Nancy defeating Fred in a decidedly lame fashion (by ignoring him!). And then to make matters worse, the film finishes with a 'twist' ending which will leave you questioning what the hell just happened.
If you are totally unfamiliar with the Elm Street series (which is unlikely, I know), then it is advisable to watch this one first to get the most from the film. As for the rest of us, don't watch this expecting to experience absolute terrorit won't happen. Instead, sit back and enjoy one of the most influential horrors of the past few decades safe in the knowledge that, with the exception of maybe two of the sequels (Pts 3 and 7), they got a whole lot worse.