Death, Doom, and Dreams

Rating: 9/10 (25 November 2000)

Never in another movie, horror or otherwise, has falling asleep and dreaming and being killed been such a deadly combination. Wes Craven has made many horror movies, as after "Elm Street" and some others he was locked into the genre, but this was a great combination of many things that led to this having eight sequels.
Perhaps the best part of this movie was the plot: a crazy child murderer who was unjustly killed and then became pure evil in order to kill children in their sleep. This was such an original idea that it took many sequels to totally drain Craven of the different dreams kids could have and then subsequently the different ways the kids could be killed. But the first "Elm Street" gripped audiences because they didn't know what to expect next; they didn't know what the rules where and how to abide by them.
From the second "Elm Street" on the child murderer, Freddy Krueger, was someone to avoid or someone who would just kill you in your dreams. But in the first one, he toyed with his victims because no one knew about him, his past, and how he died only to vow revenge by killing children in their dreams.
Heather Langenkamp, as Nancy Thompson, just doesn't wait around to be killed by this serial killer, as many other horror movies depict victims especially women. Nancy is the girl who learns about Freddy and his story and vows to stop him. She comes back in "New Nightmare" as herself and again she vows to stop "Freddy", but even though the idea for "New Nightmare" was incredibly unique the actual delivery of the idea was pretty poor. And the only other Freddy movie I'd recommend would be "Freddy's Dead" where another herione takes on the role of killing Freddy in a childless town that fears him; and in the process she learns about his childhood and how actually Freddy came to be.
No other serial killer slasher movie even compares to this, no matter who the killer is or victims are. I give this 4.5 out of 5 stars.