Everybody's got to dream, young girl. If you don't dream... ya go

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2000)

A good, simple question to ask about a movie that now has a kind of hollowed, pop-culture (not simply cult, like full-blown, mainstream) status in the industry - the kind of flick that's crossed over to the point where Kruger, via the sequels, is like the horror movie Mickey Mouse, a verifiable commodity as much as a scary boogeyman - does it hold up? For the most part, absolutely. Wes Craven knew how to make a helluva concept; indeed, that's in large part his legacy (look at the premises for Scream, Hills Have Eyes, People Under the Stairs, they're fantastic 'log-lines' in industry parlance). How he develops them, by himself as a writer or with another scripter, is the key thing.
The great thing about Nightmare on Elm Street is that when it intends to be a horror movie with its sequences set in dreams - a good 20/25 minutes of this film are the nightmares, if not more - it's scary. Or it sure does try its damndest for 1984. And as a younger person, this first one was a legitmiately good time in the dark or with friends. It would come later for flicks like 4-5-6 (especially 6, good god) for the laughs, and those are enjoyable on their own. But this original, and to an extent 3 and 7, are meant to get under your skin. And for the budget they had, they do a lot with it.
The blood supply certainly helps, but also the stunt-work and the effects are incredible; the shot of Kruger poking through the wall to look over his main target, nancy, is massively impressive, and it hasn't dated. Certainly as well the other main set pieces like the body in the hallway at the school being dragged by seemingly no one (that was the image that stuck with me seeing it at a too-young age) and the attacks on the other teens. But what's really crucial is atmosphere is built, piece by piece.
This isn't a guy in the woods with a sack or hockey mask, nor is it some creep over a telephone (not that Freddy won't use a phone - he does, and it's the only goofy moment in the movie with him). These are dark, boiling furnace rooms and cellars, creepy alleys where Freddy can stretch his arms wide so that his finger-knives can get you quicker. The camera and editing in these scenes, like the opening and other parts - Nancy does, indeed, go down to the cellar, making this quintessential horror in that sense - is taut but it takes its time. There are a few jump scares, but they feel earned in a way; leave it to the dream aspect to make them acceptable.
The acting is good too, especially from Langenkamp, who sells this teenager who is half sure she's in control and half nuts that she might be losing her mind, and Depp in his debut is solid. I think the only issues seeing it today come in a few story choices that don't totally make sense. It might not be distracting if the rest of the movie were lessor, but because so much of this is potent and effective (even the knives coming out of the bathtub, in-between the legs, is an obvious but awesome image), when it falters it shows. How Nancy is able to put together so many traps in her house, for example, is something that seems implausible, even in the scope of a "slasher", and I'm surprised just how blase the parents are. Maybe Nancy's mother's reaction has some point to it, and she may have a little more depth than the other adults, certainly more than straight-arrow cop John Saxon - but just when she gets interesting she drinks herself into a stupor and (very, very quickly, like as soon as Nancy leaves the house for what seems like a couple of hours) all the windows have bars over them. For... what reason? Foreshadowing?
But in the grand scheme of what Craven is trying to do, these flaws are excusable. This is still an awesome effort in the ways that count; setting up a real, original threat that is like taking a Luis Bunuel premise and setting it in a demented-haunted house; the characters are not all completely worthless (even the idiot-jockish guy is more like Bobby in Twin Peaks than the jerks in Friday the 13th flicks); and I like how the concept of fear being the driving force behind Freddy's power as the conduit, something that would get more developed in part 3. It may not be my favorite slasher, but it's up there, and is certainly Craven's legacy. 8.5/10