Classic movie I should have watched sooner

Rating: 9/10 (14 December 2019)

The Nightmare on Elm Street is a classic horror film making the audience always feel on edge thanks to one of the most unique and iconic villains of all time: Freddy Krueger. This film sparked the start of a 9 movie long series and is still talked about 30 years later. The movies starts by following the story of Tina, a teenage girl who seems to be getting nightmares that all involve a terrifying man named Freddy Kreuger who's wearing distinctive gloves with knives attached to it. She tells her friends but they simply pass it off as a harmless nightmare. However, things take a turn for the worst when she ends up being murdered in her sleep and her friend Nancy starts getting nightmares with Freddy in them as well. She tries every way to stay up in order to prevent the same outcome from happening to her and tries to devise a plan to stop him before it's too late.
The theme of this movie seems to be the idea of power. This is present towards the end of the film when Nancy refuses to give Freddy any power and because of this he vanishes into thin air signifying without Nancy giving Freddy any power, Freddy wasn't able to have power over Nancy. This was an important scene because throughout the movie Nancy look very helpless and weak. She was forcing herself to stay up and was running away from Freddy any time she saw him, but towards the end this all changed and she was able to regain power while also stripping Freddy of his power which simply made him insignificant. However, in the last shot it appears to have Freddy pull Nancy's mother through the house door, but it isn't clear how or why he does it and the scene feels like a nightmare, not reality.
This theme reminds me in some ways of the Hunger Games. Katniss being from District 12, a district with little to no power, must fight in the hunger games and survive. Towards the end she ends up going against what is expected of her and she forces the Capital to become powerless and allow both her and Peeta to become victors. The similarities in the theme are interesting especially since they have two entirely different plots, but they both follow the story of two helpless characters who must think differently and strip power from the powerful even though it seems as if they don't have any control or power of their own.
In the Nightmare on Elm Street, there are many great techniques used that help carry this theme. For example, lighting techniques are used when Nancy confronts Freddy at the end of the movie in a dark eerie room. She lets Freddy know she's going to take back any energy she gave Freddy and reaches for the shiny door knob and as she does this Freddy attempts to attack her only to vanish and once Nancy opens the door it becomes noticeably bright. This signifies a turning point in the film and shows the shift in power from Freddy to Nancy through the lighting. Another technique used in the scene would be the camera angles. This is the only encounter with Freddy where Nancy is able to have a full dialogue with him and you can see her become mentally stronger. As Freddy speaks to her, there is a close up of Nancy's face and you can see she has no fear when it comes to Freddy's threats which shows her taking back her power from Freddy before he even disappears. These are great techniques used to show her transition from scared and helpless to powerful and fearful by literally confronting her nightmares.