Nightmarish - at the time

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2005)

The first and best of the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
The children of Elm Street are being murdered in their dreams by serial child killer Fred Kreuger. Nightmare is quite a surreal film. When I first watched it years ago it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't. This added to the terror. Its not so frightening today but it still holds up very well especially against its dire clones and sequels.
The reason why the first Nightmare is far superior to its sequels is that it plays to its strenghts. Freddy is a horror character not a comedian. Here he plays the classic bogeyman - a symbol of terror and not the lovable wish cracking anti hero of subsequent films. Not just in the way he acts but also in the way he looks. Freddys makeup in this film is pretty horrible - but in a good way. We can see he has been badly burnt and can see strips of flesh hanging from his face if you look hard enough. Its dirty, slimy and unpleasant. In other films its obvious its a mask. And a pretty clean one at that.
This one also has all the classic scenes. The claw appearing above the bed, the teenager being slashed in mid air, Johnny Depp getting sucked into his bed and turned into a fountain of blood. Its nice to know a set back like that didn't stop him from furthering a successful movie career. The ending falls a bit flat with Freddy being bashed with hammers and set on fire like in a Tom and Gerry cartoon but its easy to look past it, especially to the final scene where again you don't know if its real or not.
Speaking of that final scene I'm almost sure I seen a different ending again where it WAS a dream. Or maybe I was dreaming myself.