Whatever you do, don't fall asleep

Rating: 7/10 (9 November 2015)

When Nancy Thompson's best friend, Tina is brutally murdered by her boyfriend, Rod, she isn't one hundred percent sure that he is the culprit even though all evidence suggests that he is.
The day Tina died, she confessed to Nancy that she'd had a nightmare, so terrifying that it left her fearing for her life. She'd dreamt that she was being chased through a dark boiler room by a horribly burnt man named Freddy, who was trying to kill her with a bladed glove. A typical nightmare, except that Nancy had the exact same dream.
After Rod confesses to Nancy that he, too, dreamt of Freddy and is found hanged after Nancy dreams that Freddy visited him in jail, it confirms her suspicions that he is not the real killer and that something much more sinister is going on.
The nightmares start escalating and she begins to wake up with real injuries on her body after having them inflicted upon her during her dreams, until she is literally forced to stay awake in order to stay alive.
Nancy starts to believe that she is going crazy until her alcoholic mother confesses that Freddy was once a real person; a serial child killer who was burned to death by outraged vigilante parents when Freddy evaded jail due to a technicality.
After she discovers that she is able to pull objects from her dreams into the real world, Nancy sees this as an opportunity to defeat Freddy and take back control of her dreams and her life.
A Nightmare on Elm Street came out at a time when the slasher genre was getting very stale but writer and director Wes Craven managed to put a unique and refreshing spin on it.
In contrast to the fictional movie serial killers that came before him (Leatherface, Michael Myers, Jason) Freddy is neither mute nor robotic. Instead, he is very animated and relishes in verbally taunting his victims before he kills them.
Robert Englund was clearly having the time of his life playing Freddy; so much so that it has become synonymous with him as an actor and it's hard to picture anyone else in the role (sorry Jackie Earl Haley) and he even went on to star in all seven sequels (eight, including Freddy vs. Jason) plus the short lived TV series 'Freddy's Nightmares.'
Heather Langenkamp does a decent job as Nancy, and is everything a horror movie heroine should be; vulnerable but strong.
Johnny Depp provides some delectable eye candy as Nancy's boyfriend in his first movie role.
I have personally never seen Ronee Blakley act in anything else (supposedly she is a credible actress), but I have a hard time deciding if she is just bad in the role of Nancy's mother, or whether it was a conscious acting choice to play her as over dramatic and over the top to make her seem more detached and in denial of the situation.