Wes Craven is a good director, but NOT a good writer

Rating: 5/10 (11 July 2002)

Let me tell you in one word why this movie is very poorly made. Simply put, it's the writing. Wes Craven has written other things in his time but when he set out to write this screenplay, he wrote some horrible dialogue! This whole movie is runed because of it's poor dialogue and idiotic situations. Only the character of Nancy played by Heather Lagenkamp is credible onscreen. Even Johnny Depp, the most underrated actor of the past two decades and a great character actor, stumbles over the lines as if he where in an elementary school production. The character of Freddy, although somewhat scary in this first movie, loses alot of the presence he has by joking and snickering. There's no suspense, only shock value. Everything looks like it was filmed on a sitcom stage. It almost feels like an eighties hairmetal music video. Maybe another factor is that this movie didn't age well at all. To prove that Wes Craven started out with an interesting idea and turned it into grade B junk, one need only look towards Scream. While Scream was a partial parody, it was also a far superior horror movie. Scream was written by Kevin Williamson and only directed by Wes Craven. It is Craven's most popular movie. Watch the first A Nightmare on Elm Street ( the sequels are even worse) for curiosity's sake or for the great, creepy special effects. But don't expect, natural dialogue, suspense, logical situations, or for "Nightmare" to even hold a candle to Scream or Halloween.