Still frightening 18 years later!

Rating: 9/10 (21 February 2005)

I first saw this one when I was about 16, after my younger brother had told me about it. The concept of a monster that hunts you in your dreams - and follows you when you wake - was original for horror flicks.
Mass murderer Fred Krueger (Englund) had killed 20+ children with the now-infamous claw-glove - an ordinary working glove outfitted with 4 straight razor blades. When he was caught by Lt. Don Thompson (Saxon) and a group of officers from the Springwood Police, several bodies of the town's murdered children were found in the boiler room where he worked. (This boiler room became the setting for the nightmares of the Elm St. teenagers in the film.) Unfortunately, as young Nancy Thompson (Langenkamp) finds out later in the film, a legal technicality sprung this monster loose from police custody. Krueger was followed to the boiler room, which an angry mob of parents torched with gasoline. Krueger burned to death inside. (Adapted from The Nightmares on Elm Street novel).
Years after his death, the ghost of Fred Krueger returns - this time in the nightmares of the children whose parents had torched the boiler room and killed him. Nancy and her friends Tina (Wyss), Rod (Corri), and Glen (Depp), are experiencing nerve-wracking nightmares involving a deformed madman in a dirty red & green sweater, who is horribly burned, and wearing a glove outfitted with 4 razor-sharp blades on the fingers! Tina is the first to encounter him, first in his boiler room - from which she escapes - and again in an alley behind her home. This time, she is killed by Krueger in the dream and dies in reality - a violent, frightening death while her boyfriend Rod watches helplessly. Next morning, Rod is arrested by Nancy's dad as an obvious suspect. But Nancy has a horrifying nightmare at school in which she also encounters the horrible man with the finger-knives, and narrowly escapes. Realizing that before her death Tina had described the EXACT SAME man to her, Nancy visits Rod in police custody where he describes having a similar nightmare - in which he ALSO faced the monster with knives for fingers. When Nancy has another dream encounter with Krueger - in which she sees Krueger threatening Rod - she & Glen go to her dad's precinct and urge him to check on Rod. But by the time they reach the cell, Rod is dead - the victim of a hanging by Krueger. At Rod's funeral, Nancy describes the man in the dirty sweater and deadly finger-knives who killed Tina & Rod to her father - and a disturbing look crosses her dad's face. Nancy's mom takes her to a sleep-disorder research clinic, where Nancy has another frightening nightmare involving Krueger. This time, she emerges with a bloody gash from Krueger's blades, and something more disturbing - the old fedora hat that Krueger always wore. It is only after learning Krueger's identity that Nancy's mother reveals the true story of Fred Krueger to her daughter. Armed with this knowledge, Nancy goes about preparing herself for the final confrontation with Krueger, to bring him into her world in the same way she did with his hat - and hopefully to erase Krueger for good.
In the DVD commentary, director Wes Craven described the story that inspired his concept of Fred Krueger as the demonic presence that haunts people's nightmares. Apparently it was based on a series of true events involving children of immigrants from Thailand who were living in the Los Angeles area. The children had been describing horrific nightmares to their parents and were terrified of going to sleep. In 1 case a child stayed awake for 7 days. Their parents brushed off their children's concerns, and several died in their sleep. I had never heard of this until watching the DVD version 18 years after I first saw the film!
Despite its low budget, the film still does an awesome job of creating the illogicality of nightmares, such as the appearance of the sheep in the boiler room and the 20-foot-long arms that Krueger extends across the alley to block Tina's escape, not to mention Tina's terrible death which was made in a revolving room set.
Still the most frightening of them all!