A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Smart Egg Pictures

## Overview

In 1981, teenage Tina Gray awakens from a terrifying nightmare wherein a disfigured man wearing a blade-fixed glove attacks her in a boiler room. Her mother points out four mysterious slashes on her nightgown. The following morning, Tina's best friend Nancy Thompson and Nancy's boyfriend, Glen Lantz, console her, revealing they each also had a nightmare the previous night. The two stay at Tina's house when Tina'

s mother goes out of town, where she discovers that Nancy also had a nightmare about the disfigured man. Tina's boyfriend, Rod Lane, interrupts their sleepover. When Tina falls asleep, she dreams of the disfigured man chasing her. Rod is awoken by Tina's thrashing and sees her dragged and fatally slashed by an unseen force, forcing him to flee as Nancy and Glen awaken to find Tina bloodied and dead.

The next day, Nancy's policeman father, Don Thompson, arrests Rod despite his pleas of innocence. At school, Nancy falls asleep in class and dreams that the man chases her to the boiler room where she is cornered. She then deliberately burns her arm on a pipe. The burn startles her awake in class and she notices a burn mark on her arm. Nancy visits Rod at the police station, who describes Tina's death along with his own recent nightmares about the same man stalking her in her dreams, making Nancy believe that the man killed Tina.

At home, Nancy falls asleep in the bathtub and is nearly drowned by the man. Nancy then depends on caffeine to stay awake and invites Glen to watch over her as she sleeps. In her dream, Nancy sees the man prepare to kill Rod in his cell but then he turns his attention towards her. Nancy runs away and wakes up when her alarm clock goes off. The man kills Rod by wrapping bed sheets around his neck, staging it as a suicide via hanging. At Rod's funeral, Nancy's parents become worried when she describes her dreams. Her mother, Marge, takes her to a sleep disorders clinic where, in a dream, Nancy grabs the man's fedora, with the name "Fred Krueger" written in it, and pulls it into the real world.

After barricading the house, Marge explains that Krueger was an insane child murderer who killed twenty children but was released on a technicality, and then burned alive by the victims' parents living on their street seeking vigilante justice. Nancy realizes that Krueger, now a vengeful ghost, is killing her and her friends out of revenge and to satiate his psychopathic needs.

Nancy tries to call Glen to warn him, but his father prevents her from speaking to him. Glen falls asleep and is killed by Krueger. Now alone, Nancy puts Marge to sleep and asks Don, who is across the street investigating Glen's death, to break into the house in 20 minutes. Nancy rigs booby traps around the house and grabs Krueger out of the dream and into the real world. The booby traps affect Krueger enough that Nancy can light him on fire and lock him in the basement. Nancy rushes to the door for help.

The police arrive to find that Krueger has escaped from the basement. Nancy and Don go upstairs to find a burning Krueger smothering Marge in her bedroom. After Don extinguishes the fire, Krueger and Marge vanish into the bed. When Don leaves the room, Krueger rises from the bed behind Nancy. Realizing that Krueger is powered by his victim's fear, she calmly turns her back to him. Krueger evaporates when he attempts to lunge at her.

Nancy steps outside into a bright and foggy morning where all her friends and her mother are still alive. Nancy gets into Glen's convertible to go to school when the top suddenly comes down and locks them in as the car drives uncontrollably down the street. Three girls in white dresses playing jump rope are heard chanting Krueger's nursery rhyme as Marge is grabbed by Krueger through the front door window.

## Cast

* Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson
* John Saxon as Lt. Donald "Don" Thompson
* Robert Englund as Fred "Freddy" Krueger
* Johnny Depp as Glen Lantz
* Ronee Blakley as Marge Thompson
* Amanda Wyss as Christina "Tina" Gray
* Nick Corri as Rod Lane
* Leslie Hoffman as Hall Guard
* Joseph Whipp as Sgt. Parker
* Charles Fleischer as Dr. King
* Lin Shaye as Teacher
* Mimi Craven as Nurse
* Jack Shea as Minister
* Ed Call as Mr. Lantz
* Sandy Lipton as Mrs. Lantz
* David Andrews as Foreman
* Jeff Levine as Coroner
* Donna Woodrum as Mrs. Gray
* Paul Grenier as Mrs. Gray's boyfriend
* Ash Adams and Don Hannah as Surfers
* Shashawnee Hall, Brian Reise and Carol Pritikin as Cops
* Kathi Gibbs, John Richard Peterson, Chris Tashima and Antonia Yannouli as Kids (uncredited)