Day 20: A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

A Month of Horror

I have always wanted to do a marathon of "HORROR" throughout the month of October, one where I would revisit a new horror movie every day from the first to the thirty-first.  I will revisit the classics as well as new entries into the canon.  There are many movies that define this time of year, and I hope to showcase 31 of them this month...

October 20: A Nigthmare On Elm Street (1984)

There are many names that spring to mind when it comes to great horror movie output.  Carpenter and Romero hold firm places in the genre, as does Wes Craven.  There are many films in his catalogue that helped redefine the genre, but arguably his most famous film would be "A Nightmare On Elm Street", at least up until the release of "Scream"in 1996.

The conventions are similar to other horror films, and while the horny stoner youth are the inevitable victims of the demented killer, the twists in the original nightmare did bring a new dimension to the standard formula.

Freddy Krueger was a bad man: a molester and abuser of children.  That woul,d have been sinister enough on its own, but Craven went one step further by making Krueger the ultimate nightmare killer: one who only comes to his victims in their sleep.

The fact that he is already dead makes him that much more unstoppable, a force from beyond that feeds on the youth of Elm Street as they sleep.  As we all know, sleep is an inevitable.  Eventually, we will all fall asleep.  Sleep is supposed to be our refuge from reality, our safe place to go.  When sleep becomes a place we go to die, it makes the inevitability of falling asleep that much more terrifying

That was the genius of the original "A Nightmare On Elm Street".  Freddy really was a force from beyond, one who terrorized his victims and killed them off one by one.  He had a solid motivation for doing so as well, the great motivator of revenge (albeit from a twisted perspective).

The sequels sort of went down hill, turning Freddy into a wisecracking maniac, more than an actual terror, but they still have their moments, as does the remake.

Tomorrow, I plan to go old school, with a very newschool movie.  Fire up the VCRs...