I have to admit that I never watched any of the Nightmare on Elm St. films, in the first part of my life because my highly religious parents thought that it might have something to do with the inevitable moral corruption that ultimately befell me anyway and in my post-pubescent years I had found better things to do with my time than watch almost-made-for-TV horror. With that in mind I thought that on October first, the nearly-arbitrary date I have selected for my countdown to Halloween I would finally have a look at this so-called classic of the golden age known as 80’s style horror.
Now as I mentioned before I grew up with a fair amount of sheltering so films like this, cartoons like the Simpsons and He-Man and even boxing were forbidden in my humble upbringing and despite all of this even someone like myself knows the basic plot of Nightmare on Elms St. so you really have no excuse to claim ignorance on this one. Nevertheless let’s go through it just in case: Nancy Thompson has been having bad dreams which always involve the same strange man who is burnt to a crisp, likes Christmas sweaters and wears kitchen appliances on his hand. It turns out that her friends have all been having the same strange dream and in no particular order the mystery man begins to pick them off one by one.
There are two ways you can go about looking at the originality of this story: either by thinking about it as a self-proclaimed critic in 2009 or by trying to place one’s self in 1984 upon release- which strangely, by the way was in November, after Halloween. It is probably not an enormous stretch of the imagination to suggest that in 1984 the twist was original. Unlike other psychopaths , this one kills people in their dreams and there is no chance of defending yourself save for having someone else waking you up, and I dare go as far as to say that, at least for someone who never got into these films earlier in life, it not only worked then but it works now.
Wes Craven was a genius in his time and perhaps remains somewhat remembered because there have been so few visionaries in the genre after his time. Aside from a handful of names, who primarily come from the same period, it would appear that Hollywood fell rather quickly into the trend of sequels, prequels, homegrown remakes and remakes of imports to the nth degree. What truly makes Wes Craven stand out from the rest is the impressive fact that, aside from the fact that all of the characters look like they were dressed by a Sears catalogue from a time shamefully forgotten, the film stands up to even today’s competitors.
To that extent I was surprised at how much of this film worked for me: the lighting, the atmosphere, the music- which albeit retro at this point- has obtained a near-cult status as a semiotic switch for terror and the acting to some extent even feels real. I commend the actors of this film because to be honest I decided near the beginning that I was certain none of the actors would be any good in this film and it would be funnier to try and determine if I could see the sign of things to come in a young Johnny Depp who, of course, made his debut in this film. There wasn’t, but to my surprise, however, most of the acting worked; it wasn’t anything to write home about but it was certainly on par with the film and it carried through quite well.
Everyone felt their age, the film knew what it was and ran with it and no one tried to show the bimbo-of-the-week’s tits gratuitously plastered all over the poster, front and back of the DVD box and title screen because the film is too busy killing people.
The film has style, narration, pace, character development, coherence and every now and then I could have sword I saw the glimmer of depth off in the distance, though I appreciate that at this point what I am doing is exactly what frustrates people about us artsy people being too artsy and trying to apply art to everything just for the sake of being artsy; but shy from it or not the film feels like it was loved and that someone took time to put it together, which is more than can be said of others from the same genre.
There are some genuine scares in Nightmare on Elm St. and thought certainly they come from the old ‘scared because I want to be scared’ approach to watching cinema I ultimately liked the film though I am somewhat hesitant about the subsequent sequels. This movie is the perfect way to get in the mood for Halloween and even better when watched after dark with a bowl of popcorn and the holiday spirit of wanting to raise the dead.
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