I love the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. It has always been my favorite movie series, probably because the movies always frightened the FUCK out of me. As a kid, I had a lot of nightmares, so when I got a little older and watched Freddy Krueger murdering teenagers in their nightmares, it really resonated with me. I watched the remake last night and I thought I'd come on here and give my thoughts on the series as a whole. This isn't going to be a plot synopsis, but just what I thought about the movies.
A Nightmare on Elm Street:
The original. Without this one, none of the others would have been made, and it's still the best. Heather Langenkamp as Nancy is believable as a protagonist, and while the others are completely disposable, they play their roles. It's worth noting that this movies is Johnny Depp's first role in a movie. Who knew that this kid who got yanked into the bed in a horror film would actually turn into a world famous actor?
Being the movie that started it all, it's not nearly as campy or humorous as later films would be, its much darker and it still holds up after all these years.
Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
I hate this movie. I really cannot explain why, but I really hate it. I cannot say more about this one.
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Hell yes. To me, this is really where the series got good. It's also where it started to get really campy but I can overlook that. Heather Langenkamp coming back as Nancy was awesome again, and I loved the dream powers of all of the kids. This movie was one of my favorites until I saw some of the later movies.
Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master
Yet another great movie, in the same vein as Dream Warriors. It brings back 3 of the characters from the previous movie and adds its own cast of teenagers for Freddy to kill. It's a little more campy and over the top, but I don't mind that. Alice's own dream power of absorbing the powers of her friends, making her into the Dream Master, makes her a foe that Freddy hasn't seen since Nancy. A great movie, surpassed in my eyes by only the next in the series.
Nightmare on Elm Street 5: Dream Child
This, in my eyes, is the best of the series, combining the surreal images of the dream world with a premise that's quite original. Freddy using the dreams of Alice's own child to get at her friends is a great idea, that could have been terrifying if they hadn't kept up the camp factor. By using Amanda Krueger to put an end to her undead son, I feel that it put an end to the series better than the next movie.
Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare
Another movie that I fucking hate. Even taking away the insipid 3D factor, the movie sucks hard. It starts with the humor and doesn't let up. It's completely idiotic, and I don't even bother with this one when I watch the whole series.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
Ah the New Nightmare. I used to loathe this movie. I guess I just didn't understand the point of it, but I get it now that I'm older. It's a great movie, but I hardly expect anything less from Wes Craven.
Freddy Vs Jason
Yet another idiotic movie. The premise is stupid, the whole thing is a typical new type slasher movie: set up a bunch of stereotypes that everybody in the audience will hate and want to die. That is not scary. It's scary when we see characters we care about in danger. Cheering on the killer is not scary, its pointless, gory idiocy.
Nightmare on Elm Street (Remake)
Initially I did not want to see this movie. I saw it as a pointless remake, and it is. But let's face it, all remakes are pointless.
I'm going to get this out of the way right now: this movie was fucking awesome. I've heard that the kids were all disposable. In what Nightmare movie were the kids not disposable? Here, I saw character even in the obviously dead characters. Nancy in this was a quiet, introverted loner, instead of the center of a large group of friends, and I dug that. I was the same way in school, and I thought that the actress pulled off the sleep deprivation well. Some have said she didn't have the charisma or personality that Heather Langenkamp had, but I disagree. Not taking anything away from Heather, but this girl acted like someone who'd been up for several days would; I know from experience.
Jackie Earl Haley was great as Freddy. He seemed more physically imposing that Robert Englund and the fidgeting with the blades on his hand really drove home, to me at least, that these things are deadly. I didn't mind him roughening up his voice, not unlike Christian Bale as Batman, and it makes sense that he would sound like that, due to smoke and heat damage to his throat. I thought the make up was ridiculous, he looked like Voldemort's Asian cousin, but honestly, that was the only problem I had with the remake. I thought it reused certain scenes from the original to decent enough effect, except when Freddy comes out of the wall. That bit of CG sucked, to the point that I actually laughed and commented that it looked better in the original. Most of the others were well used; when Nancy sees Chris in the body bag at school, it really drives home just how sleep deprived she is, showing that she's started to dream while she's awake.
Despite my misgivings, the remake of Nightmare was very well done, it brought Freddy back to his darker roots, and even added some of Wes Craven's original ideas back into the movie. Very well done.
So that's my thoughts about the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Sure it's campy at times, ridiculously stupid at others, but scared the fuck out of me as a kid and will always hold a special place on my movie shelf.
