Whether
you like it or not, Wes Craven is the master or horror. Or he is at least the
most successful director horror has ever seen. No one has a better resume that
he does. In the 1970’s, Craven was responsible for some of horror’s most
shocking pieces. The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes are two of
the genre’s greatest that would much later be remade and achieve big box office
success. However, it was in the 1980’s that Craven was finally crowned king
with A Nightmare on Elm Street.
I’ll
assume everyone who has been alive for the last century is aware of the films
plot, but for fun I shall sum it up. Nancy and her high school friends are
being taunted in their dreams by a burnt, “knives for fingers” boogeyman. Once
Nancy’s friends start to die off, she confronts an evil past and discovers who
and what Fred Krueger is. First off, it is worth noting that Craven conceived
the idea for this after reading a few newspaper articles on a young man dying
in his sleep. Instead of playing up the “based on true events” gimmick, he
decided to blur the lines between fantasy and reality to really toy with the
audience.
Another thing is that Nightmare came out
after Halloween and Friday the 13th. So at this time the slasher
genre was alive and kicking into its prime. I think Craven did the smartest and
best thing to set his film apart from the rest: give the killer a personality.
See, that’s the thing a lot of slasher films lack. Up to that point, the axe-wielding
killer just moped around destroying people. But Craven gave his villain the
ability to speak, and I believe that is what makes Krueger quite possibly the
best horror movie villain of all time. The movie was a huge box office and
critical success. It was made with a modest budget of a little over a million
and would earn twenty four million more domestically. It would spawn numerous
sequels and become a storied franchise. The film was also Johnny Depp’s first
starring role. Pretty crazy huh?
So
what else can I say about this film that hasn’t already been said or written
about? There really isn’t a lot. The gore is great. The blood flows well a few
times and it isn’t too campy or too serious. Freddy’s iconic look was done
extremely well and may play a part to why he is practically the face of
mainstream horror, right along with Jason Vorhees and Michael Meyers. After all
these years, I personally consider this to be one of the top five best horror
films of all time. It is absolutely timeless. The bottom line really is, if you
haven’t seen this film for some unbelievable reason, please stop making excuses
and go rent it. I’d steer away from the remake, as good as it is, it’s just not
quite on par with the original. After all, this is one of the quintessential
films for Halloween.
-Chris
Poster by Micah Moseby.
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