A Nightmare On Elm Street

Dream Warriors is the best of the series, no doubt. But to me, the original film is the only one where Freddy is actually scary. In the others he's either just comic relief or really gross.

Just curious, but why did you watch this twice in the past few days?

I know its been on AMC recently.

New Nightmare's my favorite of the series. Nightmare 1 is dated quite a bit with some piss-poor acting, but the general concept keeps it afloat.

Nice hearin' from ya, Carlos!

I agree. Nothing scarier than Freddy in leather pants.

The third one, 'Dream Warriors', was far and away the best one in my opinion. Freddy hadn't totally devolved into comic relief yet, but he retained a sense of menace while delivering some good one-liners. I also think this one had the best overall look in the series. I happen to still be a Dokken fan (more of a George Lynch fan), and I've always liked the song.

Plus...the nurse who took her top off had GREAT tits. That alone makes this the best in the series.

i think the third one is my favorite. but the first one is a classic.

i think it is the most atmospheric. Freddy spends a lot of the time in the shadows. you only see glints of his slimy skin in the dark. he's far more menacing in the first than in any of the others. you can really get a sense that he would molest and kill children.

after the first, his brutality was traded in for more humor after the first and that kinda killed the series. sure he was still killing people in grisly fashion, but more with a wink than a sense of "Man, this guy is fucked up."

but like i said. for some reason, Dream Warriors is the one i can watch over and over. something about it just works for me. even though Freddy isn't nearly as scary as he is in the first.

I've not seen the sequels in some time, but I do recall a scene in Dream Warriors where Krueger uses a kid's veins as marionette strings. Having never been scared by a Nightmare on Elm Street film, I have to say that that's the only sequence in the entire series (and a brilliant one at that) that really disturbed me as a kid.

The original is still my favorite, I like that it's rough around the edges, and that Freddy Krueger was a genuinely malevolent character instead of the clown that he eventually became. Although the character and the film has been completely imprinted in pop culture, at the time it was a welcome shake up of the endless stream of increasingly uninspired "Halloween" and "F13th" clones while still maintaining certain tropes that made those films so successful, and I like that about it.

I liked the Freddy "snake" from Dream Warriors and it was cool seeing Laurence Fishburne before he got famous.

But yeah, I'd say Dream Warriors and New Nightmare are the best of the sequels. Haven't seen Freddy vs. Jason.

I still love the original even if it's dated in some ways. They recently released a new Infinifilm version a month ago. I should pick that up.

Freddy vs. Jason is incredibly like Nightmare 4 in terms of tone and quality.

I like Dream Warriors the most, but the first one is the scariest. It had terrific atmosphere during the dreams (especially the one in the school with the goat and the trail of blood.

And I, for one, didn't dig New Nightmare. I dug the concept, thought that was pretty neat, but in terms of execution, I didn't find it scary at all.

i stole my brother's copy of dream warriors when i was about 10, and it actually gave me nightmares. i still actually quite like the flick, and its ten times better than the first one.

It's been said better by others, I think Devin in a Hills have Eyes review, but Craven's flicks are usually great concepts that don't follow through on the execution. The first Nightmare on Elm Street I have also seen very recently, and it it true, it doesn't hold up. My biggest complaint with this movie is still the amazingly stupid final shots, when what came before it is a nice grisly surreal ride. The ending, while obviously stuck on there in case it did well enough for a sequel, also negates the film's central logic, and the Freddy fading away scene that came before it as Nancy confronted and overcame her fears.

I will agree with most that Dream Warriors is my favorite, at least it restores a sort of logic to the series. Jennifer Rubin was hot. Probably still is. I also like how this one took the Superman Returns route and seemed to completely forget that the previous sequel ever happened.

I liked New Nightmare, but saw it more as an interesting experiment that I cannot believe ever saw the dark of theaters, than a sequel to the Nightmare movies. It's like a twilight zone episode using a popular movie monster as the basis.

What I find most fascinating about the whole Freddy phenomenon is that the character was a child molester and killer, yet he became this wildly popular anti hero of sorts, and at one point in the late eighties you could walk into Toys R Us and purchase Freddy related toys and products. Fucking weird. My undeveloped sense of irony felt a twinge in 88 when I was fourteen and purchasing the Freddy glove, but it didn't strike me as so odd until years later.

They should have explored THAT in New Nightmare, the idea that a child molestor/murderer became America's most lovable Horror Icon. If Wes Craven still made movies that made statements when he made New Nightmare, that would have been a real interesting look at violence in our culture. Especially because it's not a satire, it's reality.

Although I really like New Nightmare, I have to say that an exploration of the social phenomenon of the series (popularizing a child killer) would have made it more interesting. Craven was a little more preoccupied with what New Line had done to his nasty little concept. However, I do like the idea that pulling the teeth off of something dangerous to make it more palatable to the mainstream makes it even more dangerous.

And yeah, in certain respects, I think the first film has aged badly. Despite the oft-assigned title that's been forced on him, I don't think Craven has ever been a master of horror. He's a competent storyteller (most of the time) with some good ideas (most of the time). But the first film is Freddy at his most basic, before the quips and one-liners sank him and made him "cute". He's still a dangerous movie monster, and I think the movie still has value for that reason.

Seeing as New Nightmare was a mere two years before Scream, I think he was more excited with the idea of self-referencing than anything else.

The one thing people forget about Freddy is the reason he is jokey is the fact he can not die. He is a true sadist. He love to inflict pain.

Agreed on the first film, but Craven has been at the forefront of the horror movement a few different times. Look at the resume- "Nightmare", "Last House On The Left", "New Nightmare"/"Scream", "The Serpent And The Rainbow" were all pretty ahead of their time (less so with "Rainbow", which devovles into a last minute laser battle, though the foundation for an interesting new take on the zombie is attempted).

Also, lest we forget, Robert Englund's work as Freddy is literally unforgettable, up there with some of the great all-time movie monsters.

I watched DREAM WARRIORS months ago, and it doesn't hold up very well. The original is far and away the most effectively atmospheric and visceral of the series. The way the film's lit and shot adds so much to the experience. Craven brilliantly straddles the line between surrealistic imagery and slasher genre tendencies.

I totally agree, although I suppose one could argue that Johnny Depp's blood geyser would qualify, but it doesn't. Just buckets of blood where the Tina death was truly terrifying and inventive.

I've heard Craven talk about how you just need to give the audience something really good in the beginning of the movie, i.e. the Tina death, and you don't have to give them anything really bad until the end of the film. He fails even under that basic philosophy.

The dreams in DREAM WARRIORS are more inventive than the ones in the original, I'll give the film that much, but I don't think there's any real payoff once they're over with. The satire and physical comedy that erupted as the series progressed starts to show its seams in the film, and it takes a lot away from its effectiveness with the idea of being powerless to our own fears and the unknown. Also, I don't like the cast in DREAM WARRIORS as much as the one in the original. The first film does just enough with the premise to be a success, and keeps things within a simple, yet desolate, environment.

Personally, I don't find it that harsh. I'm not the biggest fan of Wes Craven in my adult years. Sure, I can read the subtext in some of his better films like the Hills have Eyes and Last House, but most of his movies just don't hold up. In fact, I think he still gets a pass solely because of Nightmare and the enduring movie monster he created. People seem to forget utter shit like Deadly Friend (I don't care if tongue was in cheek), People Under the Stairs, Shocker, and probably a few others I am forgetting.

I thought Craven made a nice comeback last year with RED EYE. It's an efficient thriller, and it does what it does well.

I never saw those traits as being comedy, even today. More like a sadistic psycho running amok. It's all in the presentation. The original doesn't overdo Freddy's superhuman abilities, unlike the sequels.

Dream Warriors also has the "bastard son of a hundred maniacs" story, which is one of the best horror movie myths ever created. It really builds Freddy to legendary status in that one scene.

Plus, it has Yaphet Kotto.

The bastard son myth was touched upon more in Dream child, but the less said about that one, the better.

I agree with Brigden, whether it's because of the way time has treated the film, it's hard to regard things like the Freddy phone reciever tongue thingy with anything other than a laugh, the comedy was there in the first one, just not as omnipresent as the later ones.

Agreed, great mythology.

DREAM WARRIORS does have Craig Wasson who is kind of like Yaphet Kotto. That's not true, he's a lot like Bill Maher.

Crap, how did I misremember that? I hate that movie. Maybe I was thinking of Fishburne.

I forget the bastard son myth. Could someone sum that one up for me?

His mother was a nun at a loony bin who was raped by a thousand crazy inmates.

I thought Alice Cooper was his father.

Man, rotten luck there.

The great thing about the original is that it doesn't spell out the rules. It takes a premise and explores it with Nancy. It's as though Craven thought of a killer idea, filmed it as the Tina scene, then wrote the rest of the movie around it. This is probably what Charlie doesn't like about it, but I think it works. What happens when the liquid world of dreams collides with waking reality? The climax is fun because Nancy doesn't really know if her plan will work. She's just spitballing.
Part 3 is good, but too over the top to be scary. There is a certain level of tension when the kids are trying to stay awake. But once we're in the dreamworld the suspense is gone. And stop motion skeletons are never scary.

But I don't know if that's possible. Freddy can never be any scarier than Jason or Myers. He's a glorified slasher. It's the fear of being trapped in a nightmare that is scary. The idea that when you sleep, which is inevitable, you will be trapped with a killer. That's why Nancy calls him shit after she pulls him into reality. Because ultimately Freddy is just a symbol of the real threat. It presents sleep as a metaphor for death. Freddy may be escapable, but sleep isn't.
This is the concept that always struck me the most. The idea that sooner or later you would fall asleep. Then death wins.

I guess that's just a fundamental difference between us, then. I found the simpler chases of the original to be more primal. I grew up with these flicks and I liked them less and less as they got bigger and glossier. I found the complex effects scenes (started in earnest with 3) to be too outlandish to be taken seriously. I still liked 3 (saw it opening night). But after that the formula was set and they became a bore.
As Patrick said earlier, New Nightmare was a good concept, but the excution was fumbled. Watching a kid walk across traffic isn't nearly as intimate and scary as seeing a bloody bodybag drag down the hall in school.

Freddy would have been fine if the make-up was a little more grotesque (which they wanted to do but couldn't without resorting to a puppet) and he just talked a little less. But Nightmare on Elm Street was a commercial horror film, appealing to teens, and that's what really fucks it up. But you can't blame that either, seeing at the state New Line was in. It couldn't have been done independently.

I think the thing to remember about the oringal Craven picture was that, at the time, it was low-budget picture made by a guy who had up that point made a couple of grungy exploitation pictures, a failed superhero picture with Gigi's boyfriend and a few TV movies (even the Sharon Stone "vehicle" Deadly Blessing was pretty much a crappy TV special). And then he hit on a literal dream project made for only a little more than $1.5m. And that was probably because he had hired more "real" actors than something like Sleepaway Camp or Reanimator. Even if those real actors were anything but marquee names.

What's not surprising is that was slightly rough round the edges. What is surprising is that it created a modern, justifiably revered and insanely memorable icon out of something so uninspired looking.