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33 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
The film that revolutionized the horror genre, January 18, 2004
It is a true testament to writer-director Wes Craven's genius that many people now first think of Scream rather than A Nightmare on Elm Street upon hearing his name. While Scream certainly re-energized the horror movie genre, A Nightmare on Elm Street revolutionized it entirely when it was released in 1984. Twenty years after the fact, the movie doesn't seem quite as scary as it did originally, but this movie has truly shocked and frightened many a moviegoer over the years, resonated with untold numbers of men and women in a new and undeniably powerful way, drawn in many viewers that had never cared about horror before, and introduced one of the greatest, most popular horror icons of past, present, and future in Freddy Krueger. When you really look at the genesis of this movie, its incredible success is truly mind-boggling. Wes Craven had already made waves in the business with such horror classics as Last House on the Left, but the script for A Nightmare on Elm Street made the rounds of Hollywood for three years before the relatively unknown New Line Cinema stepped up to make the movie a reality. The total budget for the film was well under two million dollars, and the filmmakers basically worked miracles to make the film as viscerally shocking and beautifully gory as it is. A tremendous cast was assembled: veteran actor John Saxon and newcomer Johnny Depp (in his very first role) are terrific, Robert Englund needs no introduction for his unforgettable portrayal of Freddy Krueger, and a young and innocent Heather Langenkamp delivers a dazzling performance as Nancy Thompson. (Ronee Blakley's performance as Nancy's mother is over-the-top and rather poor in general, but this is essentially the movie's only weakness.) Many people think that Englund carries this film with his brilliant portrayal of the nightmarish killer, and in a sense he does, but for me it is Langenkamp's performance that absolutely makes this movie something way beyond special. I have always been a big Langenkamp fan; she brings to Nancy a mesmerizing sense of innocence, charm, and natural beauty that wins the audience over completely. Freddy is a dark and menacing presence, but he really doesn't get that much camera time in this first film; Nancy is the essential conduit that connects the audience to the horror. I don't think much is required in terms of explanations or plot summaries here. Freddy Krueger was a murderer of children who was hunted down and burned to death by local parents. He still exists, though, in the world of dreams, and now the teenaged children of the men and women who destroyed him are his targets. Nancy and her friends all begin to see this strange burnt man in an old fedora and a dirty red and olive green sweater in their dreams; Nancy soon learns that whatever happens in these awful dreams also happens in real life. The first victim dies a spectacular death, one that surely poured heaps of shock value on 1984 audiences and which still works wonderfully today. Several other notable deaths follow, and Nancy knows that she alone must face Freddy and somehow engineer a trap with which to snag him. It's not easy killing a dead man who lives in dreams, of course, but Wes Craven built a really beautiful logic into the story that makes it work convincingly. The special effects of this film are remarkable, especially given the tight budget restraints. The death scenes are powerful and bloody, the atmosphere and look of the boiler room sets in particular are dark and malevolent, everything about Freddy's look and performance are perfect, and even really cheap effects such as the phone tongue and melted stairs work beautifully. The special features included on the DVD are nothing short of superb, especially the commentary by Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, and director of photography Jacques Haitkin - I learned so much from this commentary (including the fascinating true-life facts that helped give birth to the original idea in Craven's mind), all of which made me all the more impressed with this seminal horror classic. A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the most enjoyable, powerful, and influential horror films ever made, and the transfer to DVD makes this film look better than ever.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Not complete or definitive, October 1, 2006
Overall this two-set disc DVD is great. It includes many deleted scenes and the sound and picture is great as well.
Although this is certainly not definitive/complete. There are out takes, extended scenes, FX shots, TV spots, etc., that are not included. Such as a dialog between Lt. Thompson and Sgt. Garcia in the police station, more scenes of Nancy getting ready to battle Freddy (like pouring gasoline in that glass bottle she threw at him in the basement), another take of Glen's body rising out of the bed, an extended dialog between Marge and Mr. Thompson at the cemetery, a dialog between Lt. Thompson and Mr. Lantz (Glen's father), etc. These others were released in 1996 on laserdisc by Elite Entertainment and a two-cassette VHS by Anchor Bay. There is also trivia missing from the movie like, for example, the guy who was reading Hamlet aloud in English class is Daryl Hannah's brother. Although there is a discussion of the different types and ways of doing Freddy's makeup, there's no mention of what Wes Craven originally wanted (such as the teeth showing through the flesh above the jaws, which ironically was used on the "demon" version of Freddy when he jumps out of the lake in Jason vs. Freddy). Nor mention of all the actresses Heather Langenkamp beat out such as Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing), Demi Moore, Courteney Cox (Ave Ventura, Scream, Friends), and Tracey Gold (Growing Pains).
But this is as close to complete as currently available on DVD. Now that we have the infinifilm special edition, hopefully a special edition director's cut/uncut will appear one day with (if possible) the extended scenes placed back in the movie itself and not as special features to be viewed separately along with all the goodies in this and the VHS/laserdisc versions.
It was nice to finally have Amanda Wyss and Ronee Blakey (boy she changed!) interviewed. But it would have been also nice to get Mr. ever-so-famous Johnny Depp, Jsu Garcia, and John Saxon (71 yrs old now!) interviews.
Overall, I give it 4 and a half stars.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
The one that started it all., December 18, 2004
Just recently, I saw the first Nightmare on Elm Street, and I was impressed. At first, I wasn't expecting a whole lot. Especially not from a horror movie from such a long time ago and on a small budget. But somehow, Wes Craven did it, and made me jump a little bit, even after seeing tons of messed up things in other movies and online. The ideas this guy had back then is unheard of. And creating the character of Freddy is something we should all be thanking him for. I can't say anything that hasn't already been said in the other reviews, but I'll enforce its high rating.
I'm sure you all know the story by now. It's only been common sense for movie watchers since it first came out. But, if by some amazing fluke you haven't, here's how it goes: A small group of teenagers get together and spend the night in the protagonist's (Nancy) house. But without warning, one of them gets killed in their sleep. She's dragged accross the walls, the bed, and even the ceiling before plummeting on the bed with claw marks all over her. What happened? Freddy happened, that's what. Freddy kills you in your sleep. The idea worked back then, and it holds to this day. It did for sleeping what Psycho did for showers. We soon find out from Nancy's mom that Freddy was a child killer who took children into his boiler room and murdered them a few years back. Because of a technicality (they always say this but it's never revealed what it actually is), he was free to go after the trial. All of the parents of the murdered children got together and burned him alive. Nancy's mom though, happens to be one of the kids from said parents who killed Freddy. But he's back, and is killing their children's children. One by one, the teens get picked off, and it's up to Nancy to end everything somehow. How she does it is pretty cool: she finds out that by grabbing ahold of something in her dreams, she's able to take it back into the real world with her when she wakes up. She does so with Freddy's hat, and uses this in order to put a stop to him. A lot of the deaths here aren't as amusing as those in the next installments, but they're still effective, if a little silly. Just look at all the blood that launches out from Johnny Depp's bed when he's pulled in. And there are some great effects visually, like when Freddy's pressing though a wall. This was done with a sheet of spandex. 'funny how if that was done today, it'd cost a couple thousand dollars and be done on computers.
There are no upgrades for the visual quality really. But there is a Dolby 5.1 audio track which is great. They threw this in all the other NoES movies and it works perfectly. All of the screams and stabs are heard the way they were meant to be. There's still a lot of grain and fuzzyness in the picture, which I'm hoping will be cleaned up in the box set if the movies in that are in fact remastered.
Sadly, NoES has just one special feature: an extremely boring commentary with Wes, Heather and a few others. It's not insightful or entertaining. There're a lot of pauses and everyone sounds bored. What I'd like to know is why Robert Englund isn't on this track. But it's from the laserdisc version, as everyone mentions how clear everything looks "on this laserdisc". It would've been nice if they made a newer commentary track if only to have everyone actually excited to be doing it. But that's all there is for the special feature. And yet it's still more than the other NoES movies. It's actually amusing how only the first and very last Nightmare movies have actual special features. I say this in all of my Nightmare movie reviews in case people just read this movie page: save up for the big Nightmare box set. It has a disc dedicated to special features and saves you money in getting the set alone than it would buying each movie individually.
There's no going wrong with purchasing Nightmare on Elm Street. It's one of the top 5 horror movies of all time, as voted in many polls. And after watching it, I'll go ahead and say that it lives up to the hype. Watching it now for the first time, it may not have as much effect on you, but you'll definately remember it. Besides, you can't help but respect a guy who runs around in a Sesame Street sweater when he kills people. You have to be some kinda bad-ass to wear one of those and scare people to death.
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