A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of those movies that gets progressively better and better as it runs along. At first it all appears like your typical cliché horror but eventually, by the near end of it, you've been hit over the head with an insanely explosive, unforgettable, and frantically aggressive finale. Wes Craven's original horror classic challenged the concept of a "slasher killer" and introduced us to one of the most notorious icons ever: Freddy Kruger. The idea of a serial killer only having the ability to kill victims within their dreams is devilishly dexterous and might I add, effective. Additionally, some of the more dramatic moments-especially in argumental sequences involving Nancy and her mother-are actually quite efficient and add to the trauma of the film's present situation. The score is as overdone as it is vibrantly energetic and the horror kills have never been so ingenious! This movie however, certainly isn't without its flaws-whether it be the at times, mediocre acting or the cheap jump scares or the glaring plot-holes. It's still none of the less, a horror flick that never, ever gets tiresome. (Verdict: A-)

Having completed my look at Eddie Murphy's filmography, I'm moving on to Johnny Depp. I'm not sure how popular this thread will be, as he is pretty unlikeable these days. But for a time he was one of my favourite actors.A Nightmare On Elm St (1984)"One, Two, Freddie's coming for you..."Plot In A Paragraph: A bunch of teenagers are stalked in their dreams by a man with a burnt face and razors for fingers. I watched this with my son, who questioned if it was a spoof!! He found the acting laughably bad. The sequels have tarnished the reputation of this classic a bit. But for me, this is the high point of 80's horror. Freddy Kruger is a step above Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees, as for one, he isn't hiding behind a mask and he has a personality and a dark sense of humour. How many of us have dressed up as Freddy for Halloween?? The character is an icon.Heather Langenkemp is great in a role she will forever be identified with, John Saxon is as solid and dependable as you would expect. As for Johnny Depp, he gets the movies best death, but based on this movie, is have never guessed he would become one of the worlds biggest stars.This movie was a bit if a blessing and a curse to Wes Craven, as he was pretty much typecasted as a horror director after the success of this.A Nightmare On Elm Street wasn't the smash I thought it was. It was the 40th highest grossing movie of 1984, with a $25 million dollar gross. it was a great success against its $1.8 million dollar budget.

Wes Craven's classic original film that spawned a highly influential franchised (and a terrible reboot) is still the best of them all. Craven cooks up an irresistible premise of child murderer Fred Kreuger killing the kids of Elm Street in their dreams as revenge for his mob justice murder by their parents may years before. What makes the set-up work so well is the blurring of the lines between dreams and reality when Kreuger stalks the kids in their dream. The characters fight sleep to avoid Kreuger, but are never quite sure when reality may have drifted into dreams after they may have dozed off in class, in a bathtub, or wherever they might be at any moment. Once reality moves into the dreamworld, Craven plays off of some of our most primal of fears; claws, drowning, burning, not knowing what's a dream and what's reality, and, of course, being killed in your dreams. In many ways, this film stands in stark contrast to the rest of the series. Most notably Freddy Krueger (in this film referred to as Fred Kreuger) has a total of 7-minutes screen time. This film is mainly about the Elm Street kids trying to figure out what's going on and how to stop Krueger. This film is also much stronger than the sequels because Freddy is not yet the wisecracking, one-liner delivering character he later became, which has the impact of making him a much more frightening of character. Since this is the first film in the franchise, it gets to tell the origin story of Freddy and Elm Street, which is more interesting than the sequels ("Dream Warriors" and "New Nightmare" being the exceptions) and who all basically recycled the same material but with bigger budgets and set pieces. Heather Langenkamp is quite good in the lead as Nancy and Amanda Wyss is good as well as her best friend. I did like how Craven (SPOILER ALERT!) pulled a bit of a Marion Crane by starting the film with Wyss, who gets killed off about 20-minutes into the picture and the film then shifts it's focus to Langenkamp. It's also pretty fun to see a teenage Johnny Depp in his film debut. And, of course, Robert Englund is very scary and effective as Fred Kreuger, even if he's not on screen all that much. Englund really made this character his own throughout this series and England's absence from the remake is a major reason why that film did not work. Also worth mentioning is the iconic music from Charles Bernstein, who for some reason never scored another film in the series, and also of note is the wonderfully surreal and dreamlike photography by Jacques Haitkin, who's now a second unit director of photography on major Hollywood films like Captain America films, the Fast & Furious films, and even the new King Kong film, "Kong: Skull Island." My main complaint about the film is the ending. The producers wanted a twist ending that left it open for a sequel and Craven wanted a happy ending. I'm not completely opposed to twist endings, though more often than not they don't work, or even unhappy endings, but I do think this film would have worked better if it had more definitive of resolution. And regarding the producers desire for potential sequels, Jason got killed at the end most every Friday the 13th film and managed to come back over and over again. Why wouldn't that work here too? Overall, this is Craven's best film and one that really got under my skin as a kid back in the day watching it over and over on VHS, but what's so great about the film is that it still holds up today, both in concept and in suspense and scares.

It's still pretty scary for today's era of horror movie. Quite enough scenes made me jumpy. What's more, the story is strong, unique and science related (the sleeping thing). However, I don't find the acting of the main actors so believable except for the screaming. Even Johnny Depp didn't show enough realness in the kissing scene (his other scenes were great, though).I feel glad to finally watch one of this great horror classic. The villain/devil is so popular and I would feel bad if I never see one of his movies. I hope I can watch all of the franchise despite the bad reviews.