It is quite astonishing that Wes Craven was able to create such an iconic character with a budget reportedly of less than $2 million. Equally amazing is that through the various production and financial issues, the original Nightmare on Elm Street still remains as a highly regarded tentpole in the slasher subgenre twenty five years later along with the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises. I would argue the Nightmare series did not fair as well as the Myers and Voorhees based ones due to studio interference and rushing production to maximize revenues at the expense of the stories themselves.
Forgetting the rest of the series though, this movie stands up relatively well even to today’s horror standards. While the film is not without its flaws (more on those to come), it is still creepy as hell. I can safely say that the original has never come close to being “scary” to me personally, but that is more due to my pre-teen self seeing the thing a billion times and becoming desensitized. The overall concept of the killer coming after you in your dreams lends itself quite well to things that would normally be off-the-wall in more grounded entries. Sure, Michael Myers got shot six times and burned to a crisp and Jason can seemingly teleport anywhere, but overall those series were made up of events that could possibly happen.
Now, as you and I can attest almost anything can happen in a dream though. One moment you may be having brunch with the President, the next falling down an elevator shaft onto some bullets, and finish off with talking zombie gardeners. Craven uses the randomness and complexities of a typical dream to the advantage of the film as it cannot be damned for drastic location or tone shifts. Even the basic premise of being murdered in your sleep is horrifying enough as there is little that you could do to prevent that from happening. Everyone sleeps at some point and everyone has dreams. On the other hand, people could learn to stay the hell away from Crystal Lake and not be related to psychotic nutjobs (or at least do a better job of hiding that fact).
The general rule of “less is more” applies beautifully here as the minimal budget did not allow a great emphasis on showboating. In stark contrast to some of the later sequels featuring Freddy in a brightly lit place like … I don’t know, a beach or a television studio, Freddy is mostly relegated to the shadows with only a brief glimpse of his burned, disfigured face. Freddy is also more of an impending threat than a direct antagonist. His screen time is limited to the fairly infrequent nightmare world as opposed to being in every other scene. This is a much more effective manor of creating a menacing villain, scaring you with the unknown as opposed to putting it all out there, good or bad.
So with all of that acclaim being said, there were things here that irked the hell out of current me that previous me had never really picked up on. For starters, no one in this damn movie (save Johnny Depp, John Saxon, and possibly Robert Englund) can act. I sincerely like Heather Langenkamp and feel she really grew with this franchise but some of her scenes are downright awful, especially for a feature film like this. With the exception of a few scenes in the back half of the movie after everyone thinks she is crazy, Langenkamp awkwardly overacts and delivers her lines in a way that even Kristen Stewart would be embarrassed for her. Her cinematic mother, Ronee Blakley is even worse. I can forgive to a certain extent as the character is supposed to be a barely functioning alcoholic but that excuse even pushes the line frequently.
Craven also plays pretty loose with the rules of the dream world. While the infringements here are not as blatant as in some of the latter films, Freddy’s ability to transcend the dream world even when his victims are fully awake is a bit much without further explanation. With what we know, Nancy was wide awake when she received her unwanted makeout session with Freddy and Rod was more than likely aware as he was being pulled out of his cell and hung by the rafters. You can chalk these minor quibbles up to Freddy’s surging power as more fear is directed his way but again, these things are not really addressed here.
All of that is not really a problem though. Chances are if you are watching this you have seen it before. If you haven’t, you likely already know the basic premise where the most random shit can happen in a quick succession. As it stands, Nightmare ‘84 is an excellent movie that is fully capable of elevating itself over its somewhat inconsequential flaws.
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