Reviews: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Movie Review
Subgenres: Slasher, Supernatural, Cult Classic, Revenge, Suburbs, Supernatural Serial killer (Top Supernatural Serial Killers in Movies), Teens
Horror fans searching for a breakdown of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) will find our review covers the plot, themes, and the shocking ending everyone talks about.
Wes Craven directed and wrote this fantastic film, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), which created a horror icon, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), and helped keep New Line Cinema from filing bankruptcy. A Nightmare on Elm Street had an estimated movie budget of $1.8 million, slaying the box office with $26 million. Here are some fun facts on A Nightmare on Elm Street here.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is about a sleep demon who attacks you while you sleep and when you die in your dreams, you die in real life. Freddy Krueger is a murderer who was himself brutally murdered. Krueger came back to haunt the children’s dreams on Elm Street, thus getting revenge on the parents who murdered him. Freddy Krueger meets Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), who, with her boyfriend, Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) and friends, fall victim as Freddy Krueger’s latest victims. Nancy does not plan on dy**g quickly and fights back.
I want to say that this film is the first horror movie I remember watching as a child. Freddy Krueger did not have much screen time, but Robert Englund lit up the screen when he did. The story and atmosphere were terrific. Freddy Krueger nailed the effect of making little children and adults scared to sleep. Krueger’s gloves were such a primal terror.
The central core actors did a great job acting except for Nancy, who sometimes was a little off on her scenes. Johnny Depp started his acting career here unintentionally. A lot of fond memories of when I watched this film. See if you can rent/buy the entire Blu-ray collection so you can have a Freddy Krueger marathon with the entire A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.
Featured movie quotes for A Nightmare on Elm Street are here.
Similar films like A Nightmare on Elm Street can be found in demon movies, demon movies, monster movies, monster movies, serial killer movies, and serial killer movies sub-genre(s), check them out for more movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Sources Used to Shape This Review
Insights in this review are drawn from director interviews, fan commentary, production notes, and long-form breakdowns across genre-specific platforms. Content is written uniquely and reviewed for accuracy.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street Rating Scores
- Our Score: 8/10
- Overall Score: 8.09/10
- IMDB: 7.4/10
- MetaCritic: 7.6/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 9.4/10
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