A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Storyline
Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger (Robert Englund), who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen (Johnny Depp), must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world...
Directors
Cast
Johnny Depp, Charles Fleischer, David Andrews, Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Jack Shea, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Leslie Hoffman, Joe Unger, Joseph Whipp, Lin Shaye, Mimi Craven, Ed Call, Sandy Lipton, Jeff Levine, Donna Woodrum, Paul Grenier, Ash Adams, Don Hannah, Shashawnee Hall, Brian Reise, Carol Pritikin, Kathi Gibbs, John R. Peterson, Chris Tashima, Antonia Yannouli
Trailer
Reviews
88
A Nightmare on Elm Street is tailor made for those who like their gore leavened with thought-provoking ideas - something that is a rarity in this genre.
83
Some of the effects remain nicely repulsive; Freddy himself comes across as a genuinely nasty piece of work, far removed from his later incarnation.
80
Empire
Turning slumberland into a twisted murderer's den is a masterstroke by Craven, who has brought new blood to a genre that seemed as if it might choke on it's own excesses.
80
Variety
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a highly imaginative horror film that provides the requisite shocks to keep fans of the genre happy.
80
Here the idea of sleep as the ultimate threat is still fresh and marvelously insidious, and Craven vitalizes the nightmare sequences with assorted surrealist novelties.
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