It is day five into our month-long marathon, and the blood has only begun to spill. As we continue our tasty trudge through the 1980s, the next two servings are a celebration of subconscious terror, and they’re both considered mandatory viewing for any self-respecting creature of the night.
Grab yourselves a glass of warm milk, and get comfy – but whatever you do, don’t fall asleep!
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
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The late/great horror maven Wes Craven (Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes), redefined the slasher genre with the release of his seminal 1984 masterwork, A Nightmare on Elm Street, a true horror original that gave the genre one of its greatest icons since The Wolf Man.
A child-murdering son of a hundred maniacs, Fred Kruger may have managed to evade the long arm of the law by way of a legal technicality, but he couldn’t escape the mob of pissed off parents who were looking to deliver some good ol’ fashioned Street Justice.
Eventually, they tracked Kreuger down to the boiler room where he used to take his victims and burned it down with him inside. But little did they know that while Freddy may have been a little naughty while he was alive, after they killed him, he would go on to became something much, much worse. The stuff that nightmares are made of…
After some years pass by and everyone has moved on with their lives, young Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) starts having bad dreams about a horribly scarred man who wears a fedora and a dirty red and green sweater. He stalks Tina through a dark boiler room and terrorizes her with a brown glove that he fashioned into a hand gauntlet that has four sharp blades welded to the end of each finger. It’s not as clumsy, or random as a machete, but an elegant weapon, for a more…civilized boogeyman.
Scared out of her wits, Tina tells her friend Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) about the man of her dreams – and it turns out that Nancy has been dreaming about him too. And it’s not just them, as we find out that their boyfriends, Rod (Nick Corri) and Glen (Johnny Depp in his first movie) have also had this guy poking around in their respective nighttime worlds.
But things go beyond a creepy coincidence when Tina is horribly killed and Rod gets arrested for the murder. The responsibility falls on Nancy to not only figure out more about this uncatchable killer, but also find a way stop to him. The real question: Can she stay awake long enough to do so?
Suffice to say, this movie took the concept of ‘murdering teenagers on the silver screen’ to new, and amazing heights.
At a time when seeing an axe (or butcher knife) being buried into someone’s forehead during a movie was as commonplace as breakfast in the morning, audiences eagerly welcomed the sight of the future Gilbert Grape being swallowed by his bed and turned into a blood geyser.
A Nightmare on Elm Street was an instant success and has since gone on to be regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time, giving horror fans a new champion and another killer franchise (that probably should’ve ended with Part 4) to enjoy.
However, those are still not the greatest gift that film gave us. That would be the man behind the monster himself, Robert Englund.
Englund took the role as Freddy because it was the only gig that lined up with his shooting schedule for the cult classic sci-fi series/miniseries V. His appearance as Freddy would go on to be his breakthrough role and he would reprise it seven more times before finally hanging up the glove for good after 2004’s Freddy vs Jason.
While Englund would go on to star in several decent horror films over the years, like Phantom of the Opera, The Mangler, and Wishmaster, and even direct one of his own, 976-EVIL, his time as Freddy will always be his greatest contribution to the genre.
Check out his debut as the fedora’d killer over on MAX, and never sleep again.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
After the critical and commercial failure of the inferior (and admittedly highly misunderstood) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, New Line brought back Wes Craven to do damage control on their floundering franchise. Due to his commitment on another film, Deadly Friend, he was unable to direct, but he did contribute to the sequel’s screenplay
Interestingly, Wes had no intention of making the story of Freddy Krueger into a franchise, but he also didn’t anticipate the 1980s, or the deadly combination of greedy studio executives, and ravenous horror fans howling for more blood. So, with director Chuck Russell (The Blob remake, The Mask) at the helm, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors was released in 1987.
Taking place six years after the first movie, Dream Warriors centers around seven teenage patients at the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital. They are the sleepwalking puppet carver Phillip (Bradley Gregg), tough guy Kincaid (Ken Sagoes), Joey the mute (Rodney Eastman), D&D nerd Will (Ira Heiden), former junkie Taryn (Jennifer Rubin), aspiring TV actress Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow), and Kristen (Patricia Arquette), a spoiled rich girl whose loud shriek can shatter glass.
Also trapped with them in this developing nightmare are the predictably skeptical Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson) and hospital orderly Max (Larry “Not Lawrence” Fishburne).
Things kick off when, after dreaming of Freddy and waking up with a slit wrist, Kristen’s mother has her institutionalized out of fear that she is suicidal. Making matters even worse is the fact that after she and her fellow patients are attacked by Freddy within the hospital, the adults in her life, from her mother to the hospital staff, refuse to believe that someone is coming after them in their dreams.
That is until a new doctor arrives fresh out of school who has had firsthand experience with this pattern of nightmares – and her name is Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp).
However, her return doesn’t stop the sadistic sandman from doing his work, and when the patients start to die, the group is forced into finding the dream power within themselves and confronting the dream demon on his own turf.
We also get more of Craven’s backstory for Krueger (or at least how he was conceived) and find out that he doesn’t just kill his victims in their sleep. Rather, it’s the souls of the children give him strength – and there’s always room for more!
While the first film is gritty and visceral, Dream Warriors took the franchise in a more fantastical direction with bigger effects and an edge of dark humor (the latter of which would become more pronounced in the later movies, and even a little buffoonish by the end).
Regardless of this depressing future we now find ourselves in, this third franchise entry is the installment that made Freddy into a mainstream monster of mass appeal. From here, he would go on to become a pop culture icon. His character would be psychoanalyzed in the science world and was even referenced by former president Ronald Reagan in a dunk on the Democrats during the 1988 campaign trail for George Bush.
This movie is full of great imagery, unforgettable kill scenes, and some of the best catchphrases in all of horror. Here, Englund is in complete control of the character, and as such takes him dangerously close to the border of funny anti-hero before reminding the viewer that Freddy is pure evil.
Also, The music of 80’s rock band Dokken is featured at the beginning and end of the movie. They will forever be tied to this by the fans, even if they don’t listen to that kind of music.
Most fans will argue over whether Dream Warriors or the first movie are the best one of the series, but really, neither answer is explicitly wrong. Go watch A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors over on PRIME-time…b****h!
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