A Nightmare on Elm Street
(Region 2 DVD)
(1984)
review by Billion$Baby

BTW Same with NOES 5 - my old UK vhs copy contained the unrated version but the violence in the UK dvd of part 5 is also trimmed since the US "R" rated version has once again been used instead of utilising the previous UK's BBFC approved and fully uncut 18 rated version.

Anyway, just in case you've been living in a cave on Mars for the last twenty years, Wes Craven's horror film features four teenage children plagued by nightmares of a horribly burned one-time child murderer (molestation is also heavily hinted at) called Freddy Krueger who wears a brown hat, a striped sweater and more importantly, a razor fingered glove. This original film takes a more serious approach than the subsequent sequels as Freddy is presented as a more threatening character without the numerous wisecracks. So how does the film hold up today?

Well, still pretty good I suppose although I do still have a few serious problems with it:

- Heather Langenkamp's eyebrows and voice. (ed note; Hahahahah!)

- That stupid sequence where Freddy has longer arms than Mr Tickle from the Roger Hargreaves children's books. From what I understand, I'm not actually supposed to be laughing when I see this.

- The shitter than shit final ending. Quite possibly the most unsatisfying horror film conclusion that I' ve ever had the misfortune to bear witness to. That obvious dummy being dragged through the window faster than an ant up a vacumn cleaner still looks bloody awful.

Good points of the film:

- The enjoyable gore levels that WERE present.

*I stress WERE since they're now NOT present in this piss poor UK DVD release. Obviously New Line have never heard the words "unrated," "18 certificated" or "exclusive dvds for exclusive regions."*

- Craven's idea of having a slasher take place within the dream realm was ingenious. Imaginative deaths or attacks can be seen as normal logic bound rules no longer apply. The dream sequences are clearly the highlight of this film.

- An Evil Dead 1 cameo to be seen on Nancy's television set.

The trouble with this film is that it doesn't feature too much replay value, impressive as it was for such a low budget. Suspense only works once and apart from in a few select scenes, the film's photography is seriously dull stuff. I just see this film as a first entry to a bizarre yet thoroughly entertaining series of rather hit and miss films where Robert Englund understandably became the top dog and actually the only reason to seek them out in the first place.

Still, the original film is obviously about 10,000 times better than the woeful first sequel and also superior to the other entries in the Nightmare franchise (bar Freddy vs Jason). And as a plus, you do get to point at the screen and say "Hey, look at that, it's Johnny Depp." Nightmare On Elm Street is certainly still an above average horror which although it introduced one of the greatest most ingenious slasher killer characters and concepts to be seen, it certainly isn't quite the "classic" it's hailed to be.

It's a classic character and concept but not a classic film. Having said that it does have some great moments, namely Nancy's dream sequences where she spots Tina in a body bag. If this really is supposed to be Wes Craven's best film then I have serious doubts as to his directorial abilities. Mind you, Shocker and other attempts might have proved the case on that already. Nightmare On Elm Street never scared or disturbed me, it just entertained instead.

I'll give this film 5 marks for the character that Craven and Englund created, minus 1 mark for the stupid ending sequence, minus 1 mark for some of the most lacklustre and generally unimpressive photography that I've ever seen and I'll add on half a mark since it was made on a low budget. The makers of this DVD however get zero marks for selling the cut version of NOES in the UK despite the fact that even my old video from the 1980's was uncut.

This region 2 dvd features 2.0 and 5.1 sound, a SLIGHTLY grainy anamorphic print and a trailer, and a entertaining enough commentary track from Craven, Langenkamp, the nothing special cinematographer and John Saxon. Saxon doesn't have too much to say which is about right since he doesn't have too much to say in the film either. That commentary features Craven talking about the cuts imposed on the American (and now the UK version) of the film. I don't know about other genre fans but I'd much rather have a barebones uncut UK dvd rather than a copy of a censored US release with a commentary track taken from an old laser
disc.

*The old UK vhs release of NOES 1 was definetly the unrated and uncut version, I still own it. For all I know, the current vhs copy might also now contain the trimmed US version if New Line have seen fit to recently re-release it in a similarly lazy fashion.*