A Nightmare on Elm Street

Rating:
Summary: A Nightmare On Elm Street DVD Review
Review: Movie: What else can be said about this great movie? First of all, it's not just a horror classic, but an American classic. Freddy Kruegar is one of the scariest boogeymen in movie history. The thought of someone killing you in your dreams is terrifying. Wes Craven wrote and directed this masterpiece. He is a great horror director, and it shows here. The entire film is dark and menacing. When Freddy makes his first on-screen appearence, you can't help but to either jump or scream in terror. The score may be very 80's, but it sets the mood nicely. The cast is also great. Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund are the real drving forces of the movie. Englund is excellent as Freddy. He gets his mannerisms just right. Langenkamp as Nancy is one of my favorite horror movie heroines, right up there with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) from Halloween. Langenkamp is sympathetic, but strong. You feel for her and her enormous plight. This is classic horror at it's best. Definately one of my favorites! 5/5

DVD:

Picture: Wow! That's what I said when I first put this disc in my player. Having worn out my VHS copy, I finally decided to buy the DVD. Where the VHS was grainy and looked like a big black mess, the DVD has crystal clear picture quality. The colors pop off the screen, and you can see Freddy in all his gory detail, the way he was meant to be seen. Congrats are in order for the team over at New Line for doing such a fantastic job here! The picture is presented in either 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen, or 1.33:1 Full Frame. But don't be fooled, the Full Frame is not "Pan & Scan." Comparing the two, the Full Screen version shows more information on the top & bottom of the image, while losing nothing on the sides. The Widescreen version must have been created from the original Full Frame negative for theatrical exhibition. My advice: unless you have a Widescreen TV, go with the Full Frame Version. 5/5

Sound: Amazing! Presented in either the original mono, or a new Dolby Digital 5.1, this soundtrack rocks! The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is excellent. The surrounds are put to effective use. Freddy is even scarier in surround sound! The dialoge is never masked, and sounds great also. The music gets the most benefit from the new mix, and is also excellent. But the original mono is no slouch, either. The mono track is also great, and will also get the appropriate screams out of you! 5/5

Extras: Not too many extras, but what is here is rather nice. There's the "Jump To a Nightmare" scene navigation tool, which lets you jump straight to the nightmare sequences. There's also an excellent commentary from Wes Craven, the director of photography, and stars John Saxon and Heather Langenkamp. This is an entertaining and fun commentary, but it's also informational. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, and has a genuine love for the film, and each other. One of the best commentaries I've ever heard! Rounding out the extras are the theatrical trailer, and cast & crew bios. 3/5

Overall: An excellent movie gets a great DVD to go along with it. Awesome picture and sound quality, and an excellent commentary to boot. For such a cheap price, this isn't a hard sell. This is a must have! Or better yet, get the entire "Nightmare On Elm Street Series" boxed set. I've just ordered mine, and I can't wait until it gets here. But this disc will help me survive the wait. Go, get this disc! Highly recommended! 5/5

Rating:
Summary: Birth of nightmare
Review: This was one of the scariest films of the 80s. I remember seeing it in the theater and there was a hush over the audience. Nobody talked back to screen. Nobody laughed because Freddy wasn't funny or a joke himself back then. He was a complete monster. We all just watched and became increasingly more nervous as things went on. The first Elm Street was original, terrifying and bleak. The adults don't save the day, in fact, they made it worse. The is no happy ending. Nancy is alive at the end but she's not unhurt. Ignore the sequels. There is only one Nightmare.

Rating:
Summary: Needs No Introduction
Review: The 80s were a golden age of horror similar to the 30s and 40s. The 30s and 40s gave us household names like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Wolf Man. We wouldn't get horror icons like this again until the 80s/late 70s, where the new generation of horror monsters would hit the local theaters: Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Chucky and Pinhead. These characters will be forever burned into the subconscious of every man, woman and child for generations to come. And the king of these monsters(just barely beating Myers and Voorhess in popularity) is Freddy Krueger from Nightmare On Elm Street, a frightening creation from the mind of Wes Craven. This film stands the test of time and is still as entertaining and scary as it was when it came out. The plot "borrows" from an earlier film, Dreamscape, that dealt with the idea of invading people's dreams and killing them in the dream-world, thus killing them for real. In fact, that film had an evil character with knives that sprouted from his fingers! Elm Street isn't a rip off of that, it's a very original and frightening idea. It was a different from the other slasher films of the time, which all had a killer with supernatural overtones that existed only in the physical world. Freddy exists in both the real and dream world, making him a bit harder to get away from. This movie almost made me mess my trousers when it first came out(I was 6 when I saw it), coz I had never seen anything quite like it before. I actually went into it knowing absolutely nothing about it. But this film makes the best with it's limited budget and far surpasses any of the increasingly bigger budgeted sequels. The sequels would make Freddy more and more of a cultural icon, but at the same time eliminate all of the scares from the series. After this and the underrated Part 2, Freddy would no longer be the nasty, menacing character that scares the daylights out of you, but he'd become a comedian and parody of himself. Of course, I have no idea why I'm telling you all of this, I'm sure you have seen this movie(everyone has, or should at least once in their life) before, probably more than once. If you haven't seen it before and watch it for the first time, you're gonna have to do, what I call, "adjust for time." Basically, that means that you have to take into account that this film was made in 1984, and the formula has been copied numerous times since then, so it may not come across as scary as it did to us folks who saw it back in the day. Just imagine how scary this film was when the formula wasn't the norm yet. Same goes for the film "Halloween." Whether you loved it, hated it, though it was just okay, didn't think it was as scary as you thought it'd be, you can't deny the impact that Nightmare On Elm Street has had on us, or it's enormous influence over many (usually cruddy) horror films made after it. Check out this DVD, it's the best the film has ever looked and sounded.

Rating:
Summary: 8 out of 10
Review: One of the most creative horror films. Many of the scenes are expressed in an abstract way. You can see easily when there are girls doing jump roping, Freddy through the wall, Evil Dead pop-ups, boiler rooms, and finally the ending. The ending was extremely odd, but I think I figured it out. The ending is really another dream, and nothing is real. Nancy must have passed out or was sleeping through the ending. She thinks Freddy has come back, but she got frightened. Remember, we almost do not see Freddy, although her mother was snatched by someone, maybe Freddy through the window of the front door. The mother was already dead by that time, remember? This movie is an instant horror classic, marking the landmark of how horror films should be created. Also, it presented the innovative Wes Craven to horror filmmaking. Overall, this film is scary at times, keeping it real as possible, so it can be very frightening if you were in their shoes. What bothered me somewhat is when the mother died, Nancy and her father expressed no teary feelings, and another one, I wish, in the film, the icon of Freddy Krueger was more elaborated. What the mother said was too concise and brief, that left me unsatisfied. Nevertheless, this movie ranks top 10 horror films of all time.

Rating:
Summary: Weird DVD
Review: This DVD is weird because when you play the movie the movie goes back to the menu right before chapter 2 begins. But if you skip chapters, it's ok. It's right before chapter 3,4,5,6 and so on until the movie ends. There is nothing wrong with my DVD player because my friend bought this and it's the same with him. The movie is cool.

Rating:
Summary: ONE TWO FREDDY'S COMING FOR YOU!
Review: A Nightmare On Elm Street..... need I say more. This film is .....Fu.king fantastic. Excuse the french but this film is the best horror film of all time. When the excellently gifted Wes Craven made this, he created something special that people all over the world would embrace. A highly original film. A killer that everybody knows-Freddy Krueger. I feel like I shouldn't have to write a review on this exciting film. Heather Langenkamp is excellent as Nancy Thompson the heroin in jepody. The great Robert Englund really did something with Freddy- the cruel clown, he relishes in killing. This is a film where it's scary(like when Tina gets killed), the musical score complements the scary atmosphere. The actors are perfectly casted. This film deserves to and is a must have in everybodies DVD collection. The print is good, the commentary by Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon and Jaques (Haitken) is entertaining. This is one film I'll always love.
by Justine Ryan

Rating:
Summary: You'll never look at the bathtub the same way again
Review: Almost 20 years after its release, and MANY times watching it, this movie still scares the hell out of me. The atmosphere surrounding the picture is haunting and the things that were done (like never really seeing Freddy's face) makes your heart want to come of your throat.

The sequels ruined Freddy and made him into a joke rather than retaining his wickedness (although when Craven directed Part 3: Dream Warriors, he righted gross wrongs in the second film).

For fans of the blood and gore horror, this is the movie for you.

Rating:
Summary: 1, 2, Freddy's coming for you...
Review: May I first start out this review by saying that Nightmare on Elm Street is WAY better than Friday the 13th, but sadly since only a couple of the sequels were any good, compared to the several good sequels F13 spawned, Friday the 13th is the overall better series.

Regardless, that doesn't change the fact Nightmare on Elm Street is a terrific movie. It has the most interesting premise of all time. A long time ago, a child murderer named Fred Krueger killed a bunch of children. The parents of Elm Street got fed up with it and decided to burn Freddy alive.

Fast forward to the present. Kids on Elm Street are starting to have these nightmares, about this guy with a glove that wants to kill them. It turns out to be Fred Krueger, who is back to exact revenge on the people of Elm Street. Remember, he was a CHILD murderer, so it only makes sense he wants to kill children in this movie as well.

There are tons of scares in this movie as well, making it the second scariest in the entire series. Fred is a legimitate monster in this movie, showing no emotion besides a thirsty desire to kill in the most deadly ways possible. From trying to drown a girl in her bathtub to creating a geyser of blood in a young man's room, Fred is truly evil and sadistic in this film.

Plus, the acting is really good for an 80s horror movie, and the characters are pretty interesting, especially the main character, Nancy. She is the unfortunate soul who lives in Fred's old house, and she's caught in the unfortunate situation of finding her friend accused of killing another one of her friends, and then later when another one of her friends lets her fall asleep, where the terrifying ending begins.

The movie also looks good and has good music. It won't win any awards, but Fred looks really scary here.

I cannot recommend this movie enough. It is the movie that spawned countless sequels. Despite the fact most of them [werent good], the bottom line is this movie did not. With the best plot of any horror movie ever, tons of surprises, great characters, decent acting, and more, you MUST see this movie.

And oh yeah, "9, 10, never sleep again"....

Rating:
Summary: Yet Another Maltin Type Review
Review: Classic horror film from veteran Wes Craven. Lots of great imagination and a great storyline lift this above others like "Friday the 13th." Plot concerns several teens who are all dreaming about the same evil character, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). The fun never stops, and the terror is there, and very raw. A defenitive, and very underrated, horror gem. ****

Rating:
Summary: A PERFECT CLASSIC 5/5 ,NO ?
Review: A Nightmare On Elm Street is such an innovative idea,with the dreams affecting reality. Its so good if you haven't seen this shame on you,movies now a days aren't ever as good as this. Features:Robert England(Phantom Of The Opera)as Freddy Kruguer,Johnny Depp(Nineth Gate),Heather Langenkamp(A Nightmare On Elm Street,A Nightmare On Elm Street 3) as Nancy who is an attractive brunette and can also really act. BOTTOM LINE: DIRECTED BY WES CRAVEN AND WHAT STARTED FREDDY KRUGUER AS AN HORROR ICON