Plot
A re-imagining of the horror icon Freddy Krueger, a serial-killer who wields a glove with four blades embedded in the fingers and kills people in their dreams, resulting in their real death in reality.
Storyline Death stalks the dreams of several young adults to claim its revenge on the killing of Freddy Kruger. Chased and chastised by this finger-bladed demon, it is the awakening of old memories and the denials of a past of retribution that spurns this hellish vision of a dreamlike state and turns death into a nightmare reality.
Writers: Wesley Strick, Eric Heisserer
Cast: Jackie Earle Haley
-
Freddy Krueger
Kyle Gallner
-
Quentin Smith
Rooney Mara
-
Nancy Holbrook
Katie Cassidy
-
Kris Fowles
Thomas Dekker
-
Jesse Braun
Kellan Lutz
-
Dean Russell
Clancy Brown
-
Alan Smith
Connie Britton
-
Dr. Gwen Holbrook
Lia D. Mortensen
-
Nora Fowles
(as Lia Mortensen)
Julianna Damm
-
Little Kris
Christian Stolte
-
Jesse's Father
Katie Schooping Knight
-
Creepy Girl #1
Hailey Schooping Knight
-
Creepy Girl #2
Leah Uteg
-
Creepy Girl #3
Don Robert Cass
-
History Teacher
Opening Weekend: $32,902,299
(USA)
(2 May 2010)
(3332 Screens)
Gross: $113,400,000
(Worldwide)
(8 August 2010)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia: Kyle Gallner was first to be cast.
Goofs:
Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers):
When Nancy and Quentin are in the book store discussing theory's about what is going on, Quentin says the name Rooney, which is the name of the actress who plays Nancy, instead of saying Nancy.
Quotes:
[first lines]
Dean Russell:
Can I have another? Hey. Can I have some more coffee, please?
User Review
Jumpscare on Lame Street
Rating: 1/10
I figured this would be an entertaining remake if nothing else, I was
wrong. Dead wrong. There was a much richer mysterious element to the
original film and to my surprise, much more creative. I thought the
kills and nightmare sequences would be vastly improved upon, but alas,
gigabytes, greenscreens and CGI cannot compete with hands-on
creativity.
The biggest question is of course whether a new Freddy is/was a good
idea and I tried to give Jackie a chance; ultimately you can
interchange actors playing Jason, Leatherface and Michael, they are
suits and masks but you can't replace a personality. Known
personalities such as Pinhead and Freddy Krueger ARE Robert Englund and
Doug Bradley with prosthetics. Robert Englund brought us a believably
creepy and demented sadistic killer where Jackie looked and acted like
a pedophile. There were a handful of lines I enjoyed such as the 'body
dying but brain living on' speech, but the rest seemed like
plagiarized, recycled and poorly delivered lines selectively stolen
from all the Nightmare films. (ex. Robert's "Your eyes say no, no, but
your body says yes, yes." From Freddy vs. Jason)
I don't understand why everything needs to be explained in full now. I
hate that. I didn't need to know what the force was, Michael Myers mom
was a stripper? Oh, okay, his killing is justified. I don't care that
Jason Voorhees played hockey and was prolific in archery and I don't
care that Leatherface has no nose. Some things are more frightening if
you don't know why or aren't given a chronological map of where
everything went wrong. Where was the creepy nightmare goat in this
film? Did they have to cut the sequence showing a young Fred Krueger as
a goat-herder on his family farm? In the 1984 film, what Freddy did
with kids was implied but never told in full. That gives the viewer the
right to view him in any matter, even as an anti-hero. The new film
stamps it on your forehead that he was doing unsavory things to
children which more or less made me sick and made the character less
likable. (I always did find it funny that Freddy had such a cult
following and appeal with kids as a child killer, but it worked. Here
it does not.)
The CGI becomes a distraction here; it's when things look too perfect
that they lose believability such as Freddy bending the wall above
Nancy. The original was creepier and it was produced in camera. The
kills were boring. "I fall asleep, Freddy shows up, Freddy says
something, I'm stabbed, I'm dead." Remember Rod (1984) being slowly
strangled by bed sheets? That was scary, creative and left people
thinking that perhaps Nancy was imagining Krueger and that Rod had hung
himself. The new 'Nancy in the bathtub' scene was a boring cop-out and
seemed more or less to be suggesting that it could be frightening. Even
Tina's death being dragged across the ceiling was more vicious and
sadistic in the original. EVERY 'scare' in this film is the cliché loud
music and somebody jumping into frame.
I couldn't care less about the kids in this film, they are bratty and
almost apathetic/nihilistic to the idea that they were being stalked in
their sleep. Forget about brewing coffee in your closet, these kids are
popping pills and using needles to stay awake this go around. I didn't
buy that they were sleep deprived as the actors had shaggy or ratty
hair and clothes, baggy eyes and looked strung out on heroin since the
beginning of the film. The unnecessary 30 second video blog cameo by
the likable Asian stoner from the Friday the 13th remake was the only
time anyone seemed like they wanted to live.
The simplified story, CG, and casting aren't the only problems, the
screenplay seems to be jumbled as certain characters have been blended
and displaced. The 'Tina' character or 'Kris' in this film seems to
take on most of Nancy's research early on in the film imposing the
belief that she was the lead actress. I'm not sure if that was the goal
of the screenwriter, but it wasn't a very clever or effective trick if
that was the intent. The altogether renaming of the characters and
traits begs the question of why even do it in the first place? Why not
just make a new sequel with a great script and high production value?
This film, to me, was more like a terrible modern high school
cliff-notes adaptation than a remake. It brought nothing new to the
table and improved on nothing. As a film it was outperformed on every
level by it's 26 year old predecessor. I truly hope this dies terribly
at the box-office and that talk of a sequel gets slashed from the
mouths of New Line and producers of this sacrilege. Shame on everyone
involved in this crap. Even the worst sequel to the original series has
more entertainment value.
I am not a purest, I was looking forward to this and I have enjoyed
most of the remakes to a certain degree.
Plot
In the dreams of his victims, a spectral child murderer stalks the children of the members of the lynch mob that killed him.
Release Year: 1984
Rating: 7.4/10 (66,569 voted)
Critic's Score: 78/100
Director:
Wes Craven
Stars: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund
Storyline On Elm Street, Nancy Thompson and a group of her friends including Tina Gray, Rod Lane and Glen Lantz are being tormented by a clawed killer in their dreams named Freddy Krueger. Nancy must think quickly, as Freddy tries to pick off his victims one by one. When he has you in your sleep, who is there to save you?
Cast: John Saxon
-
Lt. Donald Thompson
Ronee Blakley
-
Marge Thompson
Heather Langenkamp
-
Nancy Thompson
Amanda Wyss
-
Christina 'Tina' Gray
Jsu Garcia
-
Rod Lane
(as Nick Corri)
Johnny Depp
-
Glen Lantz
Charles Fleischer
-
Dr. King
Joseph Whipp
-
Sgt. Parker
Robert Englund
-
Fred Krueger
Lin Shaye
-
Teacher
Joe Unger
-
Sgt. Garcia
Mimi Craven
-
Nurse
(as Mimi Meyer-Craven)
Jack Shea
-
Minister
Ed Call
-
Mr. Lantz
Sandy Lipton
-
Mrs. Lantz
Taglines:
She is the only one who can stop it... if she fails, no one survives.
Release Date: 16 November 1984
Filming Locations: 1419 N. Genesee Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
Box Office Details
Budget: $1,800,000
(estimated)
Opening Weekend: $1,271,000
(USA)
(11 November 1984)
(165 Screens)
Gross: $25,504,513
(USA)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
The very first time we see Freddy in the movie, he isn't being played by Robert Englund, but by special-effects man Charles Belardinelli, as Belardinelli was the only one who knew exactly how to cut the glove and insert the blades.
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes:
Freddy intimidates Tina by slitting off his own pinkie and ring fingers, but blood only spurts from the pinkie.
Quotes: Hallguard:
[off screen]
Hey, Nancy.
[flashing Freddy's finger knives]
Hallguard:
No running in the hallway.
User Review
A movie that rejuvenated the slasher genre
Rating: 10/10
By 1984, the slasher genre was wearing thin. Halloween bombed out with
number 3, and Friday the 13th was falling into the dreadful mix of
completely cliché horror. Without A Nightmare on Elm Street, that could
have been it for the slasher film. With it, however, the genre was
brought off the respirator for another 10 years when Craven did it
again with Scream, but I digress. Wes Craven delivers a very original,
creative, and well played out horror film that has the perfect level of
plot, fright, gore, and imagination. The balance of these elements is
key, as it gives you the best of all of them, without becoming too
cliché, too bloody, or too silly. The movie keeps you with the
characters throughout, who, unlike in the Friday the 13th series,
aren't there only to be lined up for slaughter. To top all that off,
there's the smart, fear-inspiring bogeyman Freddy Krueger, who is one
of the greatest villains in cinema history. The combination of all
these factors makes A Nightmare on Elm Street easily recognizable as a
landmark in classic horror.
Nancy and Tina are a little upset. They both are having terrifying
nightmares of someone they can only describe as a man in a dirty
sweater with knives for fingers, and Tina is having some guy issues. In
fact, this nightmare shook Tina up so much that she has her friends
over to keep her company, and has some great makeup sex with her man,
Rod. Well, the man with the dirty sweater visits her subconscious once
again, and she is inexplicably dragged to the ceiling and butchered, in
an incredibly brutal, horrifying scene. Rod is arrested for the crime,
and one by one, this mysterious specter assimilates Nancy and her
friend's dreams. She keeps being stalked by this bogeyman, and after
several episodes (that nearly puts her in the nuthouse), Nancy learns
of a certain child murderer, Fred Krueger, who happened to use a glove
with knives to kill the kids, and was also burned to death by the
parents of the neighborhood. Now knowing what she's up against, Nancy
prepares for battle, but how do you fight your dreams? An interesting
approach is taken by Craven to solve that problem, leading to the final
show down between the lion and the lamb. The whole ordeal ends with a
twist so bizarre that you can't help but love it.
When this movie was made, Halloween had set the stage, and Friday the
13th turned into what is now known as a cliché slasher. Wes Craven
picked up on the psychological terror of Halloween, and the gore in
Friday the 13th, and made it a psychologically chilling gory movie,
while not turning to exploitation just to keep your interest. It stays
terrifying by unbelievably violent and scary scenes while not going
over-the-top. What makes these scenes effective is not only Craven's
imagination, but the movie has a good, fear-inspiring villain. Freddy
Krueger is the perfect horror villain because he's so brutal that it's
terrifying. He hits home with everyone's idea of the bogeyman, but
instead of hiding in your closet (where you can be safe from), he gets
you in your dreams. There's virtually no way to stop him. How do you
resist sleep? How do you resist dreaming? Of course, the idea is so
outrageous that no one believes Nancy, which leaves the audience and
the characters frustrated. The problem is, the person with the power is
the person whose in control, and that's him. That's what allows Craven
to build the tension in the movie. Again, like Carpenter's Halloween,
Craven gets you attached to Nancy and her friends, instead of
presenting characters in hopes of you being scared when they die, or
just to pad the body count (and he still makes it gory without that
factor). They're ordinary teenagers that a young audience can relate
to, which is the target audience for this film.
If you think about it, the movie is kind of goofy. A clown-like
bogeyman who haunts your dreams with various wisecracks. I guess we
needed something less cliché. This is one of the most original horror
movies I've ever seen, and is one of my favorites. Craven brings the
evil, scar faced bogeyman that was considered a flop by Hollywood into
one of the scariest, most memorable movie villains of all-time. The
acting by relatively new actors is pretty good (holy crap, Johnny
Depp's first!), especially for Heather Langenkamp as Nancy and Robert
Englund as Freddy. The screenplay is very well written, as the dialog
isn't cheesy and it goes with the time period. No event is put in only
for exploitation (like random strip poker in Friday the 13th), so the
atmosphere stays chilling and doesn't turn stale. Not just a great
horror movie, but a great scary movie. A real gem from Wes Craven (who
gets to be called the master of horror for this epic) that arguably
saved the slasher genre from itself.
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