A Nightmare on Elm Street: Review By Soylent Green:The Devil's Eyes

"A group of Cambodian refugees and their children, who, after fleeing to America from Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, were suffering horrific nightmares, after which they refused to sleep. Acting on medical advice, their parents encouraged them to do so. However, each of the children died in their sleep soon after, following the second dream."

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 that is the perfect horror villain because he's so brutal that it's terrifying. He hits home with everyone's idea of the boogeyman, but instead of hiding in your closet, 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.

I'll hand it to Wes Craven.

He can construct an original story, and throw in just the right amount of scary twists at us to keep us watching. Even with being 25 years old, Nightmare still smells and looks fresh (save for some of the items that have been updated since). The idea of having someone take your life in your dreams is just an interesting one that has yet to be done as well, if at all, since the franchise's run during the 1980's. The death sequences are imaginative, and make others pale in comparison. This movie was popular at the time for a reason (and gave Oprah Noodlemantra a name as well). They are all done very well done for 1984, especially considering they all would be benefiting from the help of CGI if the movie was remade today(Unfortunately, it is). Another interesting thing to note, is how the characters aren't dumb like the casts in their horror film brother and sisters. They genuinely have no idea what's going on with their dreams, and the Freddy Kreuger cover-up only adds to this fact. They attempt to avert the inevitable, but just end up failing. Whereas most horror just have the characters being complete morons, and walking right into their fates with no chance of thinking before hand (which I do love, nonetheless). The heroine in this picture genuinely has ideas for what to do, and fights to try and get them to work. She is the one who set the cliché up for future generations of horror films, and you can just see the beauty of the original idea playing out in the movie. And while Kreuger had yet to become the smart-ass he was in other films, his creepy presence only adds to the genuine scares of the film.

It was a hell of a way to make a name for yourself Mr. Craven.

It all started with 'Freddy vs. Jason' and after over eight months it's finally over and I can finally do normal reviews...Oh wait, nevermind....