Puma's Horror Movie Review

Nightmare on Elm Street

Release Date - 1984

Directed by Wes Craven
Primary Actors: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund & Johnny Depp

    Welcome to the second edition of Puma's Horror Movie Review. It's the most wonderful time of the year, a time when the abnormal becomes normal, when the streets are blanketed with the colors of its autumnal shed and when night arrives, ghosts and goblins make this world their own. If you're like me, you can't wait for Halloween night and that means you've already decided what movies to watch. If not let me make a suggestion: Why not try out the original Nightmare On Elms St. If you've seen it, no explanation necessary. You know this movie delivers on all levels. However if you just crawled out of a bad whirlwind of Disney musicals, then sit back and allow your Uncle Poomz to enlighten you on a movie so scary it'll haunt you, even in your dreams.
    In 1984 New Line Cinema greenlighted an independent film based off of the night terrors director Wes Craven had after reading about a boy who was so afraid to fall asleep he took an overabundance of no doze and hid a coffee pot in his closet only to later be forced by his parents to go get some real sleep.When he adhered, they found him dead the next morning. Craven relished at the theory that something in this boys dreams possibly was terrorizing him and keeping him from wanting to sleep. "Nightmare" centers on a group of normal teenagers slowly coming to grips with the fact that everyone has nightmares, but in their dreams they share something in common.
  A dark figure that reaches deep into their psychological canvas and paints his own reality with their blood. Ultimately in doing this he then can manipulate them and take their souls. The teens come up with a plan to figure out, Who is this dark, burnfaced oppressor of sleep and what does he want with them before he picks off the rest?

  One by one the children of Elm St. fight the good fight but ultimately meet their demise with the exception of our heroine Nancy, played by Heather Langenkamp. She dives deep into the history of the evil that raids her sleep and murdered her friends. She comes to find the towns dirty secret unveils some twenty years before a witch hunt for a child killer named Fred Krueger turned into a vigilante homicide by chasing Krueger down and setting him on fire. Now he's come back to claim the lives of all the children of the original mob. Freddy's rebirth will only allow him to catch them in their sleep. Once Nancy figures out the pieces of the puzzle, she then devises a plan to capture and kill the monster. Will Nancy endure and survive the night or will she be last of the Elm st children? Either way she'll have to stay awake to survive the Nightmare on Elm st. This film went on to produce seven sequels but none with a dark gritty feel as the first. Nightmare has stood the test of time as far as original terror. Please watch and see for yourself just try and stay awake.