"What can be seen, can't always be proven."

Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Directed by the legendary Wes Craven.

This movie changes the game of slasher killer. Instead of having a real person going around killing people, the killer is in the character's dreams and can't be proven to be a real killer. He is in certain people's head and only they can experience him. Craven brings in the supernatural into the story by having Freddy be a literal dream killer. Doing this can make a viewer question what they are truely afraid of. Is what they are scared of real or is it all constructed in their mind. The "monsters" like the Boogyman and whatever it is that lives under the bed, don't harm us in real life; which implies that people just construct it in their minds. The character of Freddy is be believed by others, not real and that the kids made it up. Except for the part where he kills them. There is also the big question about how much of our dreams really affect our life, "If we fall off a building and die in our dream will we die also?" This film takes that question and answers with a crazy "yes". 


The special effects are awesome in this film. Freddy walks through a jail cell!!! Even for a crew in 2011, making this happen can prove to be a bit challenging. There's maggots coming out of Freddy, bugs crawling out of Tina, the carpeted stairs become gooey, and of course a load amount of blood. Even Freddy's makeup is crazy good. Compared to the trailer and pictures for the new Nigtmare, I think this Freddy is way more scarier. The burns on his face are horrific! His face seems to show what is supposed to be muscle and bone while the new Freddy's face is more like donor skin graphs were placed. There was a sheet that was moving and no one was moving it! Effects that would seem to be so simple for us were difficult in the past but sometimes (this is one of those times) they turn out to be better than the present. 

The camera work was really good also. Sometimes the viewer is Freddy, sometimes the characters are put in our face, and sometimes the viewer is placed in abstract angles and places. When Tina wakes in the beginning, she awakens suddenly to the camera. During the night when Freddy tries to break through the ceiling, the camera is also at a high angle on the same plane as the ceiling. These types of angles and placements can create suspense, the awkard placement of the viewer being the killer which would imply that the viewer is killing all these people, or can also place the viewer in a position of isolation from the characters so to make them feel like they cant get any help. There isn't a camera shot that does not work for this film. Everything from the story, effects, and camera work is done smoothly and all of it flows so well together. This is a masterpiece.


Wes Craven is brilliant! I love this movie! I will be buying this movie!!

 *Side note: When Glenn dies all that blood must have come from everyone Freddy killed cause on human being can't have that much blood in them....   :)