I just reviewed a horror film: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Now we view the opposite side of the coin: from Jason Voorhees to Freddy Kruger. Nightmare on Elm Street pretty much kickstarted the franchise slasher flicks, so now let's see how Freddy's first dream stalker adventure goes on the grading scale.
Plot:
Enter Tina, a girl who has not been able to catch a break almost her entire life: divorced parents, a boy friend who fights with her, and now she's having strange nightmares. It all comes to a head when she wakes up from one where she was slashed across the chest and wakes up with the slashes in her night gown.
She tells her friends the next day at school, invites them over that night so that she won't be alone, and her friend Nancy says she had a similar dream. The boyfriend, Rod, shows up to "make up". So Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, who is played by Johnny Depp in his first screen role, go to bed as well.
Tina wakes up in the middle of the night and goes outside to investigate a noise. She meets Freddy, who chases her and kills her. Rod wakes up and sees her struggling, freaks out and leaves the bed. Nancy and Glen run in the room just as Tina dies. Rod has left and Tina lies dead on the floor. No Freddy around.
The next day Nancy goes to school and Rod tackles her on the way in, tells her he didn't do it, and her father, Detective Thompson, arrests Rod. She goes to school and in English class falls into a nightmare. She ends up in a boiler room where Freddy chases her. She burns her arm to wake herself up. She wakes up in class and decides to go home. She walks out and looks at her arm and sees a burn mark.
That night in the bath tub Nancy has yet another nightmare where Freddy pulls her down into the water. After recovering Glen crawls into her bedroom while she is trying to sleep. She has him watch her as she sleeps and if she freaks out he has to wake her up. During the nightmare she sees that Freddy is going after Rod while he is in jail. Freddy ends up chasing her once again and she wakes up and she and Glen go to save Rod.
By the time they get in to help him, he has a bed cloth noose around his neck. Thompson and his deputy say he hanged himself, but Nancy knows the truth. Nancy's mom takes her to a sleep disorder hospital where she has a test done on her. The numbers go off the scale as the doctor realizes reality and dream are crossing. Nancy wakes up with a new streak of gray hair, a cut on her arm, and Freddy's hat in her hands. She claims she grabbed it off his head.
So now Nancy buys a book where she can set up booby traps in case Freddy comes knockin' while her mother buys bars and puts them on the windows of the house. She takes Nancy down to the boiler room and tells Freddy's story: that he was a child murderer who was arrested but released on account of wrong paperwork. The parents decided to torch the sucker themselves if the cops wouldn't do anything and Freddy was killed. She even shows Nancy the glove Freddy uses with knifes on the end.
Nancy decides to draw the line: she calls Glen and tells him to come over at midnight to attack Kruger once Nancy brings him out of her dream. She takes precautions and awaits Glen. Midnight rolls around but there is no sign of Glen and he won't answer his phone. Glen is murdered by Freddy in the best death scene ever put to film: he is dragged down into his bed and comes back up in gysers of blood. Its cool, yet a little violent for some I suppose.
Detective Thompson decides not to let Nancy see anything in fear of her going crazy, and Nancy calls him while he's investigating at Glen's house and says to come over to arrest Kruger at 12:30. She falls asleep as the final scene begins.
Nancy finds Freddy after a few minutes and puts up a final chase. The dream ends with Nancy holding Freddy as she wakes up. At first Freddy is nowhere and Nancy begins to think that she has gone crazy. But he shows up and puts up another chase. Of course he falls into every trap Nancy has left for him. Eventually Freddy is set on fire and Nancy yells for her father to come over.
When Thompson gets there firey footprints are all over the house and Nancy follows them to her mother's room where Kruger is attacking her there. Thompson covers the two with a bed sheet, putting out the flames and when he pulls them back up mother's dead body falls through the bed and disappears. Thompson leaves and Freddy returns. Nancy says that she doesn't believe in him and that she takes back all the energy she gave him.
Freddy vanishes and Nancy leaves the room to find herself outside in the morning. Her friends are there, her mother encourages her to go with, and when she gets in the convertible the top comes down in green and red stripes, the windows go up and the car takes off without Glen driving. Mother is pulled through the glass in the doorway by Freddy as the movie ends.
And now for the grading scale:
Acting: 8 out of 10. Strong performances all around.
Entertainment: 9 out of 10. At times a little slow but it increases the tension.
Screenplay: 10 out of 10. Written by director Wes Craven himself, one of the most innovative films ever made. What a premise.
Directing: 8 out of 10. Craven does excellent.
Technical Credits: 9 out of 10. A little sloppy sometimes on the editing, but the makeup, cinematography and music are all excellent.
Genre Fit: 9 out of 10. Tries to be a comedy at times, a slight one, but its pretty terrifying throughout.
MPAA Rating: 4 out of 10. The violence is quite strong.
Stupid Scenes: 10 out of 10. I think everything works. Even when its comedy, it is funny though.
Deeper Message: 6 out of 10. I have to give the ancient religion references and stuff like that a little credit. Also tells us that our nightmares reflect what happens in real life, in this case literally.
Beginning: 28 out of 30. Excellent.
Middle: 26 out of 30. A bit slow but its still great.
Ending: 30 out of 30. Fabulous ending.
Final Score: 157/180 or 87%. An A-, which is an excellent score.
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