Nightmare On Elm Street, A (1984)

The film where Johnny Depp got his start in cinema, and I’m guessing the film that was Wes Craven’s most successful until Scream in 1996, is actually quite beautiful to look at. Dare I even go as far as to say that it contains much in the way of avant-garde cinematography? Because of the frequent dream sequences, Wes had the opportunity to create fantastical scenes of horror rooted in primordial fear. I tip my beat up fedora to Craven and his crew for running with the potential he had and making it terrifying. The film is filled with memorable, suspenseful and terrifying scenes. These including Nancy Thompson, suddenly covered in mud-slick snakes; another has her asleep in class, tensely wandering through the strange school halls of her nightmares following a blood trail, heading down to the boiler room; another features Freddy’s clawed hand emerging from the bathtub foam, between Nancy’s vulnerable legs. My two personal favourite scenes are two of the most impressive kills I’ve ever seen, and I warn that these border on spoiler status, but I shan’t divulge the pour suffering souls: the first, an extended scene where a gored, blood-drenched victim is dragged up the wall and across the ceiling, shrieking as they die, and dumped unceremoniously back onto the bed in a heap as someone cowers in the corner of the room, helpless to watch the paranormal event. Next and perhaps even more impressive is a death where the victim is absorbed into their bed, only to have copious gouts of their blood erupt up into the ceiling, drenching the room completely like a tidal wave.

Yes, Wes, you’ve made something truly impressive. As I watched, I remembered how original a creature like Freddy was. A psychopathic monster able to stalk and kill people in their dreams is pretty frightening and not only because it’s a thing almost impossible to beat. Chilling. Naturally the franchise ruined the effect by taking it to ridiculous jump-the-shark extremes like a death involving a pizza covered in the meatball faces of victims only to be eaten on the ends of those razor sharp hand blades, but this first in the series is golden, and certainly worthy of recommendation.

 
Spewing gore - honestly, how could you sleep after that!?