Movie Classics: A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street first terrified audiences and kept them awake at night in 1984. With little advertising, the film managed to make nearly 25 times its production budget in box office sales, relying almost entirely on word of mouth promotion. After being released on video to a wider audience, Freddy Krueger and A Nightmare on Elm Street gained an impressive cult following that is still alive more than 20 years later. With the addition of 7 more films, including Wes Craven's New Nightmare and the recent release Freddy Vs. Jason, the character of Freddy has become a cult and horror icon, idolized and feared by millions of fans and movie lovers alike. The trademark striped sweater and hand razors are easily recognized symbols of horror greatness.

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Heather Langenkamp is Nancy Thompson

In her third feature film role, Heather delivers the kind of performance that is typical of lower budget horror films. Despite her fake tears, however, she does portray a very engaging heroine, and has become a cult princess for her role. Nancy Thompson is a typical teenager, who spends her time with boyfriend Glen and best friend Tina. When the evil spirit of Freddy Krueger begins to haunt them, she struggles to convince the adults around her that dreaming has become deadly. Sadly, her own parents are too caught up in their own lives to listen to her pleas, and eventually decide that poor Nancy has lost her mind. This theme of ignorant parents is one that teen audiences can easily identify with, which may be one of the underlying reasons for the films popularity over the years. Heather Langenkamp later reprises this role in two more Wes Craven films.

Selected Filmography:

The Outsiders
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3
Shocker
Tonya & Nancy: The Inside Story

Amanda Wyss is Tina Gray

After a brief prologue about the resurrection of Freddy Krueger, the film opens with Tina's first nightmare. She finds herself trapped in a strange, dank boiler room, being chased and tormented by a shadowy figure with razors on his hand. Amanda Wyss' screen time is short lived, as she is the first victim to be killed while dreaming of Freddy, though her corpse continues to haunt the other teens. Like Nancy, her parents are self-involved and can't be trusted with the seriousness of her strange nightmares. When Tina's mother and her boyfriend leave her alone for the weekend, she calls on Nancy to help keep the bad dreams at bay. What she doesn't know is that Freddy will find her in her dreams no matter what she does.

Selected Filmography:

Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Silverado
Desert Steel

Jsu Garcia is Rod Lane

Poor Rod really never has a chance in this story. After witnessing the strange and brutal death of his girlfriend Tina, Rod flees and spends a day hiding out with no shirt and no shoes. Soon after, he is arrested for murdering Tina. Because he was the only person to see her die, he is unable to convince the police of his innocence. Jsu Garcia plays a great rebel and obnoxious boyfriend, and even seems to be realistically terrified of what he witnessed in Tina's house on the night of her death. His type of character is an important staple for teen horror films - he's the guy who pulls a scary prank to set the mood before the real killer makes an appearance.

Selected Filmography:

The Silence
Predator 2
Traffic
We Were Soldiers
Sueno

And last, but not least:

Johnny Depp is Glen Lantz

The opening credits read "and introducing Johnny Depp", who appeared in A Nightmare on Elm Street for his first role. It's clear to see why he was able to make such a successful career, as he gave a very decent first performance. Although Glen doesn't have a great deal of dialogue, his character is important to the story, as he is the only person that Nancy can confide in. Although he seems unaffected by the haunting of Freddy, he sticks by his girlfriend until the very end, when he meets the most gruesome demise. Johnny Depp's death scene is arguably the most creative and clever in the entire film, and is the focus of one of the best dialogues.

Lt. Thompson "What does the coroner got to say?"
Cop #3 "He's been in the john puking since he saw it."

Selected Filmography:

Edward Scissorhands
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
The Astronaut's Wife
The Ninth Gate
Corpse Bride

John Saxon is Lt. Thompson

John Saxon is great as the tough, no-nonsense cop and strict dad. Most of his dialogue is given with a serious frown, or shouting. Despite being a good cop, Lt. Thompson is just too realistic to believe his daughter when she claims that a long dead murder is on the loose and killing her friends one by one. He's already sure that he's caught the man responsible for the death of Tina Gray, and although Nancy swears Rod is innocent, the Lieutenant charges him anyway.



Selected Filmography:

The Night Caller
Enter the Dragon
Blood Beach
From Dusk Till Dawn
Outta Time

Ronee Blakley is Marge Thompson

Ronee Blakley is hilarious as the constantly drunk, always dazed mother in creepy pink lipstick. Her sappy performance and goofy dialogue make Marge Thompson the most laughable character in the film. Despite being an alcoholic and a nutcase, Marge is very concerned for her daughter, and tries desperately to do what she thinks is best. Naturally, this only makes matters worse for Nancy, who can't seem to convince her that Freddy Krueger is out to get her. Eventually Marge reveals her terrible secret, and explains why Freddy is seeking revenge on the kids of Elm Street.

Selected Filmography:

Nashville
The Baltimore Bullet
A Return to Salem's Lot
Murder by Numbers

The inspirations for Freddy Krueger and A Nightmare on Elm Street are many, including eastern religions, childhood bullies, and a strange man wandering in the night. These ideas stewed for years, until finally coming together as a film concept in 1981.

Several studios turned down the idea of Nightmare, until it was finally picked up by New Line Cinema. Despite the immediate success of the film, Wes Craven did not intend to create any more Freddy films. He declined involvement in the sequel, Freddy's Revenge. Luckily for fans, he returned to the series to write the script for Part 3, Dream Warriors.

Wes Craven is a master of thrillers, having written, directed and produced many classics and fan favorites over the years. He has won several awards for his work on A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, The Hills Have Eyes and more.

Selected Filmography:

Swamp Thing
The People Under the Stairs
Red Eye
Wishmaster (executive producer)

When Wes Craven approached New Line Cinema about producing his film, the distribution company had only produced a handful of unsuccessful original films. Since the incredible success of A Nightmare on Elm Street, New Line is responsible for many popular movies such as Critters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, A Few Good Men, Dumb and Dumber, Snakes on a Plane, and the Blade Trilogy.

The company was founded in 1967, and is now owned by parent company Time Warner. After more than 40 years in the business, it is still run by founder and CEO Bob Shaye. New Line Cinema and it's divisions earned over one billion dollars in gross revenue in 2006.

As horror villains go, Freddy Krueger is one of the most popular ever created. Although he terrified kids and teens throughout the 80's and 90's, his popularity has made him a cult icon and hero - one of the rare antagonists that crossed over into pin-up infamy. Like Scarface and Darth Vader, Freddy is the proof that sometimes being bad is good.

The face of Freddy Krueger can be found on everything from posters, to Hallowe'en masks, to coffee mugs. Writer and director Wes Craven explains that the trademark red and green sweater was chosen because the combination was assaulting to the eyes, and reminded him of a scary transient that had frightened him as a child.

Originally written as a pedophile, Freddy Kruger was portrayed as a serial child murderer, who managed to escape conviction due to poorly completed paperwork. After being burned alive by angry parents, the evil and tormented spirit of Freddy returns years later to unleash his wrath upon the teenage children of his killers. If the festering burns on his face weren't scary enough, this villain uses homemade claws to slash his victims, killing them from within the dream world.

Freddy Krueger is a modern boogeyman, and one of the most memorable slasher killers of all time.

Robert Englund began his film career in 1974 with Buster and Billie. Many roles would follow, but none that can be compared to the infamous Freddy Krueger. He has portrayed the character in 8 films, and on television in Freddy's Nightmares and The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror IX". The success of the Nightmare on Elm street saga made him a household name, and raised his status above former horror icon Christopher Lee.

Although Freddy Krueger is the ultimate evil villain, Robert is known for having an incredibly friendly personality. Indeed, despite having his likeness on every type of merchandise under the sun, including tattoos, he seems to take it all in stride.

"I saw an entire magazine of Freddy Krueger tattoos. Hey, I'm a classically trained actor who was doing Chekhov, and now there are thousands of people walking around America with my tattoo on them. I just take it as pop culture."

In addition to having over 100 film and television appearances under his belt, Robert Englund has also directed two films: 976-EVIL, and Killer Pad. His latest project, The Vij is scheduled for US release in 2009.

Selected Filmography

Eaten Alive
Dead and Buried
Dance Macabre
Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera
Wishmaster
Urban Legend
Zombie Strippers!

If you do a search on "Nightmare on Elm Street 2010", you'll find links to a number of blogs, all with different facts and rumors to share about the latest remake in the works. What we do know for sure is that the idea is the work of Michael Bay, who will be producing this risky project.

It's difficult to gauge whether or not such a "re-imagining" will be a hit. Although the 2003 remake of cult classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was a decent enough film on it's own, it failed to inspire the devoted following of it's predecessor. It's a delicate thing to take a beloved film and re-polish it with new ideas, faces and technology. Even sequels can be done poorly when a gap of 20 years or more lays between films. Just look at the latest Star Wars trilogy, which made enormous amounts of money, but lacks the magic which inspired years of ambitious sci-fi films that would follow "A New Hope".

The biggest question that fans and critics want to know is who will take on the role of Freddy Krueger? Many believe that it would be fatal to use anyone other than the immortal Robert Englund. Since he was game for a number of cheesy sequels, it's not hard to imagine him putting on the sweater again. On the other hand, would it be as easy to digest an entirely new cast with just one original member hanging on?

One rumor circulated that Billy Bob Thornton would be giving us his version of Freddy. An interesting concept to be sure.

According to IMDb, the new Freddy Krueger will be portrayed by Jackie Earle Haley, of Watchmen. Not a bad choice for a fantasy villain. Other cast members on set include Kellan Lutz (Twilight - Emmet Cullen), and Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles - John Connor). It is rumored that Clancy Brown will also be taking on the role of "Allan".

The character list is almost entirely new. The names Freddy Krueger and Nancy Thompson remain the same, with new supporting characters adding to the mystery of this "re-imagining". Hopefully, they won't disappoint.

There was some confusion over the issue of directors and writers. Wesley Strick was said to be taking on the task of directing the remake, but has since been moved to the job of writing the screenplay. Samuel Bayer is now listed as the director for this project, who's experience thus far has been directing music videos and commercials.

Fans will have to keep an eye out for more news about yet another transformation of Wes Craven's original vision. One thing is for certain, this new film will lack one crucial element. As one 411Mania member remarked, no other film will ever be able to "Introduce" Johnny Depp!