Day 22. Director and writer Wes Craven said he based the story on a series of articles he read in the L.A. Times about a group of young Cambodian men who had died in their sleep after having nightmares. Apparently, Freddy was originally written as a child molester, rather than just a child killer, but after a series of child molestation incidents that were happening in California at that time, Wes Craven changed it to avoid any negative press that may follow the release of the movie. Cinemassacre, Kill Count, Everything Wrong With.
The movie starts with 15-year-old Tina Gray being chased by an unknown character with a razored glove in a boiler room. She wakes up screaming to find four slashes in her nightgown. The next morning she tells her friend, Nancy Thompson, about the dream. Now that Tina is too afraid to sleep alone, with her mother going out of town, Nancy offers to sleep over to keep her company. That night, Tina and Nancy talk about their dreams, discovering that they are about the same guy.
In true Psycho-style, the main heroine is set to be Tina, who is killed off in the first 20 minutes or so, making Nancy the main heroine. This is a great slasher flick with a string of good sequels, although they get rather ridiculous as they go, like all slasher films. Robert Englund is great as Freddy. He really sets the tone of a merciless killer with a sense of humour, which only develops as the movies go on.
I saw Robert Englund at a convention in 2014 and sat in on his talk. He stated that the reason he did all the sequels was to help the crew pays their bills, essentially. So he didn’t really do them for himself, he did it to help out some guys he had met and come to know. What a gent. He also attended the same convention the next year, in 2015, so I had him autograph my Nightmare on Elm Street VHS.
I think this was the first horror film I ever saw, I must have been around 4 at the time. To be fair, watching horror movies from a young age has stopped me from getting scared of other movies. According to my Auntie, when I was 5-6, she was babysitting me one night and I had asked to stay up late to watch Hellraiser on TV. Her response was that it might be too scary for me, to which I rather sassily responded with “I’ve already seen Freddy Krueger”.
In conclusion, this movie is a classic that everyone should see, and definitely should have NEVER been remade. Oh yeah, it has young Johnny Depp.
POP! I have two, one being the classic, the other was an exclusive from Forbidden Planet Dream Warriors Freddy.
Tomorrow we’ll be looking at a terrifying children’s movie based on the book by one of my favourite childhood authors, Roald Dahl. Don’t let them smell you.
Creativity, Cats & Moving Pictures 
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