The first Freddy. This is the early, serious Freddy Krueger before he started doing a comedy act in between slicing up teenagers. Here, he’s just a creepy burned-up psycho who can kill people in their dreams and who has pretty good taste in sweaters. It’s a clever idea from Wes Craven, who was looking for a hit in the midst of the 1980s slasher boom. He scored a big one here. This film also saved the financially troubled New Line Cinema so much so that some nicknamed the studio “The House That Freddy Built” (from RKO in the 1940s to Hammer in the 1950s, you ever notice that its almost always a hit horror film that rescues ailing studios?)
This holds up as ridiculous, but well-directed and fast-paced. This is also Johnny Depp’s first movie (let’s just get that fact out of the way). Its big sore spot is Ronee Blakley, who’s either awful or great as Heather Langenkamp’s dumbbell alcoholic mother. I can’t decide. On one hand, she plays the part like she’s in a 1950s melodrama, like violin music is accompanying her every line—all with no trace of irony that I can discern. On the other hand, when I saw this in a theater in 2014 (with a room full of Freddy fanatics), everything Blakley said or did, down to the tiniest gesture, got laughs from the crowd. She makes this movie more fun and I can’t help but love her for her complete all-around badness.
Followed by a boatload of sequels.