Movies - A Nightmare on Elm Street

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	Movies - A Nightmare on Elm Street

This article is about the film. For the article about the series, see A Nightmare on Elm Street (series)

A Nightmare On Elm Street was the first film in the A Nightmare on Elm Street
series of slasher films. It was released in November 1984 by New Line Cinema. The film was directed by Wes Craven and starred Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, and Johnny Depp in his first motion picture role. Tagline: "If Nancy Doesn't Wake Up Screaming She Won't Wake Up At All!"

Plot

A vile serial killer is burned to death by the parents of Springwood, Ohio, for a series of child murders after he's freed on a technicality. More than a decade later, a young teenage girl, Tina Grey (Amanda Wyss) has a disturbing nightmare in which she is stalked through a dark, never-ending boiler room by a creepy, shadowy figure with a dirty red and green sweater, a battered hat and a glove with razor-sharp knives for fingernails. Just as he's caught her, however, she wakes up screaming, only to discover four identical razor cuts in her nightdress. The next day, she finds out that her friend Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) had the same dream.

That night, Tina, Nancy and her boyfriend Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) have a sleepover to make a distraught Tina feel better. Tina's rebellious, on-off boyfriend Rod Lane (Nick Corri) crashes the party and goes to bed with Tina. However, Tina has another nightmare and this time, the killer catches her and brutally murders her. Rod wakes up to find Tina being cut open by invisible knives and then dragged across the ceiling. Rod is, inevitably, suspected of the killing and arrested.

Nancy then has three sadistically creepy, violent nightmares, in school, in the bath and in her bed, where she is viciously stalked then attacked by the same terrifying figure who attacked Tina. She becomes increasingly convinced that this is the person responsible for the killings, much to the dismay of her mother (Ronee Blakley). Nancy and a skeptical Glen rush to the police station late at night to talk to Rod, only to find that he's been strangled by his own bedsheets. It appears to everyone, except Nancy, to be a suicide.

Nancy's mother, worried for her daughter's sanity, takes her to a Dream Therapy Clinic, where she has another vicious nightmare. This time, her arm is badly cut, but she finds that she has brought something out from her dream, the killer's battered hat. It arouses concern, but also other feelings in Nancy's mother, who is clearly hiding a secret.

Eventually, Nancy's mother, increasingly drink-sodden, reveals to Nancy that the owner of the hat, and the killer, was a man called Fred Krueger, a child murderer who killed at least twenty children. Furious, vengeful parents burned him alive in his boiler room hideout when he was released from prison on a technicality. Now, it appears he is manipulating the dreams of their children to exact his revenge from beyond the grave. Nancy's mother, however, reassures Nancy that Krueger can't hurt anyone ("He's dead, honey, because Mommy killed him.")

Nancy devises a plan, with Glen, to catch Krueger, but Glen succumbs to sleep and is viciously killed by being sucked into his bed and shot back up in a fountain of blood and guts. Nancy faces Krueger on her own and succeeds in destroying him by turning her back on him and draining him of all energy... or so she thinks...

Behind the scenes

Wes Craven wrote the screenplay around 1981, originally basing the character of Krueger on a child who bullied him at school, this name was first used as the rapist in Last House on the Left, shortened to Krug. He pitched it to several studios, but all of them passed. Finally, the fledgling New Line Cinema corporation gave the project the go-ahead. It was the first real film made by New Line. Before that, they were merely a distribution company for low budget films. It proved to be the right move for New Line. They were saved from bankruptcy by the film's success, and in a relatively short amount of time became a major studio. However, the film was almost never completed because it lost its distribution deal halfway through filming. As a result, the cast and crew had to work for two weeks without pay while New Line located another distribution company. However, the production did not lose one crew or cast member. Wes Craven originally planned for the film to have a happy ending, with Nancy's friends and mother surviving, but New Line leader Robert Shaye demanded a twist ending. Both a happy ending and a twist ending were filmed, but the final film used the twist ending. As a result, Craven (who never wanted the film to be an ongoing franchise), dropped out of working on the first sequel (Freddy's Revenge
)

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Movies - A Nightmare on Elm Street

Plot

Behind the scenes

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