A Nightmare On Elm St was released in 1985, spawned 6 sequels (of varying quality) and made in excess of 26 million dollars. I believe this to be Wes Craven's crowning achievement, having created such a monster in both the figurative and literal sense. Freddy Krueger is very much a household name and even though there hasn't been a straight up nightmare since 1994 (omitting FVSJ), here we are fourteen years later and the appeal of this nightmare invading demon hasn't lessened one bit, if anything it has grown significantly, with all sorts of merchandise available from toy makers and collectible companies around the world. But I digress, back to the movie.

The story follows a young girl named Nancy Thompson who lives in a normal looking house on Elm St, in the sleepy little town of Springwood. She and her friends all begin having bizarre nightmares. At first they keep the details to themselves, but things start getting weird when they all work out that they are dreaming about the same guy. He's horribly burned, wears a dirty green and red sweater, a brown hat...eh you all now the drill. The man, the myth, the legend. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr. Fred Krueger.

Freddy Krueger was a child murderer in Springwood, who was freed on a technicality after something went awry with his trial. Those living in the town who had young children of their own were...well...a little pissed off, so they did what any normal person would do. They took the law into their own hands and burned him alive in the boiler room of the abandoned factory where he lived. Okay, well maybe that's not so normal, but extreme times call for extreme measures!  But it appears their barbecue efforts may have been in vain, because Fred Krueger has indeed returned for their children, killing them in their dreams. 

Nancy's best friend Tina asks her to come and stay over when her mother goes away, because the nightmares are frightening her so much, Nancy agrees, and brings her boyfriend Glen over as well. Things seem to be going well, and when Tina's boyfriend Rod drops by, Nancy and Glen decide  to leave them alone. Unfortunately for Tina, this nightmare will be her last, as Freddy carves her up while Rod watches on helplessly. Glen and Nancy can hear their screams from outside the door, but aren't able to get in. When they finally do, they find Tina butchered and Rod gone, having panicked and fled the scene. Of course that makes Rod the prime suspect, but Nancy isn't so sure.

Rod is found and arrested, but Nancy goes to Rod with her suspicions. He swears he didn't kill Tina, and has been having nightmares of his own. Rod tells Nancy of the razor slices that just appeared on Tina's body, and she is sure it is the same guy that has been terrorising her own dreams. Unfortunately for her, no one, including her police chief father wants to listen to anything she has to say. Rod killed Tina and that's it. It's an open and shut case. When Rod is found the next morning hanging by a bedsheet in his cell, they figure it was his own guilt making him take his life, and not the nightmare from the night before.

Nancy makes her own discoveries about Freddy and confronts her mother about it after she manages to bring his hat out of her dream. Nancy's mother caves and tells her who he was and that they killed him, but when it comes to battling the nightmares, Nancy is still on her own. She at least has Glen to help keep her awake and plot against Freddy, but not for long. Glen makes his exit from the film in one of the most spectacular Freddy killings of any of the movies. He's sucked into his bed and sprayed onto the ceiling. Okay, so if Rod killed Tina, and then himself, how in the hell can they explain Glen? 

Nancy knows that now is the time for her to take Krueger down, and Freddy is about to learn the hard way that the worst thing that he could have done was take away the things that Nancy cares about. The fact that she has nothing to lose makes Nancy stronger than he anticipated, and it isn't long before she works out the secret to getting rid of him for good...or at last until the sequel!

This film had all the right ingredients to become a slasher phenomenon and I feel it was just what the low budget, 80's horror industry had been waiting for. Another successful franchise to follow in the footsteps of Halloween and Friday the 13th. They needed a new and memorable killer, and who is more memorable than Fred Krueger himself. Lots of gore in this film (if you can get your hands on the uncut version) and nothing, in my opinion, can top the Freddy spastic run as he chases down Tina in the beginning of the film.

This film, according to Craven is actually based on a couple of newspaper articles he read about teenagers in Cambodia dying mysteriously in their sleep. He recalled reading a couple of separate articles over the space of a few months and was amazed that no one thought to connect them together. He originally penned the script in 1981. The film ran into considerable trouble being financed and finding a distributor. No one wanted to touch NOES with a ten foot pole, until New Line Cinema, who had previously only done distro for college campuses, took a chance and picked it up in 1984. The film was a huge success, saving New Line from impending bankruptcy thus earning the company the nickname "The House That Freddy Built.