Retro Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

You know what A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is? It’s an idea – a really cool, really interesting and extremely frightening idea. Over the past 25 years Nightmare has maintained elite slasher flick status, propelling writer/director Wes Craven into the Horror Hall of Fame and installing Freddy Kruger as a cinematic household name. Aficionados who came up in the 80s look at it as one of the greats. It maintains an astounding (and alarming) 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, beating out other slasher classic like the original Halloween (93%), Scream (81%), and the original Friday the 13th (60%). In fact, if you don’t count Psycho (which, to be fair, isn’t structured like a slasher flick), Nightmare is the most acclaimed slasher flick of all time. And not just on Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic, the New York Times, etc. all view Nightmare as a pinnacle of its genre. A truly classic horror film.

And it may in fact be just that. You may have watched this flick as a kid and been haunted in your sleep for weeks. But guess what – I watched it the other night, and I thought it sucked.