NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

US, 1984, 91 minutes, Colour.
John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Lyn Shaye.
Directed by Wes Craven.

Nightmare on Elm Street was written and directed by Wes Craven. Craven emerged as a cult director of horror thrillers: Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, Deadly Blessing.

The film has the popular ingredients from such films as Halloween and Friday the 13th but develops them in a more 'realistic' way. The film also plays on the nightmare and its effect on the sleeper - but brings in social themes with a mass murderer who had been attacked by the dreamer's parents living in the dream, pursuing and killing some of the children and then emerging into real life. There are expert special effects, good editing to get the maximum fright out of the material.

The youngsters are the typical inhabitants of the world of the comedies and murder thrillers of the early '80s. The adults including John Saxon and Ronee Blakley give much more nuanced performances. The film began a franchise as well as a career for Robert Englund as one of the most famous horror characters on screen, Freddy Kruger.

The film ends with the ambiguity of such features - is it real or not - and this tends to undermine the strong impact of the film.

1. Impact as a horror thriller? Its success at the box office? A derivative of the Halloween- Friday the 13th genre? The treatment of dreams and nightmares - original touches?

2. The work of Wes Craven - writing and directing horror films, the atmosph6re, psychology, horror techniques? The impact of nightmares - and audiences visualising and responding to their fears through nightmares?

3. The film as a piece of Americana: American families in the 1980s, school and education? Ordinary lifestyles? The contrast with the extraordinary? The dreamscapes and the nightmares: the locations, the ugliness of the murderer, the situations of the dreamers and their fantasies, the effect of the dreams in the outer world? Fear and fright? The importance of editing and cutting? Musical score?

4. Audience interest in dreams, the psychology of dreams? The associations of images, the characters as parts of the ego of the dreamer? Vivid, the experience and effect? Sleep and rest, restlessness? Dreams as a product of the night and darkness? The plausibility of this exploration of dreams?

5. The focus on Freddy Kruger, the murderer, his location in the boiler room, the ugliness of his look, his nails and knives, the effect on the dreamers? The revelation about the parents and their killing him, burning his body? The responsibility of the parents? The vengeance on the children? The comment on the stances of the community - Nancy's parents and their separation, her mother's drinking?

6. The focus on the girls, on the boys? relationships, sexual relationships? youngsters? Age, family, school? The manners and mores of American youth?

7. The atmosphere and the nightmares, the audience sharing the dreams, the scares? The discovery that each of the youngsters had the same dreams? Their talking, the nightly stopovers, the effect on each, death in the house, terror, the police, the boy arrested? The consequence of the girls trying to keep awake?

8. The opening and the girl with her dream, the basement, the chase, the nails, the tearing, her being possessed, her death? The boy and his terror? His being put in jail? Suspicion of drugs? His being hanged in the cell?

9. Nancy and her trying to cope, relationship with her mother, the devices to keep awake, the transitions visually into her dreams - and the audience unsure (like Nancy unsure of waking or sleeping)? her fears, waking again? Trying to keep her boyfriend awake, his going to sleep? Her decision to sleep and bring the murderer out of her dream? The violence? Her success?

10. The young boy and his family, friendship with Nancy, trying to keep awake, going to sleep, the possibilities of help, his parents and the phone, his being swallowed up through the bed?

11. Nancy's mother and her drinking, the separation, the father as a policeman, his managing the investigation? Suspicions?

12. The happy finale, the dream within the dream? The mother's disappearance? Nancy locked in the car - credible for the end of this film?

13. Horror for its own sake? For entertainment? As a genre for highlighting society, ills, fears?