Nightmare on Elm Street

1984 horror movie

Rating: 15/20 (Rating changed after I was told that my pretentiousness was making somebody sad.)

Plot: An undead janitor attacks teenagers in their dreams.

I suppose this has enough gross-out gore and jump scene thrills to lure your typical fan of the horror genre, but after a cool beginning showing the construction of Krueger's scissor hand and Tina's nightmare which for some reason features a goat or a sheep, things get and stay pretty goofy. And that--the unapologetic goofiness--is really what appeals to me. Consider the villain, for example. He scowls and has bad skin, and if he was just lurking or popping out of dark places, he would be pretty terrifying. Instead, there are all these goofy Freddy antics, mostly with 80's synthesizer accompaniment. His "Watch this!" followed by cutting his own fingers off for absolutely no reason? Tina's look during that scene is priceless, by the way. The goofy long-armed thing? Cutting himself open and exposing maggots? Some silly tongue wagging? An obscene phone call with more tongue wagging action? Nobody needs to make a Freddy Krueger parody movie because he's already sort of a parody. I also don't really understand his character and what he does or how he does it. Is that explained in sequels or something? I believe I've only seen a couple of these. But he's inside dreams and then he's outside dreams. What's going on? Is this whole thing thought out very well? Am I just not paying enough attention? Freddy also gets some pretty silly things to say--a blasphemous reference to his scissor hands [By the way--has Johnny Depp appeared in a third scissor hand movie? Is there a scissor hand trifecta that has been completed?], "I'm your boyfriend now," "I'm gonna split you in two." They really should have made him a silent killer, instead of a snarling trash talker. Of course, nothing Freddy says seems dopey compared to Jsu Garcia's Rod, a character who not only says "Up yours with a twirling lawnmower" but also throws out a line I used to woo Jennifer: "I woke up with a hard-on, and it had your name on it." Depp, in his first movie, also gets a lot of stupid things to say. Still, he still manages to be Johnny Depp in this. He's got an It, a charisma, even in a small, silly role. This isn't all silliness, however. Tina's death--a scene where she is dragged up to the ceiling--looks really cool, and Johnny Depp's demise is also creative and pulled off with just enough black comedy. And if you look fast, you'll see Bruce Campbell. And I really do like Freddy's look, at least when he's not moving. So there is quite a bit of coolness in this little horror movie. But then there's a character reading from a book called Booby Traps and Improvised Anti-Personnel Devices and the whole movie threatens to turn into Home Alone and the silliness is back. This is a movie that really needed to pick a tone. They certainly picked a tune, and those repeated nine notes really got tiresome quickly. It all ends with a waving skeleton, one of the goofiest things that I've ever seen, an image that makes me wonder if this entire movie is a joke.

Question: Who do you think would win in a battle between Freddy and Jason?