I had a horrible nightmare a few hours ago, so I guess it is that time. This is my all-time favorite horror franchise. Freddy is my all-time favorite horror icon. As you will see, I am by and large, a fan of the franchise.
How awesome is the opening scene of Tina in the boiler room? How many movies have a better opening, especially back then? Wes Craven has provided us with 2 of horror’s best openings with this and Scream. Both are iconic. Then we get to see young Johnny Depp as Glen. Tina and Nancy talk about her dream and how she woke up with her clothes ripped or something. Tina’s boyfriend came up from behind and said he woke up with a hard with Tina’s name on it. She says that her name was too long to fit on Rod’s “joint”. Classy.
The girls are hanging out with Depp at Tina’s house I believe. This prompts Rod to come over cause he wants to fuck. Rod also is rocking the switchblade because it is the 80s. This of course leads to Tina dreaming, encountering Freddy, the outstretched arms chock full of cheesiness. Then THE SCENE! You know the Tina scene. I keep using the term icon, but if you know horror, you KNOW that scene. It’s fucking awesome. Needless to say, Rod gets arrested even though the cops can’t find any weapon that would have been razor-like.
Nancy has a nightmare at school, she sees Tina’s body in a body bag getting mysteriously dragged. This causes her to quickly encounter Freddy, so she burns herself on the pipe and wakes up screaming in the middle of class. Then there’s the bathtub scene where Freddy’s glove creeps up through the water and takes her down, we see some boob, and yeah, it was a fun scene.
Now Nancy has this idea to have Glen stay at her place and Nancy would enter the dream world and Glen is to wake her up, but he drops the ball. She sees Freddy going after Rod in the jail cell. She is pissed. So now she and Glen go to the jail. John Saxon as Nancy’s dad is just awesome, perhaps my favorite non-Freddy character in this movie. Needless to say Freddy lynches Rod with his bed sheet. Cool enough scene for what it was.
Now we are at the funeral. What the fuck is Nancy wearing? A blue and white polka-dotted dress….to a fucking funeral. She describes her dreams a bit about what Freddy looks like. Her parents looked on ominously, I suspect they know more than they are leading on. Nancy is going for a sleep study. Nancy is having a bad time, having a bad dream. Her hair turns grey in a few strands, and she has cuts on her arm. Oh and she suddenly has Freddy’s hat, she pulled it out of the dream.
Some boring shit occurs, and Nancy ends up with a book on booby traps. Nancy’s mom tells her all about Freddy and how he was a mo-les-ter. Nancy’s mom also put bars up on the windows. Reminds me of Flowers in the Attic, if anybody gets that reference, bonus points and kudos to you. Just noticed that Glen has a sweet-ass vulture stuffed animal in his room. That is awesome and I want it. Glen showing off his mid-riff in that great cut-off jersey. Fucking Depp. Fucking 80’s. Fucking midriff.
Glen’s dad is a large gentleman. Nancy is getting herself prepared for the night’s activities. Nancy’s mom is drinking from the bottle because that’s what she does. Nancy just got a call and Freddy was on the line then he tongued her. Kinda cheesy. Glen just fell asleep, he got pulled through his bed. We will see a similar kill at the beginning of part 4, only with titties. Nancy is now playing as Macaulay Culkin. She also just told her dad to break the front door down in 20 minutes. The front door to his own house. Say what? He doesn’t have a key?
Nancy is going to sleep, heading down to the basement. It’s time for the showdown. She announces that she is there, and there’s a weird echo. Never understood it, but it makes it feel more epic. This is the best dressed she has been all movie and she’s in pajamas. She grabs Freddy, she wakes up. She is sitting up in bed and BAM, Freddy pops up. He gets a sledgehammer to the nuts. She is telling the cops the murderer is in the house. The cop is like “Everything is fine” because cops typically ignore a screaming pleading female saying the killer is in her house. After she screams at him 4 times. There are at least 3 cops plus her dad. Are you fucking kidding me?
Freddy is on fire. While her dad breaks down the door, Nancy sees a flaming trail leading upstairs to her mom’s room. Freddy was mounted on her. The dad covers them up to put out the flame. Next we just see the skeleton of the mom as she descends into this blue bed abyss, which makes no sense. Now she and her dad are acting sorta sad, but not bewildered by this at all. She asks for a moment alone. Now Freddy rises up from the bed. She is now talking shit to Freddy, taking back every ounce of energy she ever gave him. As he plunges at her, he fades into blue sparkly nothingness. So that’s where Twilight got it from.
Nancy opens the door and she’s outside on her front steps with her mom. She is getting a ride from Glen. The convertible top pops up, and it is red and green striped. The doors lock and the car drives off. Then her mom stands there waving and Freddy’s arm pops through the little window in the door and somehow pulls her through this opening and her legs are perfectly solid and straight, like as if they used a cardboard cut out. God I hate this ending, but it makes me giggle. I dunno, just awful.
All in all, you can’t hate this movie despite its ridiculous cheesiness. It has too many memorable scenes. It gave us Freddy fucking Krueger. It started so many positive things. We shall not count Part 2 as a positive thing though. I give this movie a 7.7 for all of its charm, silliness, awesome outfits, and history. Always a good time.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- New Line Cinema (presents)
- Media Home Entertainment (presents)
- Smart Egg Pictures (presents)
- Elm Street Venture, The (copyright owner)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.