Welcome To Prime Time: Ranking The A Nightmare On Elm Street Films

Okay, we've done it.  A month of Freddy.  I hope you've enjoyed a month-long retrospective dedicated to one of my favorite cinematic villains of all time.  If you can't tell from my profile picture on this blog...I'm kinda  big fan of this series.  This franchise is one, unlike its contemporaries, that actually gets to sort of have its own story play out without dodging entries or starting fresh multiple times within the original canon.  Unfortunately it winds up being the one that had the worst of the remakes.  

The Trilogy Within An Ongoing Series

The Dream Child brings to a close a story line that began with A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.  It continued through 3 films.  Among a franchise that sports 8 entries in its original canon is this nice, complete standalone trilogy.  You can basically start fresh in Dream Warriors and work your way through Dream Child and the story lines (I'm not talking film quality here) come to a satisfying and concise conclusion.  With Dream Child we're left with Alice going off happily ever after with her life free of Freddy and with baby and Daddy in tow.  We never hear from any of these characters again.  They leave us with the promise that Freddy is probably still out there, but he'll never be harming Alice again.

8-Bit Nightmares: A Video Game On Elm Street

From 1987-1989, Freddy Krueger, a deformed child murderer turned teen dream killer was an unstoppable commercial force.  Everyone knew who Freddy was and were big fans.  So, aside from the movies and television, there was other things to market as well.  We're going to take a look at them really quick here in this article.

In Memoriam: Rod Lane

You could just see the cuts...happening...all at once.

In the past with these, I've written silly little eulogy's to characters who didn't make it past a specific film, but Rod Lane is different.  In the annals of slashers and teenagers in horror films, his alpha male "type" has never been done better than in the original Nightmare film.  There's a Rod Lane in the majority of slasher films and you usually have decided you don't like the guy the minute he walks in.  Its the kind of jock alpha male.  They're the ones that is always a loud mouth, pestering characters you like or consider "normal".  These guys ruin the good time and find all the characters that take the plot too seriously to be a bunch of buffoons.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

A Nightmare On Elm Street

1984

Director: Wes Craven

Starring: Robert England, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Johnny Depp, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia (credited as "Nick Corri"), Charles Fleischer, Lin Shaye

Rated: R

One, two Freddy's coming for you

Three, Four better lock your door

Five, Six grab your crucifix

Seven, Eight gonna stay up late

Nine, Ten never sleep...again...

A NOVEMBER On Elm Street

HELLLLL YEAH!  Welcome to "A November on Elm Street", bitch!  This month marks the 30th anniversary of Wes Craven's original classic.  The film that dropped Freddy Krueger into the the pantheon of legendary film monster.  While Halloween is my favorite film of all time and Micahel Myers my favorite villain, Freddy Krueger is not all that far off.  I frickin' LOVE the Springwood Slasher.  As a film franchise, I actually think his original canon is tops.  They are the most attentive to continuity and least clunky of the big 3 slasher villains.