A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

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⭐8/10

I love a certified Halloween classic, and it doesn't really get much more classic than this. Part of why I love these older 80s campy movies is because they aren't all that scary. Well, this one is almost the exception. 

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but there is some genuinely gnarly stuff in this movie. In this, an old, dead serial killer haunts the dreams of some teenagers and can kill them in their sleep. I think the powerlessness is really the dread of it - if you fall asleep, you may not wake up again! So it's up to the teens to figure out how to deal with old Freddie Krueger because of course the police don't believe them! It's campy with lots of silliness and sex and blood, but also some pretty gross stuff besides. Krueger really is a classic villain. He has a lot of tricks up his sleeve, and if I watched this as a kid I probably wouldn't have slept for a month. 

It's hard to recommend something like this because it really is a notch above Halloween or even Alien or The Thing. It's campier than those, but in some ways darker and yuckier too. I liked it! Again, perfect for the season, and I think there are a billion of these so I can watch every fall until I die. Also did you know this was Johnny Depp's breakout role? I hardly recognized him! 


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