A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Wes Craven
Produced by Robert Shaye
Written by Wes Craven
Starring
Music by Charles Bernstein
Cinematography Jacques Haitkin
Edited by Patrick McMahon
Rick Shaine
Production
company
Media Home Entertainment
Smart Egg Pictures
Distributed by New Line Cinema
Release dates
  • November 9, 1984
Running time
 91 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1.8 million
Box office $25.5 million[1]

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American supernatural slasher horror film written and directed by Wes Craven, and the first film of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film stars Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund, and Johnny Depp in his feature film debut. Set in the fictional Midwestern town of Springwood, Ohio, the plot revolves around several teenagers who are stalked and killed in their dreams (and thus killed in reality) by Freddy Krueger. The teenagers are unaware of the cause of this strange phenomenon, but their parents hold a dark secret from long ago.

Craven produced A Nightmare on Elm Street on an estimated budget of just $1.8 million,[2] a sum the film earned back during its first week.[1] An instant commercial success, the film went on to gross over $25 million at the United States box office.[1] A Nightmare on Elm Street was met with rave critical reviews and went on to make a very significant impact on the horror genre, spawning a franchise consisting of a line of sequels, a television series, a crossover with Friday the 13th, beyond various other works of imitation; a remake of the same name was released in 2010.[3][4]

The film is credited with carrying on many tropes found in low-budget horror films of the 1970s and 1980s, originating in John Carpenter's 1978 horror film Halloween, including the morality play that revolves around sexual promiscuity in teenagers resulting in their eventual death, leading to the term "slasher film".[4][5] Critics and film historians argue that the film's premise is the question of the distinction between dreams and reality, which is manifested in the film through the teenagers' dreams and their realities.[6] Critics today praise the film's ability to transgress "the boundaries between the imaginary and real",[7] toying with audience perceptions.[8]

Plot

The film starts with a mysterious man walking into a decrepit boiler room, where he makes a sharp clawed glove.

High school student Tina Grey has a horrific nightmare in which she wanders about in the same boiler room where she is stalked by a hideously burned killer. Just as he grabs her, she wakes up screaming; to her terror there are slashes in her nightgown reminiscent of the killer's clawed glove, she is unable to fall back to sleep. The next day, Tina's best friend Nancy Thompson consoles her about her dream, remembering a nursery rhyme "One, Two, Freddy's Coming for You" but her boyfriend Glen Lantz advises her to tell herself that it's just a dream, as it works for him when he has nightmares, hinting he'd had one as well. That night, Nancy and Glen stay at Tina's who is still afraid to sleep alone, and during their conversation, Tina discovers Nancy dreamed about the same killer she did. Tina's boyfriend Rod Lane crashes in order to apologize for an argument they'd had earlier. They sleep together while Glen and Nancy sleep in adjacent rooms. Tina falls asleep, and is again stalked by the killer, before he chases her and pins her down in her back yard. Her struggles and screams awaken Rod, who witnesses her being stabbed by an unseen force, before she is dragged up the wall, her screams alert Nancy and Glen who are unable to enter the room. When Tina falls dead onto the bed, Rod flees through a window trying to find what killed her, but also implicating that he had killed her instead. At the police station, Nancy is questioned by her father Lieutenant Don Thompson and she explains Tina dreamed someone was trying to kill her.

The next day, Rod grabs Nancy on her way to school and proclaims his innocence before he is arrested by Don, who was waiting in ambush. At school, Nancy falls asleep during class and follows Tina's bagged body down into a boiler room where the killer, who calls himself "Freddy" attempts to kill her until she burns her arm on a hot pipe, waking up violently in class. She later discovers a similar burn on her arm, and she grows afraid of falling asleep. She falls asleep in her bathtub, and Freddy tries to pull her under the water to drown her, but Nancy escapes. Hearing from Rod that he's been having dreams of the same killer, she suspects he is real and is able to kill people in their dreams. She has Glen watch her while she sleeps, and she sees Freddy going after Rod, but he attacks her instead. She runs back to her room and is unable to wake herself up when Freddy attacks her again, her alarm goes off and she wakes up. She and Glen go to the police station, but are too late to save Rod, who is hanged in his cell in an apparent suicide, although it was actually Freddy who wrapped a bed sheet around his neck while he was asleep. After Rod's funeral, Nancy's mother Marge insists on taking Nancy to a dream clinic to get her psychological help. While there, she has another violent nightmare and awakens with a deep gash in her arm. She also discovers she pulled out the killer's hat, which Marge recognizes to her horror. Marge begins to drink heavily, and fortifies their house with security bars. When Nancy begs her to tell her what happened, she says that she and several parents in the neighborhood sought vigilante justice against a child murderer named Fred Krueger when he was released on a technicality, and they burned him to death.

Nancy; being without sleep for 7 days now, decides to try and pull Freddy out of her dream like she did with the hat and convinces Glen to be there to knock him out. But his parents, concerned about Nancy's influence, prevent the two from meeting. Glen falls asleep, allowing Freddy to pull him into his bed mattress which erupts in a geyser of blood before the eyes of his horrified parents. While Lt. Thompson is investigating, he receives a call from Nancy who tells him to break into her house in twenty minutes, she sets up several booby traps and tucks her drunken mother in for the night. After falling asleep, Freddy does not reveal himself until the last ten seconds of her dream and she tackles him, successfully pulling him into the real world. He chases her around the house, falling into all of Nancy's traps and being lit on fire while she screams for help. When Don arrives, they discover that Freddy has escaped upstairs and is smothering Marge with his burning body and Don knocks him out. Freddy disappears, and Marge's body vanishes into the bed. Sending Don away, Nancy realizes it isn't over yet and follows Glen's advice; to turn her back on Freddy. Freddy rises out of Marge's mattress, and she weakens him, calling him nothing and refusing to believe in him anymore, and Freddy vanishes before he can finish her off. Emerging out of her front door in broad daylight, Nancy finds her mother sober and wanting to give up drinking. Glen, Tina and Rod pull up in Glen's car and Nancy gets in to go to school. The car then develops a life of its own and traps them inside while Nancy screams for her mother, who is then grabbed through the window of the front door by Freddy and pulled through.

Cast

The cast of A Nightmare on Elm Street included a crew of veteran actors such as Robert Englund and John Saxon, as well as several aspiring young actors including Johnny Depp and Heather Langenkamp.

The task of creating Krueger's disfigured face fell to makeup man David Miller, who based his creation on photographs of burn victims he obtained from the UCLA Medical Center.[9]

Production

Development

"It was a series of articles in the LA Times, three small articles about men from South East Asia, who were from immigrant families and had died in the middle of nightmares—and the paper never correlated them, never said, ‘Hey, we’ve had another story like this."
 — Wes Craven on the film's creation[10]

A Nightmare on Elm Street contains many biographical elements, taking inspiration from director Wes Craven's childhood.[11] The basis of the film was inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the LA Times in the 1970s on a group of Khmer refugees, who, after fleeing to the United States from the results of American bombing in Cambodia, were suffering disturbing nightmares, after which they refused to sleep. Some of the men died in their sleep soon after. Medical authorities called the phenomenon Asian Death Syndrome. The condition itself afflicted only men between the ages of 19 and 57 and is believed to be sudden unexplained death syndrome or Brugada syndrome, or both.[12] The 1970s pop song "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright sealed the story for Craven, giving him not only an artistic setting to "jump off" from, but a synthesizer riff from the Elm Street soundtrack as well.[13] Craven has also stated that he drew some inspiration for the film from Eastern religions.[14]

Other sources also attribute the inspiration for the film to be a 1968 student film project made by students of Craven's at Clarkson University. The student film parodied contemporary horror films, and was filmed along Elm Street in Potsdam, New York[15][16] (the town in the film was named Madstop—Potsdam spelled backwards).[17]

The film's villain, Freddy Krueger, draws heavily from Craven's early life. One night, a young Craven saw an elderly man walking on the sidepath outside the window of his home. The man stopped to glance at a startled Craven, and then walked off. This served as the inspiration for Krueger.[11] Initially, Fred Krueger was intended to be a child molester, but Craven eventually decided to characterize him as a child murderer to avoid being accused of exploiting a spate of highly publicized child molestation cases that occurred in California around the time of production of the film.[9]

By Craven's account, his own adolescent experiences led to the naming of Freddy Krueger. He had been bullied at school by a child named Fred Krueger, and named his villain accordingly.[9] In addition, Craven had done the same in his earlier film The Last House on the Left (1972), where the villain's name was shortened to "Krug". The colored sweater he chose for his villain was based on the DC Comics character Plastic Man, and Craven chose to make Krueger's sweater red and green, after reading an article in Scientific American in 1982 that said the two most clashing colors to the human retina were this particular combination.[10]

Craven strove to make Krueger different from other horror-film villains of the era. "A lot of the killers were wearing masks: Leatherface, Michael Myers, Jason," he recalled in 2014. "I wanted my villain to have a 'mask,' but be able to talk and taunt and threaten. So I thought of him being burned and scarred." He also felt the killer should use something other than a knife, which was too common. "So I thought, How about a glove with steak knives? I gave the idea to our special-effects guy, Jim Doyle." Ultimately two models of the glove were built: one called the "hero glove" used only whenever anything needs to be cut, and the other a stunt glove less likely to cause injury.[18]

Writing

Wes Craven began writing A Nightmare on Elm Street's screenplay around 1981, after he had finished production on Swamp Thing (1982). He pitched it to several studios, but each one of them rejected it for different reasons. The first studio to show interest was Walt Disney Pictures, although they wanted Craven to tone down the content to make it suitable for children and pre-teens. Craven declined.[9][10] Another early suitor was Paramount Pictures; however the studios passed on the project due to Nightmare on Elm Street's similarity to Dreamscape (1984), a film they were producing at the time. Universal Studios also passed; Craven, who was in desperate personal and financial straits during this period, still has their rejection letter framed on the wall of his office.[18]

Finally, the fledgling and independent New Line Cinema corporation—which had up to that point only distributed films, rather than making its own—gave the project the go-ahead.[9] During filming, New Line's distribution deal for the film fell through and for two weeks it was unable to pay its cast and crew. Although New Line has gone on to make much bigger and more profitable films, Nightmare holds such an important place in the company's history that the studio is often referred to as "The House That Freddy Built".[19] In fact, much of the successful application filed by producer Robert Shaye for a public offering of New Line's stock centered around the Nightmare franchise, because it provided a Hollywood rarity of large profits that could also be regularly counted on by the company.

Casting

Actor David Warner was originally slated to play Freddy.[20] Make-up tests were done,[21] but he had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Replacing him was difficult at first. "I couldn’t find an actor to play Freddy Krueger with the sense of ferocity I was seeking," Craven recalled on the film's 30th anniversary. "Everyone was too quiet, too compassionate towards children. "Then Robert Englund auditioned. [He] wasn’t as tall I’d hoped, and he had baby fat on his face, but he impressed me with his willingness to go to the dark places in his mind. Robert understood Freddy."[18]

To get that understanding, Englund had darkened his lower eyelids with cigarette ash on his way to the audition and slicked his hair back. "I looked strange. I sat there and listened to Wes talk. He was tall and preppy and erudite. I posed a bit, like Klaus Kinski, and that was the audition," he said later. He took the part because it was the only project that fit his schedule during the hiatus between the V miniseries and series.[18]

Craven claimed he wanted someone very "non-Hollywood" for the role of Nancy, and he believed Langenkamp met this quality.[11] Langenkamp, before becoming an actress, worked as a newspaper copy girl, and saw an advertisement for extras needed on The Outsiders earlier that year, which was being shot in Tulsa. She did not get the part, but it encouraged her to take time off from her studies at Stanford and continue acting.[18] Eventually she landed the role of Nancy Thompson after an open audition, beating out more than 200 actresses including Demi Moore, Courteney Cox, Tracey Gold and Jennifer Grey.[22] Langenkamp returned as Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and also played herself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994).

Johnny Depp was another unknown when he was cast; and initially went to accompany a friend (Jackie Earle Haley, who went on to play Freddy in the 2010 remake) so he could audition, yet eventually got the part of Glen.[11] Glen Lantz's epic death in this movie is paid homage to by a flashback in Freddy vs. Jason and Johnny gets his own nod in a cameo role in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare as a guy on TV. [23] Craven's daughters picked Depp's headshot from the set he showed them.[18] Other actors such as Charlie Sheen (who wanted too much money[18]), John Cusack, Brad Pitt, Kiefer Sutherland, Nicolas Cage and C. Thomas Howell were considered.

Filming

According to Shaye, all the film's original investors backed out at one point or another during pre-production. The original budget was merely $700,000. "It ended up at $1.1 million ... Half the funding came from a Yugoslavian guy who had a girlfriend he wanted in movies."[18]

Principal photography began in June 1984 and wrapped in July. The fictional address of the house that appears in the film is 1428 Elm Street in Springwood, Ohio. The actual house is a private home located in Los Angeles, California on 1428 North Genesee Avenue.[24] During production, over 500 gallons of fake blood were used for the special effects production.[25] For the famous blood geyser sequence, the filmmakers used the same revolving room set that was used for Tina's death. They put the set so that it was upside down and attached the camera so that it looked like the room was right side up, then they poured gallons of red water into the room, because the normal film blood would not make the right effect for the geyser. During the filming of this scene, the blood poured in an unexpected way causing the rotating room to spin. Much of the blood spilled out of the bedroom window covering Craven and Langenkamp.[26] The scene where Nancy is attacked by Krueger in her bathtub was accomplished with a special bottomless tub. The tub was put in a bathroom set that was built over a swimming pool. During the underwater sequence Heather Langenkamp was replaced with a stuntwoman. The "melting staircase" as seen in Nancy's dream was Robert Shaye's idea; it was created using pancake mix.[26]

Jsu Garcia, who was credited as Rod under the name "Nick Corri", says the production was difficult for him. He had recently come off a period of homelessness, and was still dealing with the depression from that by snorting heroin in the bathroom between takes. In 2014 he revealed that he was high on that drug during the scene between him and Langenkamp in his jail cell. "His eyes were watery and they weren’t focused," Langenkamp said. "I thought, Wow, he’s giving the best performance of his life."[18]

Wes Craven originally planned for the film to have a more evocative ending: Nancy kills Krueger by ceasing to believe in him, then awakes to discover that everything that happened in the film was an elongated nightmare. However, New Line leader Robert Shaye demanded a twist ending, in which Krueger disappears and the film all appears to have been a dream, only for the audience to discover that they are watching a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream, where Fred reappears as a car that "kidnaps" Nancy and her friends, followed by Fred reaching through a window on the front door to pull Nancy's mother inside.[26] Both a happy ending and a twist ending were filmed, but the final film used the twist ending. As a result, Craven (who never wanted the film to be an ongoing franchise), dropped out of working on the first sequel, Freddy's Revenge (1985).[26] Production wrapped in July, and was rushed to get it ready for its November release.

Themes

Coming of Age

Freddy exclusively attacks teenagers and his actions have been interpreted as symbolic of the often traumatic experiences of adolescence.[27] Nancy, like the archetypal teenager, experiences social anxiety and her relationships with her parents become very strained. Sexuality is present in Freudian images and is almost exclusively displayed in a threatening and mysterious context (e.g. Tina's death visually evokes a rape, Freddy's glove between Nancy's legs in the bath). The original script actually called for Krueger to be a child molester, rather than a child killer, before being murdered.[28]

"In Nightmare, all the adults are damaged: They're alcoholic, they're on pills, they're not around," Englund has observed. Blakely says the parents in the film "verge on being villains." Englund adds that "[t]he adolescents have to wade through that, and Heather is the last girl standing. She lives. She defeats Freddy." Langenkamp agrees. "Nightmare is a feminist movie, but I look at it more as a 'youth power' film."[18]

Distribution

Home media

The film was first introduced to the home video market by Media Home Entertainment in early 1985 and was eventually released on Laserdisc. It has since been released on DVD, first in 1999 in the United States as part of the Nightmare on Elm Street Collection box set (along with the other six sequels), and once again in Restored "Infinifilm" Special Edition in 2006, containing various special features with contributions from Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon and the director of photography.

The Special Edition consisted of 2 DVDs, one with the film picture and sound restored (DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 & original mono audio track) and another DVD with special features. Along with the restored version of the film, DVD 1 also had 2 commentaries, other nightmares (if not all) from the film's sequels (2–7 & Freddy Vs. Jason). It also included additional, extended or alternate scenes of the film, such as one scene where Marge reveals to Nancy that she had another sibling that was killed by Freddy. These unused clips/scenes were not included/added in the film but could be viewed separately from the DVD's Menus.

On April 13, 2010, the film was released on Blu-ray Disc by Warner Home Video,[29] with all the same extras from the 2006 Special Edition included on the Blu-ray release.[30] A new DVD box set containing all of the films up to that point was released on the same day.[31]

Reception

Box office

A Nightmare on Elm Street premiered in the United States with a limited theatrical release on November 9, 1984, opening in 165 cinemas across the country.[1] Grossing $1,271,000 during its opening weekend, the film was considered an instant commercial success. The film eventually earned a total of $25,504,513 at the American box office.[1] Additionally, A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in Europe, Canada and Australia.[32]

Critical reception

Since its initial release, the film has received universal critical acclaim. Critics have praised the film's ability to rupture "the boundaries between the imaginary and real,"[33] toying with audience perceptions.[8] Some film historians interpreted this overriding theme as a social subtext, "the struggles of adolescents in American society".[34] Variety said the film was "A highly imaginative horror film that provides the requisite shocks to keep fans of the genre happy".[35]

The film has a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes[36] and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1984.[37][38][39] It ranked at #17 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004), a five-hour program that selected cinema's scariest moments. In 2003, Freddy Krueger was named the 40th greatest film villain on American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains.[40] In 2008, Empire ranked A Nightmare on Elm Street 162nd on their list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.[41] It also was selected by The New York Times as one of The Best 1000 Movies Ever Made.[42]

American Film Institute recognition

Accolades

Remake

In 2010, a remake was released, also titled A Nightmare on Elm Street, starring Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger. The film was produced by Michael Bay, and directed by Samuel Bayer and written by the team of Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer. The film is also a reboot to the franchise.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 A Nightmare on Elm Street at Box Office Mojo; last accessed June 1, 2014.
  2. ↑ John Kenneth Muir, "Career Overview" in Wes Craven: The Art of Horror (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, 1998), p. 18, ISBN 0-7864-1923-7.
  3. ↑ "A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 12 January 2010. Retrieved January 17, 2010.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Jim Harper, Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies (Manchester, Eng.: Headpress, 2004), p. 126, ISBN 1-900486-39-3.
  5. ↑ Rick Worland, The Horror Film: A Brief Introduction (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), p. 106, ISBN 1-4051-3902-1.
  6. ↑ Kelly Bulkeley, Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion, and Psychology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), p. 108; see also chap. 11: "Dreamily Deconstructing the Dream Factory: The Wizard of Oz and Nightmare on Elm Street," ISBN 0-7914-4283-7.
  7. ↑ Ian Conrich, "Seducing the Subject: Fred Krueger, Popular Culture and the Nightmare on Elm Street Films" in Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and its Audience, ed. Deborah Cartmell, I. Q. Hunter, Heldi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan (London: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 119, ISBN 0-7453-1202-0.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 James Berardinelli, review of A Nightmare on Elm Street, at ReelViews; last accessed August 30, 2006.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Rockoff, Adam, Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978–1986 (McFarland & Company, 2002), p. 151, ISBN 0-7864-1227-5.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Biodrowski, Steve (October 15, 2008). "Wes Craven on Dreaming Up Nightmares". Cinefantastique. Retrieved November 22, 2007.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 A Nightmare on Elm Street DVD (2001, New Line Cinema Entertainment).
  12. ↑ CDCR Alert at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; accessed September 13, 2009.
  13. ↑ Wes Craven. A Nightmare on Elm Street DVD audio commentary.
  14. ↑ Wes Craven interview at Twitch Film; accessed November 23, 2007.
  15. ↑ Mary Konecnik (November 10, 2008). "History of Potsdam's A Nightmare on Elm St.". Retrieved December 19, 2008.
  16. ↑ Nightmare on Elm Street at Potsdam; accessed November 2, 2007.
  17. ↑ "Trivia for A Nightmare On Elm Street". Archived from the original on 18 November 2008. Retrieved December 19, 2008.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 18.7 18.8 18.9 Marks, Craig; Tannenbaum, Rob (October 20, 2014). "Freddy Lives: An Oral History of A Nightmare on Elm Street". Vulture. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
  19. ↑ A Nightmare on Elm Street at DVD Revire; accessed November 2, 2007.
  20. ↑ Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy Blu-ray (2010, IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT).
  21. ↑ http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_D1ZZyTOG7tQ/S91QIWXa4dI/AAAAAAAAGxM/GkqmlxAexRo/s1600/David+Warner+as+Freddy+Krueger.jpg
  22. ↑ Heather Langenkamp interview at The Arrow; last accessed November 23, 2007.
  23. ↑ JohnnyDeppMoviesList.org. "Johnny Depp A Nightmare on Elm Street". http://www.johnnydeppmovieslist.org. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  24. ↑ Site with a picture of the house; Site with the actual address and floor plan and indoor photos
  25. ↑ "Frightful Facts" at House of Horrors; last accessed November 22, 207.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street, documentary on the Special Edition 2006 DVD of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2006, New Line Cinema Entertainment), B000GETUDI.
  27. ↑ Not Coming to a Theater Near You review of A Nightmare on Elm Street by Leo Goldsmith
  28. ↑ Robb, Brian (October 31, 2000). Screams and Nightmares: The Films of Wes Craven. Overlook TP. ISBN 1-58567-090-1.
  29. ↑ High-Def Digest (Jan 7, 2010). "A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)' Announced for Blu-ray". High Def Digest. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
  30. ↑ Dread Central (Jan 7, 2010). "The Original A Nightmare on Elm Street Coming to Blu-ray!". Dread Central. Archived from the original on 10 January 2010. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
  31. ↑ Dread Central (Jan 7, 2010). "New Elm Street Box Set Coming! Wait Until You See the Cover!". Dread Central. Archived from the original on 10 January 2010. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
  32. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087800/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_ov_inf+
  33. ↑ Ian Conrich, "Seducing the Subject: Freddy Krueger, Popular Culture and the Nightmare on Elm Street Films" in Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and its Audience, ed. Deborah Cartmell, I. Q. Hunter, Heldi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan (London: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 119, ISBN 0-7453-1202-0.
  34. ↑ Kelly Bulkeley, Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion, and Psychology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), p. 108; see also chap. 11: "Dreamily Deconstructing the Dream Factory: The Wizard of Oz and A Nightmare on Elm Street," ISBN 0-7914-4283-7.
  35. ↑ A Nightmare on Elm Street review at Variety; accessed December 15, 2007.
  36. ↑ "A Nightmare on Elm Street Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 22 July 2010. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  37. ↑ "The Greatest Films of 1984". AMC Filmsite.org. Retrieved August 5, 2010.
  38. ↑ "The Best Movies of 1984 by Rank". Films101.com. Archived from the original on 6 September 2010. Retrieved August 5, 2010.
  39. ↑ "Most Popular Feature Films Released in 1984". IMDb.com. Archived from the original on 24 August 2010. Retrieved August 5, 2010.
  40. ↑ "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains" (PDF). AFI.com. Retrieved August 5, 2010.
  41. ↑ "Empire's The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". Empire magazine. Retrieved August 5, 2010.
  42. ↑ "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". The New York Times. April 29, 2003. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
  43. ↑ "American Film Institute's list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved June 2011.
  44. ↑ "American Film Institute's list of 400 movie quotes nominated for the top 100 movie quotations" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved June 2011.

Further reading

  • Badley, Linda. Film, Horror, and the Body Fantastic. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995. ISBN 0-313-27523-8.
  • Baird, Robert. "The Startle Effect: Implications for Spectator Cognition and Media Theory." Film Quarterly 53 (No. 3, Spring 2000): pp. 12 – 24.
  • Carroll, Noël. "The Nature of Horror." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 46 (No. 1, Autumn 1987): pp. 51 – 59.
  • Cumbow, Robert C. Order in the Universe: The Films of John Carpenter. 2nd ed., Lanham, Md.: Scarcrow Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8108-3719-6.
  • Johnson, Kenneth. "The Point of View of the Wandering Camera." Cinema Journal 32 (No. 2, Winter 1993): pp. 49 – 56.
  • King, Stephen. Danse Macabre. New York: Berkley Books, 1981. ISBN 0-425-10433-8.
  • Prince, Stephen, ed. The Horror Film. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8135-3363-5.
  • Schneider, Steven Jay, ed. Horror Film and Psychoanalysis: Freud's Worst Nightmare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-521-82521-0.
  • Williams, Tony. Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8386-3564-4.

External links

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