A fun thing to start off this review is to say that I didn’t even go out of my way to watch this movie, which I rarely ever do. I was scrolling through HBO Max and was originally going to watch a completely different movie (Superman II, if you were wondering), but found this and saw that it was leaving after Halloween, so I decided to hit play. Before I get deep into my review, I just want to point out how cool a concept this movie is. The execution may not have been there for me personally, but the idea of a killer who haunts and gets his victims in their dreams is pretty terrifying, because everyone needs to sleep. It plays into natural fears in a very personal way.

This film pretty much solidified to me that Wes Craven is a master when it comes to directing horror. The atmosphere during the intense scenes is exceptionally well done and very immersive. They just have an eerie feeling to them that absolutely added to the tone overall, and I really dug it. The practical effects are definitely worth mentioning too, and I also really liked the score, which was a nice surprise for me for sure.

Now, obviously, the standout for this film is Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. He completely embodies this role, and despite everything else I’ll get to soon, he was something unforgettable about the movie. He’s not only iconic, but the design of him and the concept of how he gets his victims is brilliant and awesome, as I already mentioned. I don’t think I will check out the other installments in this franchise, at least not anytime soon, but I’ve heard he only gets better from here, at least until the end of his time as the character.

Unfortunately, though, this movie just wasn’t really for me. I’ve only recently started watching horror movies, and have already noticed a trend that if the movie really only relies on the actual horror and doesn’t give much time or attention to interesting characters or an interesting story, it usually isn’t a very enjoyable watch for me or a watch that leaves me with any feelings or thoughts, and that was certainly the case here. I just don’t typically get “scared” in the traditional sense, so a horror movie has to have something a lot deeper than just scares to keep me entertained. Now, I can definitely get tense, as there were a few scenes that I thought were intense, but most of the big scenes were pretty over the top.

I’ll start with the setup, which really derailed the movie from the start for me. I don’t think it did a good job of setting things up at all. It jumps right into the concept itself, which worked for me in Scream, another Wes Craven film, but the reason it doesn’t work here is that it starts off with our main characters. We don’t get to see the daily lives or what these characters were like before all the Freddy Krueger stuff starts happening, so we never got to see how this truly impacted them, which made it really hard for me to connect with them overall. This could have been fine if the characters were at least interesting, but to me, they really weren’t, which plays into my next criticism.

I honestly think that every performance with the exception of Robert Englund, was really poor. Johnny Depp is okay, I guess, but he also isn’t given many scenes to really show off his acting ability. Everyone else that does get those kinds of scenes does a really unconvincing job in my opinion, the worst of which is unfortunately the main character, Nancy Thompson, played by Heather Langenkamp. I’m sure this was a lot of the main actors’ first big roles in a film, but that doesn’t change the fact that I just didn’t find any of them convincing. Nobody portrayed fear in a real way, which removed a lot of the tension for me.

The tone is also just all over the place. It tries to go full-blown horror, but also extreme camp at the same time, and they clash with each other so much that it really doesn’t work at all. The standout scenes are over the top and ridiculous, and really took me out of the experience. Freddy Krueger is definitely intimidating, but every time he’s given something to do, it’s a scene that just leans way too far into the camp that it ends up having no impact at all. Sure, there are definitely some iconic scenes with iconic imagery, but the way they actually play out when you watch the movie isn’t executed well in my opinion.

Another big thing I didn’t like kind of correlates with what I talked about regarding the setup. A Nightmare on Elm Street doesn’t really take any time or give any attention to actually explaining Freddy Krueger’s nature, his motivations, and literally anything that has to do with the logic of the movie. This was something that really bugged me throughout, but I was assuming it was going to be explained more by the end, and it really wasn’t. I could see this mystery being a positive for a lot of people, but for me, it was simply frustrating.

It all leads to a very anticlimactic and even more ridiculous third act that soured my opinion even more. The way that Nancy tries to deal with Freddy Krueger isn’t interesting at all, and the resolution of it was entirely sudden and felt like a “writer’s block moment” to me, almost very similar to a film I watched earlier this month, It Chapter Two (this is definitely better than that movie though). I liked the very final scene and thought that was a clever way to end things, but the end to the actual climax was completely the opposite.

Really, at the end of the day, this was just another horror movie to add to the list that don’t work for me despite their reputation, unfortunately, though I definitely see why people like this movie. Like I said, Freddy Krueger is iconic, and there are certainly some iconic and memorable scenes here and there.