A Nightmare on Elm Street - Ranked

I’ve been a horror kick for a few years now. Growing up, I always considered myself a Jason fan, but when I decided to write about the Friday the 13th series, I realized I hadn’t seen most of the movies. And then I realized I hadn’t seen all of the Halloween movies, or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, or the Saw franchise, or the Leprechaun movies, or the…you get it. Of course, this means I had not seen most of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Before I decided to go through them all, the only three I can remember actually watching all the way through were Freddy vs. Jason, New Nightmare, and the 2010 remake, and I only watched Freddy vs. Jason because of my aforementioned Jason fandom.

Looking back at the other two Freddy movies I had seen, the remake was just part of the trend at the time of remaking the classics into even darker, more violent versions of the original and I watched the other remakes from the time, so why not watch this one, too? As for New Nightmare, I have no clue why I would have watched that since your enjoyment of that one is so tied to the rest of the series. So much must have been lost on me when I first watched it, which is probably why I barely remember it aside from it being a meta-type version of the story.

I really don’t know why I shied away from this and all the other franchises growing up, but I guess I actually found these scary, at least in theory. Watching them now, I enjoy the ones that go for a unique tone that is just the right mix of horror and comedy. If it tips too far one way or the other, it ruins it for me. The Nightmare series, like other franchises that the studios couldn’t let die, eventually ventures into straight up comedy, but along the way they made a few classics. And I’m glad I finally sat down and watched all of these. Overall, I would still rank this behind Friday and Halloween, but it’s a lot closer than I initially thought it would be. Anyway, here is my ranking, including my favorite kill and dumbest moment in each film.

1. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

This is exactly what I think a Nightmare should be. It’s creepy, gross, funny, and always entertaining. After a slip-up with the second film, they truly figured out what Freddy should be like: funny at times, but still gruesome and terrifying. It’s a fine line to walk, but Dream Warriors figured it out. 

Favorite Kill: The puppeteer kill makes my skin crawl just thinking of it, but I have to go with the iconic TV kill.

Dumbest Moment: With all due respect to Ray Harryhausen, that stop motion skeleton shit was awful. (I know Harryhausen didn’t work on this; I’m just referencing the fact that he created stop motion.)

2. A Nightmare on Elm Street

This is one that I appreciate more than enjoy, but revisiting it after watching all of them made me like it more. I think this one will grow on me in the future, and I do plan on rewatching it in the future. It’s just a great premise, and it finds a great, dark tone that the series has struggled with ever since. 

Favorite Kill: The Depp blood geyser, of course.

Dumbest Moment: Not a lot of stupid shit in this one, but I guess I’ll go with Nancy’s mom keeping Freddy’s glove. What was her reasoning there?

3. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

They were smart to just keep the Dream Warriors vibe going with this one, though it’s not as good. Still, this is the type of Freddy movie I want. And I liked how they handled the dreams in general in this one. I watched it on DVD, so the part that replayed a couple times genuinely fooled me into thinking the cheap-ass DVD I bought was messed up. Good job, Renny Harlin!

Favorite Kill: The weightlifting scene that turns into a Kafka-esque bug death was great.

Dumbest Moment: The soul pizza is silly as shit, and the invisible karate fight is hilarious. But Freddy raps at the end of this, so no contest.

4. Freddy vs. Jason

It almost feels wrong to include this on the list because even though it definitely is a Nightmare movie that Jason is brought into, Jason takes over the movie just like he takes over the plot. He gets to do almost all of the killing, and Freddy has to sit on the sidelines regaining power for most of the movie. Still, this is the tone I want for both of these franchises, so I had a lot of fun with it.

Favorite Kill: Well, Freddy just gets to kill Mark in the bathroom, so I guess I’ll go with Mark in the bathroom.

Dumbest Moment: The Jason pinball scene was silly, but the dumbest thing this movie does is make Jason afraid of water. Right after this revelation, Freddy taps into Jason’s brain and Jason is walking in water. So he’s afraid of this shit, but deep in his mind he’s surrounded by it? Whatever.

5. New Nightmare

After the pure trash of The Dream Child and Freddy’s Dead, it’s amazing that they found a way to keep this series going without totally rebooting it. Going meta was such a good choice, and it set the stage for Craven to start his other franchise, Scream. While this isn’t a traditional Freddy movie, it’s still one of the scarier entries, especially from a parental standpoint. There are a lot of scenes dealing with Nancy’s son that are awful to imagine happening with your own kid. That said, they dip into that well a few too many times as this movie is just too long. 

Favorite Kill: None of them are that great, but the babysitter getting dragged around the ceiling was nice, but mainly for nostalgic reasons.

Dumbest Moment: The random eels or whatever at the end were pretty silly, but the part when he tries to eat the kid’s head looked dumb as shit.

6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

This is the last movie on the list I actually enjoy. In general, it’s not a great Nightmare movie because it nearly ruined the mythology for the rest of the series. But there’s so much weird stuff going on with the main character’s parents, and there’s a gay undertone throughout the film that keeps this one entertaining. 

Favorite Kill: Marshall Bell getting towel-whipped comes to mind, but I have to go with the dildo at the pool party who thought he could negotiate with Freddy fucking Krueger.

Dumbest moment: All of it? But the bird blowing up and the dad’s cherry bomb accusation was pretty funny.

7. A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child

This is when the series starts to shit the bed. It’s just a mess trying to explain why Freddy is reborn or whatever, which leads to a baby and child Freddy at one point. And it just looks stupid, not scary. Worse than that, this one just isn’t that fun despite being stupid. 

Favorite Kill: The Cronenberg-esque motorcycle is so much better than this film deserves.

Dumbest Moment: I thought little kid Freddy looked goofy.

8. Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare

Normally, a series getting this desperate (3D to the point that the characters actually put on 3D glasses at one point, and a lengthy video game sequence) will make a movie so bad it’s good. But this just didn’t work for me. Freddy is inherently a little on the funny side since he’s always talking shit, but this is the only film in the franchise that I felt went only for laughs and just gave up on being a horror film, as evidenced by the Rosanne and Tom Arnold cameos.

Favorite Kill: Carlos’s deaf kill was a surprisingly inventive moment in this one. Freddy really milked it to great effect.

Dumbest Moment: There are so many, but I guess I’ll go with the video game stuff, especially when the guy starts moving in the real world like a video game character. Yaphet Kotto holding nunchucks in preparation for a real world Freddy fight is a close second, though.

9. A Nightmare on Elm Street (Remake)

I think any fan of the series could predict this as my last place choice. This movie is so hated I can’t believe it hasn’t been revisited as a “misunderstood classic” or something yet. I suppose it’s a credit to its shittiness that no one is defending it. For me, it just overcorrected the tone. If Freddy’s Dead was too silly, then this was way too serious. It was the trend at the time, I guess, but this series was never meant to be this dour. On paper, the premise is super dark, I get it. But in practice this just doesn’t work unless you make it a little entertaining. This is a miserable slog that I truly regret rewatching for this list.

Favorite Kill: I just watched this a day ago, and I can’t even remember any of the kills. They recreate a few from the original, so I guess I’ll go with the ceiling one again.

Dumbest Moment: So why didn’t the police search Freddy’s barely hidden child molesting dungeon in the basement of the pre-school? They seriously couldn’t find it? And why the fuck was someone who looks like Jackie Earle Haley allowed to work there, not to mention LIVE IN THE BASEMENT. For a movie that goes for a super serious tone, that’s some Freddy’s Dead-level stupid shit.

"A Nightmare on Elm Street"

A Nightmare on Elm Street, Directed by Samuel Bayer, written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer, starring Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, and Kyle Gallner - Rated R

It's sad, really, Clancy Brown (aka The Kurgan) was in this movie, but I have to give it a Nolte...what a shame.

Welcome to the party, Freddy. You’re the latest horror icon to get a bland, unnecessary remake. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all remakes are terrible or pointless, but these horror remakes have to stop. These stories should either be continued or left dead. Don’t just start them over; that’s boring. Give me a sequel to Freddy Vs Jason before you just churn out some reboot. At least that film was aware of itself and fun. Unfortunately, I don’t see this stopping anytime soon. But I digress; let’s take a look at this crappy movie.

A Nightmare on Elm Street offers nothing new or interesting to the series. We’re treated to the origin story of Freddy again. Just in case you have never seen a Freddy movie, here’s the skinny: Freddy Krueger is a child molester (in the original he was a child murderer) who gets burned alive by a group of angry parents. He continues to torture their children from beyond the grave by attacking them in their dreams. Sounds like a weak revenge plan, but here’s the catch: if Freddy kills you in a dream, you die for real. That basic story has worked for years and I’m okay with it, but I wanted to see a few more interesting ideas at work.

The only aspect of the film of note is the casting of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy. I thought Haley did a fine job here, even though he’s just using his Rorschach voice from Watchmen, but his presence doesn’t save this film.

What could have saved the film is director Samuel Bayer. The script was going to be basic, that’s just a given. Bayer, a veteran music video director, would have to do something with the camera or the dream sequences to spice things up. Sadly, he just followed the example of the script and kept things very basic.

What’s terribly frustrating about Bayer’s failure is the fact that this film mainly takes place in people’s dreams. That is ripe territory for inventive and visually impressive filmmaking. You’re basically free to do anything when dreams are the film’s landscape. But it’s the same old settings we’re used to. You have the school and the boiler room, that’s pretty much it. Those two settings are a requirement for an Elm Street movie, I understand, but they look almost identical to the old films. If this is a “reimagining,” then these filmmakers don’t have much of an imagination.

So the locales are the same, I can forgive that if the movie makes up for it with some inventive death scenes or blood is used more like paint and less like slop to be thrown at the audience. This film is only slightly acceptable in that department as well, though. There is a scene of two where the film succeeds, but for the most part the kills are sloppy and lame. If you’re remaking something, you should have the decency to create some interesting visuals.

But is it scary? That’s the point anyway, right? If you get frightened by jump scares (you know, when the camera moves around a character and the villain suddenly appears, accompanied with a shrieking violin sound cue), then this film might get to you. If you need atmosphere and a truly frightening villain, you’ll probably just end up bored.

The villain wasn’t frightening to me because I thought the make up for Freddy’s burnt face was weak. I couldn’t help but think of Gary Oldman’s disfigured character from 2001’s Hannibal. It just didn’t strike me as original and it certainly didn’t give me the creeps.

The movie is at best adequate on nearly every level, and to top it all off, it’s strangely made and quite stupid at times. I say it’s strangely made because the director leaves the camera going for about ten seconds too long in nearly every normal scene. The movie seemed to be in slow motion at times. It’s like they realized the script wasn’t long enough, so they shot filler to get the runtime up.

Now for the stupidity. Okay, you’re being hunted in your dreams, so you have to stay awake. What do the two leads decide to do? Go to the book store and read sleep deprivation books, of course! I don’t think reading about sleeping is the best way to stay awake. Plus, these characters aren’t sleep deprived, they are flat out narcoleptic. They fall asleep at the most ridiculous times, like while they are swimming (not joking, it happens). And here’s a tip for these kids: if you want to stay awake, don’t sit down! Just keep standing, walk around or something. At one point a girl, who is aware of the situation, mind you, decides to take a relaxing bath because that would never put you to sleep. Take a shower, lady! It’s a more active experience and will probably keep you awake.

I could go on and on but I’ve already started to rant about this one. I’m just upset about what has happened to icons like Freddy. Maybe I’m wrong, though, the kids at the showing I was at seemed to like it, so maybe they’ll be in my shoes in twenty years, ranting and raving when the next “reimagining” comes out in all its mediocre glory.