Ceris' 31 Days of Horror Challenge: Day 22 - A Nightmare on Elm Street

I have to say I’m surprised I’ve never seen this before! So we start with a pair of hands making a glove with razors attached to it ..... I assume this is Freddy Krueger based on what I already know.

Art by Matt Ryan Tobin

There is a young woman in what appears to be a nighty running away from a voice through a warehouse with dripping metal pipes and steam! Freddy makes a brief appearance walking along the bottom of the screen before catching up with the woman who is sure her time is up, but Freddy walks past her, before he appears again behind her ...... and she wakes up but with 4 mysterious slashes in her nighty!

The following day Tina is walking to school with her friends and talks to them about her dream but they pass it off. Tinas mum is out of town for 2 days so Nancy and Glen agree to stay with her - Glen telling his mother he is staying at his cousins by the airport was funny as he used a tape from his friend that included gunfire and screaming! Nancy and Tina discover they dreamt about the same creepy man in the green and red sweater with the finger-knives. A noise outside sends the trio out to investigate and Rod jumps out on them, scaring them all!

Tina and Rod sleep together and Tina falls asleep, where she dreams about the man in the striped jumper with knives for fingers again. She tries to run away from him but he catches up with her. Suddenly we are back in the bedroom and Rod is woken up by Tina screaming. Her top rips open and she has her chest slashed open and is thrown around the room by an invisible source. Rod is arrested by Nancy’s dad - who happens to be the sheriff. I won’t lie this film is really looking old now! Nancy tells her dad about Tina’s nightmare from the night before and that is the reason she and Glen were there in the first place.

Nancy’s mum tries to stop her going to school the next morning as she was tossing and turning all night, but Nancy is determined to go to school. On the way Nancy feels like she is being followed, and out of the bushes Rod appears are grabs Nancy and tells her he didn’t do it! Suddenly the police appear and Rod is arrested. At school Nancy falls asleep in her class where she dreams she sees Tina inside the body bag, before ending up in the boiler room being chased by Freddy - the maggots falling out of his body were grim! Finding herself trapped with Freddy coming towards her, Nancy burns herself on a pipe to wake herself up. Waking up screaming she goes home, but notices a burn mark on her arm which shouldn’t be there are she did this in her sleep!

She goes to prison to speak to Rod and ask him what happened in the room with Tina the night before. She asks if he saw the person who did this, he says he didn’t but it looked like Tina was cut with 4 razors at the same time - I think Nancy has twigged that it’s Freddy! Rod tells her he also dreamt about Freddie! Later that day Nancy is in the bath singing to herself to stop herself falling asleep but obvs it doesn’t work and Freddy’s hand appears - luckily for Nancy her mother chooses that moment to shout through the door. Freddy tries to drown Nancy in the bathtub and her mum breaks down the door to get in. Nancy tries her hardest to stay awake so she doesn’t see Freddy again.

Glen arrives at her house and asks her about her arm. Glen clearly doesn’t believe in the bogeyman but agrees to watch over Nancy while she sleeps to essentially stop her being killed. Nancy goes to the prison and sees Freddy preparing to kill Freddy and shouts to Glen to wake her up but he doesn’t hear, instead she sees dead Tina again who has now started decomposing! Freddy has now decided he is going to go after Nancy who runs away and gets stuck in the stairs which appear to have turned to goo, she gets back to her room to discover Glen has fallen asleep - he had one job! - and fights off Freddy Krueger. Luckily her alarm goes off and wakes them both up!

Nancy and Glen race to the police station to check on Rod, who is found hanging from his cell in what looks to be a suicide - although I don’t think it’s suicide when the sheets wrap themselves around your neck! At Ross funeral, Nancy tells her parents about her dreams and they look concerned. Her mother takes her to a sleep clinic and while she is asleep, she managed to change the colour of her hair, cut her arm and grab Freddy’s hat and bring it back to the real world.

Nancy’s mum decides to tell Nancy about Freddy Krueger and he is revealed to be a kid killer. Turns out due to an admin error he was freed. She tells her that a group of parents went after him and burned him alive inside the boiler room her used to take his child victims. Marge shows Nancy that she even has Kruegers knives and that he can no longer get Nancy. Nancy calls Glen and tells him she knows who the killer is and tells him her plan to bring Krueger out of her dream. She tells him to meet her on her porch at midnight and to not fall asleep - I would die as I wouldn’t be able to stay away till midnight, it’s far too late!

Glen falls asleep but is luckily woken up by his mum. Nancy pretends to go to sleep for her mum, before drinking more coffee and and gets ready to meet Glen. Glens father is not impressed with Nancy - can’t say I blame him - and tells his mother Glen can’t see her anymore. Nancy tries to call Glen as she can’t get out of her house, but the call is answered by Glens mother and his father takes the call and tells Nancy Glen is asleep and she will have to talk to him tomorrow, before leaving the phone of the hook! A call from Krueger on Nancy’s disconnected phone makes Nancy realise Glen is in trouble.

Uh oh Glen fell asleep so he is defo a dead man! Glenn gets sucked into the bed by Freddy...in turn creating a blood fountain; grim! Glens mother comes into the room as the bed is still spewing out Glens blood and the EMTs are told they don’t need a stretcher but a mop! Nancy rings Glens house to speak to her father and tells him to be at her house in 20 minutes to catch Freddy Krueger when she brings him back from her dream! Having booby trapped the house, Nancy goes to sleep!

In her dream, Nancy is back in the boiler room looking for Krueger, while finding items that belonged to her friends he has already killed. Trying to escape him she ends up outside with only 10 seconds before her alarm wakes her up. She managed to grab Krueger and wakes up in her bed with no sign of Freddy. Suddenly he leaps up from behind the bed and she manages to trap him in her room giving her time to escape - it’s like a scarier version on Home Alone. Freddy gets delayed by the booby traps and Nancy manages to set him on fire and push him into the basement. Nancy’s dad breaks into the house but Freddy escaped the basement. Following the trail of fire, they find Krueger attacking her mother. As the sheriff puts out the flames, her mother sinks into the bed and disappears.

Nancy is now alone in her mothers bedroom when Freddy appears again, but Nancy has now figured out that he feeds on peoples fear so tells him she isn’t scared of him and turns her back on him which makes him disappear. Nancy steps out out the bedroom door onto her front porch with her mother, and gets into the car with her friends who are all now alive. Suddenly the roof of the car snaps closed and is the colour of Kruegers jumper. The teens are trapped in the car and Marge is dragged into the front door by Freddy.

All in all I enjoyed this film, it was cool finally seeing Robert Englund as Freddy. I've only seen the merch, figures and pictures Adam's got. I'm glad I didn't jump nowhere near as much as Adam did- despite the fact he's seen this multiple times! I will say though, it is looking a bit dated now. Would I check out some of the sequels? Sure, why not... I did enjoy this one. Adam's told me not to watch the remake though...

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