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A Nightmare on Elm Street Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes

  • ️Mon Nov 09 2009

94 %

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Reviews Counted:34

Fresh:32

Rotten:2

Average Rating:7.7/10

Consensus: Wes Craven's intelligent premise, combined with the horrifying visual appearance of Freddy Krueger, still causes nightmares to this day.

Synopsis: A replusive, decaying figure with razor-sharp appendages (and an even sharper sense of humor!) suddenly appears in the dreams of four Los Angeles teenagers. It is the ghost of Freddy Krueger, a... [More]

Reviews for A Nightmare on Elm Street

1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)

Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date

The Sandman of Reagan's dozy suburbia

Fernando F. Croce

Terrifically spooky and original, the film continues to feel completely modern despite being almost a quarter-century old.

Dustin Putman

...one of the great horror efforts and a worthy successor to the classic monsters of yesteryear.

Steve Biodrowski

My favourite horror movie.

Stefan Birgir Stefansson

An inventive and terrifying horror film that explores the inner psyche and its ability to turn nightmares into reality.

Wesley Lovell

A highly imaginative horror film that provides the requisite shocks to keep fans of the genre happy.

Variety Staff

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One of the most intelligent and terrifying horror films of the 1980s.

What makes Freddy truly terrifying, and an inspired invention on Craven's part, is that he exists not in the real world but in the shadowy realm of dreams.

Simon Braund

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It succeeds by preying on archetypal fears and imagery - the myth of the bogeyman, the power of the unconscious conjuring up the worst horrors imaginable.

Craven vitalizes the nightmare sequences with assorted surrealist novelties.

J. R. Jones

An actual story, made by somebody who cared enough about his ideas to make them different and original.

Tim Brayton

The far superior of the two defining horror franchises of the '80s.

Michael Dequina

By 1984, the slasher film had already been done to death, but Craven added a fresh take with his idea of a killer that attacks in dreams.

Jeffrey M. Anderson

What�s so clever about Craven�s variation on teen-horror is what now seems so obvious about it: A Nightmare on Elm Street takes all of this fear of unmanageable desires and makes it explicitly, even bluntly Freudian.

Leo Goldsmith

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a movie defined by its dual legacies.

Nick Schager

classic '80s horror...and Johnny Depp dies

Pete Vonder Haar

Chuck O'Leary

Emanuel Levy

Jeffrey Westhoff

1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)

Latest News for A Nightmare on Elm Street

June 12, 2009: Five Favourite Films with Wes Craven
No director in recent history has made their particular genre as much their own as Wes Craven. The legendary helmer virtually redefined the horror movies with the likes of The... More...

March 25, 2009: Look Inside the New Nightmare's Script Opens in new window
Want to know what you can expect from the storyline of Platinum Dunes' "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake? You'll want to sit down and have a look at Latino Review's script review. More...

February 12, 2009: A Director on Elm Street? Opens in new window
Has "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video director Samuel Bayer been hired to helm the "Nightmare on Elm Street" reboot? That's the word from Steven Zeitchik's sources. More...

February 10, 2009: Nightmare on Elm Street Reboot Targets Early 2010 Opens in new window
Saying we can expect to hear some casting news in the next month, producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form have given Collider some more updates on their "Nightmare on Elm Street"... More...