A Nightmare On Elm Street is a 1984 horror/slasher film that kicked off one of the most successful franchises in the genre, debuting the now iconic movie monster Freddy Krueger.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Teenager Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) had a bad dream, one where she was attacked by a madman with knives mounted to the fingers of his gloves. What’s more disturbing though is that when she woke up, her mother found slash marks on her daughter’s nightgown. Turns out, the man in the nightmare is a guy named Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), and he’s making a habit out of chasing and murdering young people … in their sleep. One of those teens is Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), a close friend of Tina’s, who begins to understand what is happening, learning the cruel history of the killer and the role her friend’s and her parents had in his fate. Now she just needs to survive and find a way to end the killer in her dreams before she ends up dead in a nightmare on elm street.
REVIEW: Giving the still-developing genre a solid twist, director Wes Craven‘s A Nightmare On Elm Street changed the landscape of horror films, creating a monster and a story that still resonates today. While it might have its flaws, the way it connects on a baser level with audiences, striking at the ‘safety’ of our dreams, is why it works so well, it’s impact hard to ignore. Not to mention it’s very well written, is consistently clever, and chock full of creative visual effects that are still great fun to watch. It’s a staple for horror fans, but one that even those who don’t go for such movies should give a try, simply to see the results a filmmaker at the top of his game.
THAT BATHTUB MOMENT: For the sake of obligation, I will mention that of course, Johnny Depp gets his film debut here and would go on to play his own version of a man with sharp fingers in Tim Burton‘s romantic comedy Edward Scissorhands. Depp plays a kid named Glen who eventually gets the film’s most iconic death scene, one well deserving of a closer look itself, but I want to sidestep that bit and concentrate on a much smaller moment in the movie, though one certainly as memorable and perhaps most recognizable for its visual impact.
In the story, Nancy has already met Freddy, encountering him in a nightmare while dozing off in a class, though she’s been taunted and haunted by him well before this, even though she wasn’t fully aware of it yet. In the dream, she ends up in a basement where she finally sees Freddy up close, the burn-scarred figure in the dirty red and green sweater and musty fedora famously hissing at her, “Come to Freddy!” It appears she is about to meet her end when she brushes up against a steam pipe and lurches awake, screaming out in the classroom. Weirdly, in the real world, her arm is slightly burned. I love how Craven is already subtly connecting the two.
From school, she visits another friend, he named Rod (Nick Corri), whose circumstances at this point I won’t spoil just in case you’re one of the few that haven’t seen the movie (please fix that). Either way, Nancy learns that he too is having similar nightmares featuring the same blade-gloved monster. She starts to realize that maybe all this real and their dreams are not so safe a place to be. She goes home and feeling shocked and exhausted, takes a bath trying to sort things out in her mind. But you can bet she’s not staying awake long and soon dozes off where right away, Freddy is waiting. Knives out.
WHY IT MATTERS: In the scene, Nancy is up to her neck in bubbles, her head resting against a blow-up head pillow. She’s quietly singing what sounds like a familiar nursery rhyme, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, but she’s changed up the words, seemingly unaware of it even herself. “One, Two, Freddy’s comin’ for you,” she mutters. She then drifts off and her head nods to the side.
To this point, the camera has been at a fairly standard angle, pointed at her face in a tight shot that for fans of these movies feels just right, that of a beautiful girl in a scene that hints of nudity and just a tease of suspense. Nancy is weary and deeply troubled but there’s a peacefulness to the imagery that lulls us into her trap, and it’s right here where the film – and its terrific premise – contorts expectations.
Every teen slasher film to here has pit a killer with his nasty weapon of choice in chase of their victim, typically a young beautiful girl like Nancy, hunting them down on a campsite or near cabins in the wood. It was so prevalent an idea that right then, a comfortable bathroom in a filled up tub full of welcoming bubbles seemed the last place for such a thing to happen. And that’s just what Craven was expecting.
Knowing that, he then swings and cuts his camera down to the surface of the water, which is jarring enough of an angle, but even more shocking, he puts us right between the spread legs of the girl, her bent knees protruding from the water on both sides of our point of view, instantly accelerating some heartbeats. While this image grabs our attention for it powerful sexuality, we have nearly no time to process that as a second later, the sharp tynes of Freddy’s blade break the water and rise up from between her legs. The immediacy of the mixed message is jolting as we try to stumble with our sudden shift from arousal to fear, something Craven is well aware of and purposefully working to incite. It’s the central tenant of his theme.
What follows is a disturbing scene where Nancy is pulled under the water in a battle for life with a killer who thrives in the nightmare of his victims. I won’t tell you how it ends but rather point out how significant this scene is, one that has captivated viewers since it was released in 1984. The bathtub is for almost all of us, a private place of reflection, where we sit perhaps most vulnerable but conversely feeling the most secure. It’s something Alfred Hitchcock toyed with in his groundbreaking Psycho, having a woman killed in the shower, something no one expected on screen then, and something Craven counted on here.
More so, he’s doubling up the moment by layering in metaphors of adolescent sexual awakening, something the film itself clings to throughout, in this moment making a pointed (sorry) statement about the struggles and emotional conflicts such changes make on a young person. He could have simply had Freddy leap from the water and start slashing, but that’s not the point, instead, gently, deliberately having Krueger’s hand rise from between her legs in a somewhat suggestive, almost creepily sensual manner, the claw’s slow rise representative of much about the dangers and fears of reaching maturity.
To really appreciate the depth and impact of this moment both for its sexual and horror significance, all you need to do is look how the same scene is mangled in the unnecessary 2010 remake. Here, there is no setup, no singing, just a girl who immediately falls asleep and a hand rushing out of the water. There’s no intimacy with the moment, over and done in a blink, the filmmakers entirely missing the point and purpose of not just the scene but its message. They duplicated the image but forgot the meaning.
A Nightmare on Elms Street is a deserved classic, and while many take to it as a Halloween favorite and traditional must-see flick for the season, it’s a lot more than that. So if you do intend to watch for the holiday, make sure you give it special attention and watch carefully this very well made moment in the tub where Nancy meets not only Freddy but much more. It’s a great movie moment.