When I first saw A Nightmare on Elm Street, I had no idea what to expect. I hadn’t heard anything about it, I don’t think I’d even seen any previews. What hit me between the eyes on that Friday night in November of 1984 was simply glorious. I’d been fascinated by dreams and the idea of dying in dreams ever since I saw the Charles Beaumont Twilight Zone episode “Perchance to Dream.” A Nightmare on Elm Street expanded on those ideas in new and exciting ways. I wasn’t really aware of who Wes Craven was before that fateful Friday night, but I certainly knew his name afterwards. A Nightmare on Elm Street quickly became one of my all-time favorite horror movies, and still is.
Rest in peace.
Favorite Wes Craven films:
Swamp Thing, 1982 (Director & Screenwriter)
A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984 (Director & Screenwriter)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, 1987 (Screenwriter)
The Serpent and the Rainbow, 1988 (Director)
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, 1994 (Director & Screenwriter)
Scream, 1996 (Director)
Scream 2, 1997 (Director)
Red Eye, 2005 (Director)
Scream 4, 2011 (Director)
Special Mention –
Deadly Friend, 1986 – A bad movie with one great scene (when robot-zombie girl explodes
Anne Ramsey’s head with a basketball)
Shocker, 1989 – Another bad movie, but I remember laughing out loud through a lot of it.
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