I was listening to the most recent Patreon episode of The Evolution Of Horror, in which they discuss the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie, which turns forty this year.
The conversation is really good, as befits one of the better horror movies ever made. The panel spend a fair amount of time early in the episode talking about their earliest memories of the movie and I was of course struck by the fact that all of them encountered it well into its lifespan, as they are all much younger than I am.
The first time I saw it was during its initial run on cable. My parents would not let me go see horror movies and we did not have cable at home. I watched it with my cousins in their basement in Toronto one sunny afternoon, and it was terrifying.
I think it was only the second horror movie I saw in its entirety. The first was John Carpenter’s The Thing and like that one, it made a big impact on me.
The two images that really stuck with me afterward—and still do, even to this day—are the shot near the beginning of Tina getting dragged up to the ceiling of her bedroom and the scene near the end of Nancy’s feet sinking into the steps as she tries to get away from Freddy.
Having now seen the movie a bunch of times over the years, I think I mostly tend to come down on the side of the entire thing being a dream that we are experiencing along with Wes Craven. I think that makes sense even before 1994’s New Nightmare (the best by far of the sequels), but that film really confirmed it.
I am now realizing as I write this that it has probably been ten years since I last watched the original film, so I am quite overdue.