A Nightmare on Elm Street

This article is about the 1984 film. For the 2010 remake, see A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010 film).

A Nightmare on Elm Street
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Wes Craven
Produced by	Robert Shaye
Written by	Wes Craven
Starring	John Saxon Ronee Blakley Heather Langenkamp Amanda Wyss Nick Corri Johnny Depp Robert Englund
Music by	Charles Bernstein
Cinematography	Jacques Haitkin
Editing by	Patrick McMahon Rick Shaine
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	November 9, 1984 (1984-11-09)
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.8 million
Box office	$26,319,961

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American slasher film directed and written by Wes Craven, and the first film of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film features Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund, and Johnny Depp in his feature film debut. Set in the fictional Midwestern town of Springwood, Ohio, the plot revolves around several teenagers who, if they fall asleep, will be killed by Fred Krueger in their dreams, thus causing their deaths in reality. The teenagers are unaware of the cause of this strange phenomenon, but their parents hold a dark secret from long ago.

Craven produced A Nightmare on Elm Street on an estimated budget of just $1.8 million,^[1] a sum the film earned back during its first week.^[2] An instant commercial success, the film's total United States box office gross is $25.5 million.^[2] A Nightmare on Elm Street was met with rave critical reviews and went on to make a very significant impact on the horror genre, spawning a franchise consisting of a line of sequels, a television series, a crossover with Friday the 13th, a remake, and various other works of imitation.^[3][4]

The film is credited with carrying on many tropes found in low-budget horror films of the 1970s and 1980s, originating in John Carpenter's 1978 horror film Halloween, including the morality play that revolves around sexual promiscuity in teenagers resulting in their eventual (usually graphic) death, leading to the term "slasher film".^[4][5] Critics and film historians argue that the film's premise is the question of the distinction between dreams and reality, which is manifested in the film through the teenagers' dreams and their realities.^[6] Critics today praise the film's ability to transgress "the boundaries between the imaginary and real",^[7] toying with audience perceptions.^[8]

Plot

Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) has a dream in which she is stalked through a dark boiler room by a severely burned figure with distinctive razor-sharp knives attached to the fingers on a glove on his right hand. However, just as he catches her, she wakes up screaming, only to discover four razor cuts in her nightgown identical to the cuts in her dream. The next day, Tina discovers that her friend Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) experienced a similar dream involving the same sinister figure, but Nancy is convinced that all is well.

That night, Tina, Nancy and Nancy's boyfriend Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) have a sleep-over to help Tina feel better, as she is still troubled by her nightmare. Tina's rebellious boyfriend, Rod Lane (Nick Corri), crashes the party, and he and Tina have sex in her mother's bedroom. However, Tina has another nightmare, and this time the killer catches her and brutally murders her. Rod wakes up to find cuts happening on Tina's body as she is dragged across the wall and ceiling. Rod, being the only other person in the room at the time, is accused of the murder, flees the house and is caught the next day.

Nancy then falls asleep in school and discovers a bodybag next to her containing Tina's body. Nancy chases after the body bag and is taunted and viciously stalked by the figure in the empty hallways. She finds herself in the same boiler room Tina was first attacked in and is chased and quickly cornered by the figure, who is laughing maniacally as he drags his razor blades across steel railings, making a horrible screech. As he prepares to kill her, she puts her arm on a red-hot steam pipe, which wakes her up. Nancy goes home early and discovers a burn mark on her arm from where she burned herself to wake herself up. She goes to the jail and talks to Rod, where he tells her that he saw the cuts happening on her body "all at once", before telling her that he too had a nightmare involving the mutilated figure with "knives for fingers". Nancy realizes that Rod is innocent and leaves.

Much to the dismay of her mother Marge (Ronee Blakley), Nancy becomes increasingly convinced that the figure appearing in her dreams is the person who killed Tina. Nancy, as an experiment, tells Glen to watch her if she sleeps, and if she shows signs of struggle or injury, to wake her up. Glen is skeptical, but agrees. Nancy finds the figure wrapping Rod's jail cell bedsheets around his neck. Nancy wakes up, only to discover that Glen has fallen asleep. Nancy wakes him up and they rush to the police station, only to find that she is too late and that Rod has been hung. To everyone except Nancy, it appears to be a suicide.

Nancy's mother takes her to a dream therapy clinic to ensure she gets some sleep. At the clinic, Nancy has another nightmare in which her arm is badly cut and strands of her hair have lost coloring. She also discovers that she has brought the killer's battered hat out from her dream, having done so by gripping onto it at the time when she was awoken. It arouses concern, but also other feelings in Marge, who is clearly hiding a secret. At home, Marge, increasingly drunk, eventually reveals to Nancy that the owner of the hat and the killer was a man named Fred Krueger (Robert Englund), a child murderer who killed at least twenty children in the late 1960s. After he was arrested, he was released from prison on a technicality due to an improperly filled out search warrant. Furious, vengeful parents tracked him down and burned him alive in his abandoned boiler room hideout. Now, it appears that he is manipulating the dreams of their children to exact his revenge on the parents who killed him from beyond the grave. However, Marge reassures Nancy that Krueger can't hurt anyone, pulling Krueger's bladed glove that she had stolen on the night that they killed Krueger from a hiding place in the furnace as proof. Eventually, Marge installs bars on all the windows and begins to deadbolt the door as "security".

Nancy and Glen devise a plan to catch Krueger, to stay up all night until they can enact their plan. Nancy gets a call on her disconnected phone and Krueger tells her "I'm your boyfriend now, Nancy", implying that he has killed Glen, before laughing and sticking his tongue out of the phone, which causes her to hysterically stomp on the phone. Nancy tries to head over to Glen's house, but Marge is still awake and drunk again, who tells her that she will not be leaving. Nancy attempts to call him to help him stay awake, but Glen's parents think that Nancy has gone crazy and want sleep, so Mr. Lantz takes the phone off the hook, and Glen falls asleep. Krueger gets him by pulling him into his bed, and launches him out as a gory mass of blood, which his mother walks in on. Nancy decides to enact the plan herself, by setting various booby traps around the house, and setting a timer on both her wristwatch and her alarm clock. She grabs on to Krueger as the timer counts down to zero and she is woken up by her alarm clock. Nancy has successfully pulled Krueger out of her dream into the real world, where he is human again. She runs around her house and he succumbs to the brutal traps she had set. After setting Krueger on fire and locking him in the basement, Nancy tries to escape, only to remember the bolted door and bars on the windows. As Krueger is close to escaping, Nancy screams for her father, police lieutenant Don Thompson (John Saxon) and the rest of the police to help.

They finally come over and discover fiery footsteps that lead upstairs, implying Krueger's escape, Nancy and Don witness Krueger smothering Marge with his flaming body, and disappearing to leave her corpse to sink into the bed. After sending her father away, Nancy tricks Krueger into thinking that she thought that he was finally dead. However, she faces Krueger on her own and succeeds in destroying him by turning her back on him, telling him that she is no longer afraid of him, therefore draining him of all energy.

The scene changes to the next morning as Nancy gets in a car with Glen, Tina and Rod, who are alive and well again, on their way to school. Marge tells Nancy that she plans on giving up drinking as Nancy tells her that she "slept well". Krueger possesses Glen's car just as she gets in. While the car drives away with Nancy screaming for her mother, Marge is pulled through the door window by Krueger's bladed hand, implying that Krueger has tricked Nancy, and that he is still alive.

Cast

See also: List of cast members of the Nightmare on Elm Street series

The task of creating Krueger's disfigured face fell to makeup man David Miller, who based his creation on photographs of burn victims he obtained from the UCLA Medical Center.^[9]

The cast of A Nightmare on Elm Street included a crew of veteran actors such as Robert Englund and John Saxon, as well as several aspiring young actors including Johnny Depp and Heather Langenkamp. The low budget curtailed the number of well-known actors that Craven could attract, and most of the actors received very little compensation for their roles.^{[citation needed]}

• John Saxon as Lt. Don Thompson
• Ronee Blakley as Marge Thompson
• Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson
• Amanda Wyss as Tina Gray
• Nick Corri as Rod Lane
• Johnny Depp as Glen Lantz
• Robert Englund as Fred Krueger

Production

Development

"It was a series of articles in the LA Times, three small articles about men from South East Asia, who were from immigrant families and had died in the middle of nightmares—and the paper never correlated them, never said, ‘Hey, we’ve had another story like this."

— Wes Craven on the film's creation[10]

A Nightmare on Elm Street contains many biographical elements, taking inspiration from director Wes Craven's childhood.^[11] The basis of the film was inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the LA Times in the 1970s on a group of Khmer refugees, who, after fleeing to America from the Khmer Rouge Genocide in Cambodia, were suffering disturbing nightmares, after which they refused to sleep. Some of the men died in their sleep soon after. Medical authorities called the phenomenon Asian Death Syndrome. The condition itself afflicted only men between the ages of 19-57 and is believed to be sudden unexplained death syndrome and/or Brugada syndrome.^[12] The 1970s pop song "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright sealed the story for Craven, giving him not only an artistic setting to "jump off" from, but a synthesizer riff from the Elm Street soundtrack as well.^[13] It has also been stated that he drew some inspiration after studying eastern religions.^[14]

Other sources also attribute the inspiration for the movie to be a 1968 student film project made by students of Craven's at Clarkson University. The student film parodied contemporary horror movies, and was filmed along Elm Street in Potsdam, New York^[15][16] (the town in the film was named Madstop—Potsdam spelled backwards).^[17]

The film's villain, Freddy Krueger, draws heavily from Craven's early life. One night, a young Craven saw an elderly man walking on the sidepath outside the window of his home. The man stopped to glance at a startled Craven, and then walked off. This served as the inspiration for Krueger.^[11] Initially, Fred Krueger was intended to be a child molester, but Craven eventually decided to characterize him as a child murderer to avoid being accused of exploiting a spate of highly publicized child molestation cases that occurred in California around the time of production of the film.^[9]

By Craven's account, his own adolescent experiences lead to the naming of Freddy Krueger. He had been bullied at school by a child named Fred Krueger, and named his villain accordingly.^[9] In addition, Craven had done the same in his earlier film The Last House on the Left (1972), where the villain's name was shortened to "Krug". The colored sweater he chose for his villain was based on the DC Comics character Plastic Man, and Craven chose to make Krueger's sweater colors that of red and green, after reading an article in Scientific American in 1982 that said the two most clashing colors to the human retina were this particular combination.^[10]

Writing

Wes Craven began writing A Nightmare on Elm Street's screenplay around 1981, after he had finished production on Swamp Thing (1982). He pitched it to several studios, but each one of them rejected it for different reasons. Interestingly, the first studio to show interest was The Walt Disney Company, although they wanted Craven to tone down the content to make it suitable for children and pre-teens. Craven declined and moved on.^[9][10] Another early suitor was Paramount Pictures; however the studios passed on the project due to Nightmare on Elm Street's similarity to Dreamscape (1984), a film they were producing at the time. Finally, the fledgling and independent New Line Cinema corporation—which had up to that point only distributed films, rather than making its own—gave the project the go-ahead.^[9] During filming, New Line's distribution deal for the movie fell through and for two weeks it was unable to pay its cast and crew. Although New Line has gone on to make much bigger and more profitable movies, Nightmare holds such an important place in the company's history that the studio is often referred to as "The House That Freddy Built".^[18]

Casting

Craven claimed he wanted someone very "non-Hollywood" for the role of Nancy, and he believed Langenkamp met this quality.^[11] Langenkamp, before becoming an actress, worked as a newspaper copy girl, and saw an advertisement for extras needed on The Outsiders earlier that year, which was being shot in Tulsa. She did not get the part, but it encouraged her to continue acting and she eventually landed the role of Nancy Thompson after an open audition, beating out more than 200 actresses.^[19] Langenkamp returned as Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and also played herself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

Depp was another unknown when he was cast; and initially went to accompany a friend (Jackie Earle Haley, who went on to play Freddy in the 2010 remake) so he could audition, yet eventually got the part of Glen.^[11]

Filming

Principal photography took place in June 1984 and wrapped in July. The fictional address of the house that appears in the film is 1428 Elm Street in Los Angeles, California, the actual house is a private home located in Los Angeles on 1428 North Genesee Avenue.^[20] During production, over 500 gallons of fake blood were used for the special effects production.^[21] For the famous blood geyser sequence, the film makers used the same revolving room set that was used for Tina's death. They put the set so that it was upside down and attached the camera so that it looked like the room was right side up, then they poured gallons of red water into the room, because the normal movie blood would not make the right effect for the geyser.^[22] The scene where Nancy is attacked by Krueger in her bathtub was accomplished with a special bottomless tub. The tub was put in a bathroom set that was built over a swimming pool. During the underwater sequence Heather Langenkamp was replaced with stuntwoman Christina Rideout, who is also married to special effects artist Charles Belardinelli. The "melting staircase" as seen in Nancy's dream was created using pancake mix.^[22] Friday the 13th's director Sean S. Cunningham was uncredited for his direction of the chase scene.

Wes Craven originally planned for the film to have a more evocative ending: Nancy kills Krueger by ceasing to believe in him, then awakes to discover that everything that happened in the movie was an elongated nightmare. However, New Line leader Robert Shaye demanded a twist ending, in which Krueger disappears and the movie all appears to have been a dream, only for the audience to discover that they are watching a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream, where Fred reappears as a car that "kidnaps" Nancy, followed by Fred reaching through a window on the front door to pull Nancy's mother inside.^[22] Both a happy ending and a twist ending were filmed, but the final film used the twist ending. As a result, Craven (who never wanted the film to be an ongoing franchise), dropped out of working on the first sequel, Freddy's Revenge (1985).^[22] Production wrapped in July, and was rushed through editing at breakneck speed^{[citation needed]} to get it ready for its November release.

Themes

Loss of innocence

Freddy exclusively attacks teenagers and his actions have been interpreted as symbolic of the often traumatic experiences of adolescence.^[23] Nancy, like the archetypal teenager, experiences social anxiety and her relationships with her parents become very strained. Sexuality is present in Freudian images and is almost exclusively displayed in a threatening and mysterious context (i.e. Tina's death visually evokes a rape, Freddy's glove between Nancy's legs in the bath). The original script actually called for Krueger to be a child molester, rather than a child killer, before being murdered.^[24]

American suburbs

The movie has been described as a reaction to the growing trend of families moving to suburbs and the perceived innocence of American suburbs.^[25] Parents in the film's fictional suburb of Springwood, Ohio kill Krueger and hide his existence in an attempt to make a safe environment for their children, but they still cannot protect their kids.

Release

A Nightmare on Elm Street premiered in the United States on a limited theatrical release on November 9, 1984, opening in 165 cinemas across the country.^[26] The film performed moderately well commercially with little advertising — relying mostly on commercial advertisements and word-of-mouth. Grossing USD$1,271,000 during its opening weekend, the film was considered an instant commercial success.^[26] The film eventually earned a total of $25 million at the American box office.^[26] Additionally, A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in Europe, India, Canada and Australia.^[26]

Gross

• United States - $25,504,513^[27]
• Germany - $815,448^[27]
• Worldwide - $26,319,961
• Adjusted for Inflation - $51,783,386

Critical reception

Since its initial release, critics have praised the film's ability to rupture "the boundaries between the imaginary and real,"^[28] toying with audience perceptions.^[8] Some film historians interpreted this overriding theme as a social subtext, "the struggles of adolescents in American society".^[29] Variety said the film was "A highly imaginative horror film that provides the requisite shocks to keep fans of the genre happy".^[30]

The film has a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes^[31] and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1984.^[32][33][34] It ranked at #17 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004), a five-hour program that selected cinema's scariest moments. In 2003, Freddy Krueger was named the 40th greatest movie villain on American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains.^[35] In 2008, Empire ranked A Nightmare on Elm Street 162nd on their list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.^[36] It also was selected by The New York Times as one of The Best 1000 Movies Ever Made.^[37]

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills—Nominated^[38]
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains—#40, Freddy Krueger, Villain
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: "One, two, Freddy's coming for you..."—Nominated^[39]

Home media

The film was first introduced to the home video market by Media Home Entertainment in early 1985 and eventually in laserdisc format. It has since been released on DVD, first in 1999 in the United States as part of the Nightmare on Elm Street Collection box set (along with the other six sequels), and once again in restored "Infinifilm" special edition in 2006, containing various special features with contributions from Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon and the director of photography.

The Blu-ray Disc was released on April 13, 2010 by Warner Home Video^[40] and features few extras.^[41] A new DVD box set containing all of the films up to that point was released on the same day.^[42]

2006 Special Edition DVD Re-release

This DVD Re-release consisted of 2 DVDs, one with the movie picture and sound restored (DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 & original mono audio track) and another DVD with special features. Along with the restored version of the movie, DVD 1 also had 2 commentaries, other nightmares (if not all) from the film's sequels (2-7 & Freddy Vs. Jason). It also included additional, extended or alternate scenes of the movie, such as one scene where Marge reveals to Nancy that she had another sibling that was killed by Freddy. These unused clips/scenes were not included/added in the film but could be viewed separately from the DVD's Menus.

In a trivia clip on Disc 1 one of the crew describes how they shot the part where Nancy's mother descends into her bed after she dies. Filming the scene required two separate shots: one with the bed with blue lights, and another with specially-constructed bed that held a trapdoor to allow the body to drop. The final effect was achieved by combining the 2 shots, a technique that was discovered in 1910.

Awards and nominations

• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films - Best Horror Film (1985) (Nomination)
• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films - Best Performance by a Young Actor - Jsu Garcia (Nomination)
• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films - Best DVD Classic Film Release (2007) (Nomination)
• Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival - Critic Award 1985 - Wes Craven (won)
• Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival - Special Mention for Acting 1985 - Heather Langenkamp (Won)

References

1. ^ John Kenneth Muir, "Career Overview" in Wes Craven: The Art of Horror (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, 1998), p. 18, ISBN 0-7864-1923-7.
2. ^ ^{a b} A Nightmare on Elm Street at Box Office Mojo; last accessed August 30, 2006.
3. ^ "A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/nightmare_on_elm_street/. Retrieved January 17, 2010. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Jim Harper, Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies (Manchester, Eng.: Headpress, 2004), p. 126, ISBN 1-900486-39-3.
5. ^ Rick Worland, The Horror Film: A Brief Introduction (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), p. 106, ISBN 1-4051-3902-1.
6. ^ Kelly Bulkeley, Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion, and Psychology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), p. 108; see also chap. 11: "Dreamily Deconstructing the Dream Factory: The Wizard of Oz and Nightmare on Elm Street," ISBN 0-7914-4283-7.
7. ^ Ian Conrich, "Seducing the Subject: Fred Krueger, Popular Culture and the Nightmare on Elm Street Films" in Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and its Audience, ed. Deborah Cartmell, I. Q. Hunter, Heldi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan (London: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 119, ISBN 0-7453-1202-0.
8. ^ ^{a b} James Berardinelli, review of A Nightmare on Elm Street, at ReelViews; last accessed August 30, 2006.
9. ^ ^{a b c d e} Rockoff, Adam, Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978-1986 (McFarland & Company, 2002), p. 151, ISBN 0-7864-1227-5.
10. ^ ^{a b c} Biodrowski, Steve (October 15, 2008). "Wes Craven on Dreaming Up Nightmares". Cinefantastique. http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/2008/10/15/wes-craven-on-dreaming-up-nightmares/. Retrieved November 22, 2007. 
11. ^ ^{a b c d} A Nightmare on Elm Street DVD (2001, New Line Cinema Entertainment).
12. ^ CDCR Alert at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; accessed September 13, 2009.
13. ^ Wes Craven. A Nightmare on Elm Street DVD audio commentary.
14. ^ Wes Craven interview at Twitch Film; accessed November 23, 2007.
15. ^ Mary Konecnik (November 10, 2008). "History of Potsdam's A Nightmare on Elm St.". http://media.www.clarksonintegrator.com/media/storage/paper280/news/2008/11/10/Entertainment/History.Of.Potsdams.A.Nightmare.On.Elm.St-3535419.shtml. Retrieved December 19, 2008. 
16. ^ Nightmare on Elm Street at Potsdam; accessed November 2, 2007.
17. ^ "Trivia for A Nightmare On Elm Street". http://www.pitofhorror.com/newdesign/elmstreet/pages/elmtrivia1.htm. Retrieved December 19, 2008. 
18. ^ A Nightmare on Elm Street at DVD Revire; accessed November 2, 2007.
19. ^ Heather Langenkamp interview at The Arrow; last accessed November 23, 2007.
20. ^ Site with a picture of the house; Site with the actual address and floor plan and indoor photos
21. ^ "Frightful Facts" at House of Horrors; last accessed November 22, 207.
22. ^ ^{a b c d} Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street, documentary on the Special Edition 2006 DVD of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2006, New Line Cinema Entertainment), B000GETUDI.
23. ^ Not Coming to a Theater Near You review of A Nightmare on Elm Street by Leo Goldsmith [1]
24. ^ Robb, Brian (October 31, 2000). Screams and Nightmares: The Films of Wes Craven. Overlook TP. ISBN 1-58567-090-1. http://www.amazon.com/Screams-Nightmares-Films-Wes-Craven/dp/1585670901/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248236265&sr=8-1. 
25. ^ John Kenneth Muir, "A Nightmare on Elm Street" in Wes Craven: The Art of Horror (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, 1998), p. 18, ISBN 0-7864-1923-7.
26. ^ ^{a b c d} A Nightmare on Elm Street business statistics at Internet Movie Database; last accessed December 15, 2007.
27. ^ ^{a b} "Box Office and Business Information for A Nightmare on Elm Street". IMDb.com. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087800/business. Retrieved August 5, 2010. 
28. ^ Ian Conrich, "Seducing the Subject: Freddy Krueger, Popular Culture and the Nightmare on Elm Street Films" in Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and its Audience, ed. Deborah Cartmell, I. Q. Hunter, Heldi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan (London: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 119, ISBN 0-7453-1202-0.
29. ^ Kelly Bulkeley, Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion, and Psychology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), p. 108; see also chap. 11: "Dreamily Deconstructing the Dream Factory: The Wizard of Oz and A Nightmare on Elm Street," ISBN 0-7914-4283-7.
30. ^ A Nightmare on Elm Street review at Variety; accessed December 15, 2007.
31. ^ "A Nightmare on Elm Street Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/nightmare_on_elm_street/. Retrieved July 2, 2010. 
32. ^ "The Greatest Films of 1984". AMC Filmsite.org. http://www.filmsite.org/1984.html. Retrieved August 5, 2010. 
33. ^ "The Best Movies of 1984 by Rank". Films101.com. http://www.films101.com/y1984r.htm. Retrieved August 5, 2010. 
34. ^ "Most Popular Feature Films Released in 1984". IMDb.com. http://www.imdb.com/year/1984. Retrieved August 5, 2010. 
35. ^ "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains". AFI.com. http://www.afi.com/docs/tvevents/pdf/handv100.pdf. Retrieved August 5, 2010. 
36. ^ "Empire's The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". Empire magazine. http://www.empireonline.com/500/66.asp. Retrieved August 5, 2010. 
37. ^ "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". The New York Times. April 29, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/1000best.html. Retrieved April 23, 2010. 
38. ^ "American Film Institute's list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies". http://www.afi.com/Docs/tvevents/pdf/thrills400.pdf. Retrieved June 2011. 
39. ^ "American Film Institute's list of 400 movie quotes nominated for the top 100 movie quotations". http://www.afi.com/Docs/tvevents/pdf/quotes400.pdf. Retrieved June 2011. 
40. ^ High-Def Digest (Jan 07, 2010 at 01:45 PM ET). "A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)' Announced for Blu-ray". High Def Digest. http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Disc_Announcements/Warner_Brothers/A_Nightmare_on_Elm_Street_%281984%29_Announced_for_Blu-ray_/4030. Retrieved January 6, 2010. 
41. ^ Dread Central (Jan 07, 2010). "The Original A Nightmare on Elm Street Coming to Blu-ray!". Dread Central. http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/35246/the-original-a-nightmare-elm-street-coming-blu-ray. Retrieved January 6, 2010. 
42. ^ Dread Central (Jan 07, 2010). "New Elm Street Box Set Coming! Wait Until You See the Cover!". Dread Central. http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/35251/new-elm-street-box-set-coming-wait-until-you-see-cover. Retrieved January 6, 2010. 

Further reading

• Badley, Linda. Film, Horror, and the Body Fantastic. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995. ISBN 0-313-27523-8.
• Baird, Robert. "The Startle Effect: Implications for Spectator Cognition and Media Theory." Film Quarterly 53 (No. 3, Spring 2000): pp. 12 – 24.
• Carroll, Noël. "The Nature of Horror." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 46 (No. 1, Autumn 1987): pp. 51 – 59.
• Cumbow, Robert C. Order in the Universe: The Films of John Carpenter. 2nd ed., Lanham, Md.: Scarcrow Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8108-3719-6.
• Johnson, Kenneth. "The Point of View of the Wandering Camera." Cinema Journal 32 (No. 2, Winter 1993): pp. 49 – 56.
• King, Stephen. Danse Macabre. New York: Berkley Books, 1981. ISBN 0-425-10433-8.
• Prince, Stephen, ed. The Horror Film. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8135-3363-5.
• Schneider, Steven Jay, ed. Horror Film and Psychoanalysis: Freud's Worst Nightmare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-521-82521-0.
• Williams, Tony. Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8386-3564-4.

External links

A Nightmare on Elm Street portal

• A Nightmare on Elm Street at the Internet Movie Database
• A Nightmare on Elm Street at AllRovi
• A Nightmare on Elm Street at Box Office Mojo
• A Nightmare on Elm Street at Rotten Tomatoes
• A Nightmare on Elm Street at Metacritic
• A Nightmare on Elm Street Companion
• Nightmare on Elm Street Films