A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

  • Rated R
  • 1hr 31m
  •  (32)
  • 76

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Videos & Photos

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Movie Info & Cast

Director:

Wes Craven

Producer:

Stanley Dudelson, Robert Shaye, Joseph Wolf

Writer:

Wes Craven

Release Date:

Nov 16, 1984

Runtime:

1hr 31m

Synopsis

Several people are hunted by a cruel serial killer who kills his victims in their dreams. While the survivors are trying to find the reason for being chosen, the murderer won't lose any chance to kill them as soon as they fall asleep.

Cast

  • John Saxon
  • Ronee Blakley
  • Heather Langenkamp
  • Amanda Wyss
  • Jsu Garcia
  • Johnny Depp
  • Charles Fleischer
  • Joseph Whipp
  • Robert Englund
  • Lin Shaye

Did You Know?

Trivia

  • Wes Craven wrote the script and presented it in 1981 to try to sell it to a major studio, but no one wanted it. He said that "it just flew around" for three years until New Line Cinema picked it up.
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Goofs

  • The size of the pimple on Nancy's forehead changes from scene to scene.
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Quotes

    • [to Glen]
    • Nancy Thompson: Whatever you do... don't fall asleep.
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Movie details provided by

Atom User Reviews

 4.5 out of 5
21
7
3
0
1
POPULAR TAGS
#original
#creepy
#greatcast
#allthefeels
#clever
#terrifying
#epic
#mustsee
Verified Review

This thing is way better metaphorically than as a slasher.

FA
Francisco Jose A
Verified Review
#original
#greatcast
#epic
#creepy
#80shorror
#slasher
#freddy

Always will love this movie!

SM
Shawheim M

Metacritic

76
metacritic
Based on 12 Critics
8.8

USER SCORE (420)

Universal acclaim based on 420 Reviews
88

A Nightmare on Elm Street is tailor made for those who like their gore leavened with thought-provoking ideas - something that is a rarity in this genre.

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Metacritic review by James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
75

Nightmare’s skill wasn’t that it invented such associations—which had already been thoroughly mined by its ’70s predecessors—but that it refined them in uniquely disturbing ways, drenching itself in an atmosphere of unreality positioned somewhere between waking and slumbering states.

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Metacritic review by Nick Schager
Nick Schager
Slant Magazine
50

A decent ride. It has a boogeyman, exploding teen-agers and blood by the vat; it's part of the oeuvre. It is also, alas, no significant advance of the sub-genre some of us feel, however improbably, attached to. Teens-and- slash may be a form full ofhack work and dim bulbs, but so long as that form stays within reach of young and relatively unsullied directors, there is hope. [6 March 1985, p.C5]

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Metacritic review by Bill Cosford
Bill Cosford
Miami Herald
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