Wes Craven directs Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp and Johnny Depp in this classic VHS-era horror where if you fall asleep Freddy gets you.

Best watched near the edge of exhaustion. Shifting reality-scapes, unpredictable dream logic and truly surreal nightmare fuel. It feels like an exploitation flick grafted on to a fairy tale, a suburban satire that has become overgrown and baroque. The ceiling evisceration. The bath time nap into oblivion. The phone tongue. All are as much symbolic rapes as they are mystical murders. Englund plays this Fred Krueger seriously, he’s nasty in looks and unpredictable. His toying with his teen prey is there to up the fear factor rather than is played for cheap gags. Who knows where the franchise might be long term if they held on this harder iteration of the boogeyman? Obviously first timer Johnny Depp keeps catching the eye… but I have a big old, long-held soft spot for Heather Langenkamp. She might not be RADA trainer or Playboy material but she has a medieval princess look transposed into a mallrats wardrobe. And her character enthusiastically embraces being THE FINAL GIRL trope, constantly sleuthing to figure out Freddy’s weaknesses and then going full blown domestic Rambo when it comes to taking him down. A horror classic.

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Perfect Double Bill: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

My wife and I do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/