User blog:ARTaylor/35 Years of A Nightmare on Elm Street

Yesterday marked the thirty-fifth anniversary of the premiere of A Nightmare on Elm Street. The film follows a group of teenagers who become stalked by a supernatural murderer in their dreams and discover that the sins of their parents have come back to haunt them.

The film was inspired by a series of news articles the writer-director read about Asian children who refused to sleep and would suddenly die. Director Wes Craven included elements of his own past and nightmares. It was part of the slasher film subgenre of horror that was popular in the late 1970s through 1990s that started with Halloween and included Friday the 13th. The creators consciously centered a large part of the movie around the morality play of promiscuous teenagers being killed, something critics had noted in other films despite filmmaker's objections.

The film proved to be a massive critical and financial success, in spite of what was at the time an overcrowded slasher film market. It was the thirtieth highest grossing film of the year, which came to an enormous success due to its modest budget. Critics hailed it as one of the best in the genre and it still ranks as one of the best horror movies ever made. Main villain Freddy Kruger has gone on to become one of the most iconic figures in films and horror. It propelled the careers of the cast and crew and established the studio New Line has a major company in the field, even taking on the name "The House that Freddy Built." The film went on to spawn five sequels, a "real world" sequel, a crossover with Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th series, a remake, a television series, a video game, numerous documentaries, and several comics.

The film features the talents of Robert Englund as primary villain Fred Kruger. In a rarity for the horror genre, Englund would play the character in every sequel, save only the remake, as well as the television series.