Stranger Things season 4 is a love letter to those classic horror films of the 80s, and without giving away any major spoilers there’s a strong homage to Wes Craven’s 1984 masterpiece, A Nightmare on Elm Street. But almost 40 years later, how does this horror story stack up?
A Nightmare on Elm Street was written by Craven himself, based upon newspaper stories of war survivors dying from PTSD-fuelled nightmares. Made on a shoestring budget, the film follows Nancy and her teenage friends descending into madness as a serial killer hunts them when they fall asleep. With the bodies piling up, Nancy desperately tries to stay awake while investigating the nature of the sadistic Freddy Krueger.
The structure of the film is pretty stock standard but has a few interesting twists. The opening sequence presents teenager Tina as the main character, the young woman terrified by nightmares of a killer in a boiler room and needing her friends close when she finally falls sleep. It’s only after Tina dies – horribly – that the audience realises Tina isn’t the main character after all. This gives all the more impetus to Nancy’s story as it’s clear that there’s no plot armour here.
As the story hits its stride, Nancy’s determination to survive gives her a new independence. This leads her to rail against her strict parents, going from dutiful daughter to an active mover of her own story. One overlooked scene that really struck me is when Nancy’s mother confesses her role in Freddy Kruger’s backstory, and Nancy then puts the morose older woman to bed. Other films might have had Nancy give a bold, dramatic speech to show how she’s stepped out from beneath her parent’s wing, but this is a small, surprisingly sweet moment – a great “show, don’t tell.”
The heart of this film is an unreliable narrator style of storytelling, where it’s never quite clear when Nancy is awake or dreaming, and Kruger can just appear when he’s least expected. This leads to a gothic horror style atmosphere where there’s nowhere for the main character to rest, both physically and mentally. The “clock” is Nancy’s obvious exhaustion, as she uses every trick she can think of to stay awake while she uncovers the truth about Krueger.
The final sequence is long. Very long: I think it takes up the entire last third of the film. While the opening dives right into the plot, the ending is a series of desperate plans, confrontations, escapes, and valiant last stands as the stakes continue to grow. The finale uses all the usual rules, Nancy’s plans falling away one by one until Nancy is back in the opening scene of the nightmare boiler room facing the demonic Krueger with only her wits and determination. Then just when there is light at the end of the tunnel, the story ends with a final reversal – no spoilers…
I’m going to give a quick shout-out to the use of practical effects in this film. There’s a lot of gore in this story, and while a lot of the effects might seem pokey by today’s standards, they were a real achievement for the film’s tiny budget.
In the final analysis, A Nightmare on Elm Street is another great example of a small, simple story told well, and while it doesn’t have the sprawling mythology of Stranger Things, its easy to see why this 80s horror is still considered a classic.
Have a favourite horror from this era of your own? Please feel free to comment below!
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