NFL
By: Rick O’Donnell
Halloween is coming and with that comes spooky season. With spooky season comes horror films for the fans of gore, slashers, and scares. Horror movies often turn into franchises and each comes with a following of horror fanatics. With movies such as Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw, Halloween, and Friday the 13th, it’s time to look back and see just why each should be crowned the best horror franchise starting with A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Freddy Krueger is the stuff of nightmares, literally. This horror franchise has been around since the 80s and has been making fans scared to sleep ever since. Created by Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a horror staple around Halloween. Unlike the jump-scare tactics of today’s horror films, the franchise’s appeal plays to the fear that if you die in your sleep you die in real life. It’s a fight-or-flight response to your subconscious waking you up after a bad dream. What better way to play on those very real fears than a burned-up serial killer with knives for hands who murders people in their sleep?
There are so many real-life applications to this horror franchise that play on fear. No, not everyone is going to be scared that a man with knives for hands is going to murder them in their sleep, but the practicality of fear is still there with its reliability. One of the more memorable parts of these movies was “Every Town has it’s Elm Street” which leaned on the lore that this could happen to anyone, anywhere, and no one was safe.
One of the creepiest and most disturbing parts of the franchise was the recognizable nursery rhyme used to solicit a memory and turn it into fear. When Nightmare on Elm Street turned the familiar nursery rhyme “One, Two Buckle My Shoe” into “One, Two Freddy’s Coming For You …” it burrowed its way into our psyche back to a time of our adolescence and reminded the audience of a time when they were the most vulnerable.
From beginning to end, every part of A Nightmare on Elm Street turned the slasher into a psychological horror film. Despite Freddy’s quips and antagonizing demeanor, the movies played on real fears and familiarity with the audience. The franchise would go on to spawn 6 movies in the main series, a non-canon film, a crossover with Freddy vs Jason, and a poorly received remake.
But that’s not where the franchise ended, Freddy Krueger has been seen on television, in comic books, documentaries, video games, and a vast amount of merchandise. A Nightmare On Elm Street is an iconic piece of horror and lives on to this day. Every so often rumors of a new movie or series on streaming pop up for fans to get excited for. Where does A Nightmare On Elm Street fall in your horror favorites?
