I’ve told people for years that the most scared I’ve ever been from a movie was from Nightmare on Elm Street. It was the scariest damned thing I had ever seen. I was 16 when I watched it, and couldn’t move afterwards. Absolutely terrified.
It was on SpikeTV last night, so I thought it was due for another viewing. I found it silly, dated, and over the top. Plus, the logic made no sense. Freddy Krueger can only harm a person in a dream, right? (And with the consequences thereof spilling over into real life) So what was up with the final segment? *SPOILERS BELOW
Within the logic of the movie, if you are holding something in your Freddy-related dream when you wake up, you take it with you in real life. So she sets up the booby traps planning to wake up holding FK so her Dad can kill him (because Dad can kill the undead, of whom we don’t know the rules of how to exterminate them). She sets alarms for 10 to 20 minutes later so she can find FK, wake up with him, and spring the trap.
So, that works out. She brings FK to the “real world” and hits him with the sledge hammer and the like, sets him on fire, etc. But then she and her dad find him in her bedroom and he disappears into the bed. Dad, being the I Don’t Know What that he is, just leaves like he has an urgent appointment. FK reappears from the bed and our heroine turns her back on him. She says that he is only a dream and disappears.
But wait. Isn’t it “real life” now? She brought him out of her dream. Why would he disappear?
Then the ending! That made no sense because if all is well and everyone is alive, then why does FK take control of the car and kill her mom?
It all seemed convoluted and silly to me. I need a new favorite scary movie.