A Nightmare On Elm Street Collection Bluray . Saga Completa!

The films and the features

Disc 1 – A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

So, to address the films themselves, we start with the incredible A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). The disc itself is exactly the same as the one put out as a single release towards the end of last year, but this does mean it has the same great features, including commentary tracks with everyone that matters, two solid featurettes and the first section of Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch’s excellent documentary, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.

The movie is, of course, a classic in every respect so I won’t go into too much detail there, but I will say that for the most part, I don’t think it has aged that badly at all. This was Wes Craven at the absolute peak of his creative powers and the film is a shining example of how wonderful genre cinema could be at this time.

Disc 2 – A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) / A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

Freddy’s Revenge was, by the studios own admission, an attempt to cash in as quickly as possible on the sleeper hit that exploded just a year earlier. Now, of course, it is renowned for its homo-erotic overtones and there’s no doubt about it, it makes Top Gun look positively hetero. But while some of the gay elements, like Lisa’s mother shouting: “Honey! There’s a Jessie on the phone!” or the brutal towel whipping of the male lead’s leather loving PE teacher, are comical, others are more on the serious side. In fact, viewed as a study of one boys struggle to come to terms with the ‘monster’ that lives inside his subconscious, its almost as if the film was designed to connect with those repressing their emerging homosexuality. The director denies all of this was intentional in just one of the fascinating interviews that feature on the disc, but in my opinion it adds an extra layer of charm to the whole thing.

Unfortunately, while the second Nightmare was seen as the first nail in Freddy’s coffin, it meant that when the time came to make A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, the pressure to deliver something fantastic was considerably lessened. Strangely, the studio stepped up and managed to put together a film with an excellent script, some wonderful visuals and a selection of one liners that gave Krueger a whole new lease of life. By now Freddy was as much of a household name as Prince or Madonna and his slide into mainstream silliness can be seen in some awesome featurettes. The frankly amazing music video from 80s hair metal outfit Dokken is just one of these and, while being an extra that has appeared on other releases, it an absolute highlight that I’ve watched many times in the last couple of days alone.

Disc 3 – A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) / A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1988)

New Line didn’t take long to undo some of its hard work though when it handed over oodles of cash to an unproven Finnish director named Renny Harlin. Personally, I love the creativity and fun of The Dream Master, but you couldn’t argue that its not a lesser film than its predecessor. That said, when compared to the movie that followed it, it looks like an undisputed classic. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is a shambles and marks the moment the series truly imploded. In the context of the whole franchise, it’s still a curiosity – and there are plenty of horror films that came out around the same time that are worse – but its a shame such a ridiculous story was made when such other great ideas were being toyed with.

The features here don’t really delve into how the fourth and fifth Nightmares veered off course as well as they do in Never Sleep Again, but they do touch on some of the concepts that didn’t make the cut. As with disc 2, the inclusion of director interviews and music videos show just where the franchise was at the time – and the latter is particularly telling. The Fat Boys’ Are You Ready for Freddy? clip is incredibly cringeworthy, feeling a bit like Krueger has invaded the credit sequence to The Fresh Prince. In addition, Whodini’s (who?) I Gotta Swing is an embarrassment, seemingly having no connection to the series whatsoever.

Disc 4 – Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) / Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

If The Dream Child took the Nightmare series to an all time low, The Final Nightmare was a paradoxical attempt to reinvigorate it by killing off its anti-hero and, to a degree, it managed to do so by creating something that took itself a little less seriously. Sadly, the old school 3D that was so misguidedly used to sell the demise of Krueger is not celebrated here and of course, the film hasn’t been given a retrofitted modern 3D makeover. So, what you get instead are ropey effects and a couple of brief and apologetic interviews from Robert Shaye (series producer) and Rachel Talalay (director) about where it all went wrong. Again, none of which even scratch the surface of where Never Sleep Again is able to go.

Luckily, there’s plenty to enjoy (in terms of feature-length entertainment) with the inclusion of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) – which in the past, hasn’t always made it to the various Elm Street DVD compendiums that have been put out. The movie marks not only Wes Craven’s return to the series to ‘fix’ what had gone so desperately wrong with it, but it also gives him his chance to create a blueprint for the Scream movies that would reinvent horror all over again just a couple of years later.

New Nightmare is an absolute gem of a film that plays with the cartoon hero status of Freddy Krueger that ruined his credibility, while somehow recreating him as a different kind of evil. Its a fitting end to the franchise and on this particular disc, comes with a Craven commentary and some nice interview footage with the man himself – in which he pretty honestly discusses some of the reasons for his triumphant return.

The fun and features 

The fifth disc (bizarrely marked as number eight on the disc itself – possibly because its been poached from another release?) is a region-locked DVD that serves up some decent bonus stuff including two episodes of the awful (but still interesting) Freddy’s Nightmares TV series.

We also get a very enjoyable 29-minute retrospective entitled Fear Himself: The Life and Crimes of Freddy Krueger. Narrated wonderfully by Robert Englund himself, it offers up a study of the origins of Freddy from Nightmare directors, as well as the likes of Alan Jones, Kim Newman and Greg Nicotero. Some of it is pretty familiar (Craven’s description of the mysterious stranger he based Krueger on for example), but its pretty nicely put together overall.

Of course, the majority of the extras come on the individual discs themselves, with the best of them on the feature-heavy first disc. Elsewhere, they’re pretty short in length and are a bit scattered, so I have to say that personally I would have preferred them to be somehow tied together into one comprehensive documentary. Of course, Warner could have done completely away with all of them and just given us the full four-hour Never Sleep Again documentary, but sadly it seems this wasn’t an option. Of course, there are the obligatory trailers to enjoy, plus the odd music video – but once you’ve seen Dokken’s 80s power pop anthem Dream Warriors, it really can’t get any better.

The HD sights and Dolby sounds

Across the board, I’d say the transfer quality of each of the Nightmares is brilliant. Those already familiar with the first disc will know how good it is to see Freddy given a high definition makeover and I can honestly say I’m pretty satisfied with how much effort has gone into how each look. Freddy’s Revenge looks particularly vibrant and the colour pops very nicely indeed – giving it the extra ‘visual jazz hands’ it needs in scenes like Jesse’s bedroom dance sequence (complete with fabulous Gaga-esque glittery shades). This also contrasts nicely with the colder, bluer tones of Dream Warriors and the richly MTV-flavoured Dream Master. Unfortunately, as it seems the unrated print of The Dream Child is apparently in quite bad shape, we get a very slightly cut version here. Personally, I don’t feel this is too much of a problem though, especially as the two films that follow look solid enough (save for the clarity of the dodgy effects in Freddy’s Dead), giving you the chance to see them in a whole new light.