A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

For four years in the 1980s, we had it pretty good. Then Freddy Krueger (portrayed by Robert Englund) came along with his Fedora hat, red and green sweater and, oh yeah, that hellish glove of finger knives. Freddy Krueger took his bloodlust to suburbia, and young lives would never be the same again.

Plot summary for A Nightmare on Elm Street:
A decade after outraged parents burned child murderer Freddy Krueger to death, Krueger returns to exact his revenge on their children — the children of Elm Street. Krueger can only go after the kids in their nightmares, and soon everyone is having trouble sleeping. Nancy Thompson (portrayed by Heather Langenkamp) along with her boyfriend Glenn (a VERY young Johnny Depp), watches her friends die one after one before her climactic confrontation with the man of her nightmares.

Memorable scene from A Nightmare on Elm Street:
Freddy Krueger preys upon a young woman asleep in her mother’s bed. As the girl’s boyfriend watches, the invisible Krueger fatally slashes the girl’s torso, drags her up the wall and drops her from the ceiling onto the bed, caking both the room and the victim’s boyfriend in blood.

Memorable quote from A Nightmare on Elm Street:
“Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.”

Why we love A Nightmare on Elm Street:
Not only did Freddy Krueger come after us in our dreams, he did it with absolute glee. He’s the David Letterman of slashers. Although his sense of humor would become a parody of itself in the film’s many sequels, Freddy in the orginal Nightmare on Elm Street gave a face to the ultimate nightmare — someone who kills for the sheer pleasure of it.

Frightening Fact:
A Nightmare on Elm Street Director Wes Craven claims to have named Freddy Krueger after a kid who bullied him in school. For Freddy’s creepy appearance, Craven says he was inspired by a disfigured hobo who scared him as a youth.