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The Sandman of Reagan's dozy suburbia. ("Baseball bats and boogeymen. Beautiful.") Not yet the rubbery vaudevillian of subsequent installments, Fred Krueger (Robert Englund) is here a maggot-bleeding visitor from Jung's "all-uniting depths," the undead child-killer returning to shred the spawn of the lynch mob that barbecued him. Return of the Oppressed and Sins of the Father? The famous razor glove is forged during the opening credits, and promptly put to bloody use at teeny sleepovers—high-schoolers are his victims, "the incredible body hocus-pocus" of their dreaming consciousness is his highway. Puberty wounds and exhumed parental secrets inform the journey of the heroine (Heather Langenkamp), who defends herself with extra caffeine while learning of her mother's (Ronee Blakley) vigilante past. The oneiric topography allows Wes Craven to traffic in particularly viscous, erudite psychosexual frissons: Metallic talons emerge between a student's legs during bath time, a centipede crawls out of the mouth of the girl in the body-bag cocoon (Amanda Wyss), a gaping mattress swallows up Johnny Depp only to regurgitate him as a tidal wave of raspberry gore. "O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." Craven builds scrupulously on Fuseli and Redon to arrive at the potent image of the beautiful home with barred windows, a bottomless bathtub, and a subterranean labyrinth for a cellar. Elsewhere, there's Royal Wedding for Wyss' slaughter, The Exorcist for Langenkamp's test, and Vampyr for the ultimate awakening. "Morality sucks." The new generation is roused from slumber, even if Freddy has the last laugh (along with the endless slew of wisecracking sequels). With John Saxon, Jsu Garcia, Charles Fleischer, Joseph Whipp, and Lin Shaye.
--- Fernando F. Croce |