I was vaguely aware of A Nightmare on Elm Street, but knew no details other than it was about people who died in their sleep. At that point I had never even seen a picture of Freddy Krueger, despite the fact that A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge was currently the hot new release, ready to wreak homoerotic havoc on the nation's televisions. There was a large cardboard standee in the video store, the same picture that adorned the Nightmare 2 box, Freddy leering around a corner, bladed glove pointed toward the viewer, a wall of flame behind him. It was one of the most singularly terrifying images I had ever seen. Thankfully, blessedly, the movie was all rented out. I was safe.
Except.
The first Nightmare was in stock, and within a moment was in Jon's hand (well, hands, as it was a chunky Betamax cassette, to this day still the only one I've ever seen). He was excited, and I couldn't let him know how scared I was. I looked back at that burned visage on the standee, watching us with a murderous intent clear in his eyes. I didn't know if I could handle seeing him in motion.
Cut to later that night. Jon put the tape in the player (still a brand-new technology to us at the time) and settled into an easy chair. His sister Jessica (a tiny bit younger than me) and I were on the couch, ready to prove how brave and grown up we were. In the history of things that could be described as short-lived, few have been shorter-lived than that façade of bravery.
The film opens on a pair of impossibly dirty hands, building...something. Something metal. Something deadly. As those hands worked, hammering metal, forging blades, you could practically feel the heat and the dirt and the sweat of that oppressive place. The scene is bathed in deep reds and browns, the colors of Hell. As the title of the movie comes up on the screen, the scene ends on a close-up of his creation, a battered leather glove covered with rusty metal plates, gleaming razors attached to the fingertips like the talons of an unheard of demonic beast. This is maybe one minute of footage (and I'm probably being generous with that), but it was enough.
Jessica and I had a knitted afghan on our laps and at this point, we were so terrified that we pulled it up over our heads and watched the next couple of minutes through the tiny holes in the knitting. We didn't get much further. As the opening credits ran, a young girl was wandering through a dark boiler room, and he was there, the man who built this glove. He wasn't just following her, he was TAUNTING her. As her dream reached its end and he popped up behind her out of nowhere, Jessica and I let out a scream and I was no longer worried about appearing brave. I was done. I went into the bathroom, tears of fear and embarrassment streaming down my face. I spent that entire night too scared to sleep. That man was out there, waiting for me in my dreams. That night I truly believed I might never sleep again.
Here's the thing...as scared as I was (and that was the last time I was truly to-the-bone terrified by a movie, the only others to scare me so deeply were Jaws and The Blob a couple years before) I became fascinated with that fear, and by extension with Freddy. I wanted to know how such a tiny bit of a movie could frighten me so deeply. These were those prehistoric pre-internet days, so I did what any enterprising young horror-fiend in the making would do...I went to the library. I took out books on horror movies, I devoured articles and reviews on microfilm (remember microfilm?) and learned the name and history of the architect of my nightmares, Wes Craven. I was enthralled by Craven, a soft-spoken intellectual, a humanities professor who left teaching and worked his way through Hollywood.
Craven began his career pseudonymously in porn, and relatively quickly moved into something like the mainstream with 1972's The Last House on the Left, a revenge nightmare loosely based on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, giving Craven the edge on Woody Allen when it came to introducing this neophyte cinephile to Bergman. The dichotomy of Craven's personality and his work was unlike anything I had ever seen. He was erudite and charming, where his movies (particularly his early work) were crass and mean. He reminded me of Hitchcock, another affable personality who was never so happy as when he was scaring the living shit out of you.
I'm a big fan of commentary tracks, and Craven's are my favorite. In fact, the single movie purchase I ever spent the most on was the special edition laserdisc of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which was not only my first chance to see the film in widescreen but also my first chance to hear a Wes Craven commentary track. His background as a college professor was evident as he could speak not only to the particulars of the movie but also to the historical influences from the age of Dante Alighieri and onward. Listening to him is both an education and a pleasure, which is more than I can say for most teachers I've encountered.
From The Last House on the Left to 2011's Scream 4, his final film, Craven was never less than engaged with his material. He wanted to scare you, and he had the tools to do it better than almost anybody else. I've seen everything he's done since Last House, and even when the movies didn't work they were at least interesting, often fascinating, messes.
I think back fondly to the night that Freddy first scared me so deeply. Freddy Krueger is an icon, as instantly recognizable the world over as Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, Superman, or Mickey Mouse. Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers are the boogeymen of my generation, as iconic and horrifying as the Universal Monsters were to our parents and grandparents. Freddy is still the one who towers above the rest for me, partly because he has personality and partly because he's the one who scared me so deeply. I'll never forget that feeling, and it's what drives me to keep going to horror movies today. I love horror with all of my heart, and it was Wes Craven who fostered that love throughout my lifetime.
I'll see you in my dreams, Wes. Thank you for giving me so many nightmares, and for showing me that being intelligent wasn't antithetical to being absolutely fucking terrifying. You made me your fan for life and beyond.
We are all your children now.
