Before horror maestro Wes Craven would reinvent slashers with the help of Kevin Williamson in 1996’s SCREAM, he left his indelible mark on cinema and pop culture with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. More than just another scary movie in which hapless teens are randomly pursued and slaughtered, Craven crafted an uncanny tale of revenge from beyond the grave: a film in which darkness descends on white picket fence America as the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children by one of the most iconic villains ever conceived. 

Horribly disfigured by burn scars and equipped with a razor-gloved hand that has since clawed its way into the collective unconscious, Freddy Krueger, immortalized by Robert Englund in a career defining performance, has become the ultimate boogeyman: a dream demon who slips into our sleep and comes after us when we are at our most defenseless.  

Whether it’s Johnny Depp’s Glenn being blended into a blood geyser or Amanda Wyss’ Tina who finds herself inexplicably dragged across her bedroom ceiling by her invisible assailant, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is full of iconic practical effects and eerie, surreal imagery that slyly blurs the lines between dreams and reality, constantly keeping viewers on edge.

Preceded by a nightmarish stop-motion short (Shengwei Zhou’s PERFECT CITY: THE BRAVEST KID), let Wes Craven drag you down to Krueger’s hellish boiler room and shudder alongside Nancy and friends as they try to outsmart a gleefully fiendish child murderer.