13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2009: Night #11 A Nightmare on Elm Street

Anyone who knows me had to know when I did favourites and classics that this movie would be near to the top of the list. In fact it would be second if I didn't have a more topical movie for the night before Halloween. Freddy Krueger is the man, the most iconic figure of all horror movies, known around the entire world. There is a reason for that, and this movie is the genesis of all of it. What makes A Nightmare on Elm Street such a great movie? Well aside from Freddy brought to amazing unlife by Robert Englund there is also the supremely deft hand of director Wes Craven guided here and there by Robert Shaye head of New Line Cinema. The story is very well done weaving its local mythos. The script is also very thematic and literate. Everything is just done right.

The success of A Nightmare on Elm is both critical and financial. New Line Cinema has earned the nickname of The House that Freddy Built. There is so much that can be done, and to a degree has, with Freddy Krueger. Lurking in nightmares, able to kill in dreams, but beyond that able to take control of the dreams and do as he wishes. It gives the filmmakers great latitude. There is an endless parade of ideas. A Nightmare on Elm Street also stands as one of the film franchises where the villain's foil is female and should to his reckoning be as easy pickings as the rest--starting of course with Heather Langenkamp's Nancy. This never seems particularly vexing to Freddy even though Robert Englund sees Freddy, and portrays him, with a sort of cowboy ethos right down to the gunslingers stance he adopts.

Mood: excited.

Music: Welcome to My Nightmare by Alice Cooper off of Welcome to My Nightmare.

The Closet Monster

It would be of great interest to know when the idea first came about that some "thing", some monster, or some other malevolent force took up residence in the closet. First there would have to be closets in use across a number of homes. Or would there have to be? Perhaps the phenomena—the idea as the phenomena not there actually being evil beings in closets—dates further back with the existences of wardrobes and armoires. Either way as horror fan and writer it is a historically important point in time, undefined as it is.

What is a closet if not a modern form of the cave? That something hideous should live in there seems only natural. Ever wonder why it is that the most famous of the creatures attributed to live in the closet is always hideous? There has always been that connection between ugly on the outside, ugly on the inside. That would have to be the reasoning. Of course who has nightmares about beautiful things trying to eat you, or steal your soul, or any of the other tonne of terrible things the inhuman do.

The love affair with the closet monster is a long-standing one in the horror medium, though often, like the beast, it is kept in the closet. It doesn't get a lot of play, sadly. Sometimes in film when it has the results have been pretty spectacular cheese-wise. The king of those that comes to mind is the classic, "The Monster in the Closet". Camp... check. Cheese... check. Clichés out to there... check. Hilarity... check.

On the more serious fronts we have "The Boogeyman" from Ghost House Pictures. There are even movies where the closet itself is the centre of terror without anything living in it such as Poltergeist. One short film that shouldn't be missed is the adaptation of Stephen King's short story "The Boogeyman". This short film was paired on VHS with King's "The Woman in the Room". Shamefully sad is that neither of these gems is available on DVD. The short film is pretty spectacular given it couldn't have any budget whatsoever.

Any way you slice it, it doesn't get any more iconic than horrors in the closet. Whether it be on film, or in books—a notable shout out to, once again, Stephen King for the closet scenes in Cujo—it is a fascinating bit of fear.

Mood: energized.
Music: Show Some Emotion by Paul Di'Anno and Hell on High Heels by Motley Crue.

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