This set contains the seven "main" Nightmare on Elm Street movies, including the 1984 original movie, 1985's Part 2 (Freddy's Revenge), 1987's Part 3 (Dream Warriors), 1988's Part 4 (The Dream Master), 1989's Part 5 (The Dream Child), 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, and 1994's Wes Craven's New Nightmare. The original film was written and directed by Wes Craven and starred Robert Englund (in the iconic role of Freddy Kruger), Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thomson, Johnny Depp (in his first movie role), and John Saxon. Craven would mostly bow out of the series until the final movie, New Nightmare, which he also wrote and directed (although he was a co-writer of the screenplay for Part III). Langenkamp would appear in three of the seven movies, and Englund appeared in all of them. This set does not contain the Freddy vs. Jason crossover movie with Friday the 13th, nor does it have the 2010 remake. All of the movies are centered around Freddy Kruger, who was a serial killer of children in life and who, after he was burned alive by the parents of the town he lived in, was able to return as a supernatural killer who could enter and kill in a person's dreams.
A Nightmare on Elm Street was one of the definitive horror movie franchises in the 1980s. It definitely suffered from what almost all of the series, like Halloween and Friday the 13th, did: It got too bloated and too goofy, to the point where there were more bad movies in the series than good ones. The one constant throughout, however, was the fact that Robert Englund made Freddy cool and funny and maximized his time on the screen. Not surprisingly, the three best movies were the ones in which Heather Langenkamp was involved either playing Nancy (in Parts I and II) or herself (In a New Nightmare). Also not surprisingly the two best were the first and last movies in the series where Wes Craven was directly involved as the writer and director. In fact, the best movie of the series, in my opinion, was the final film, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which blended the fictional characters with the lives of real-life actors. In fact in that movie Freddy probably had the least "personality" but was far scarier when he was onscreen.
This is a five-disc set (Parts 4 and 5 share a single disc, as does Freddy's Dead and A New Nightmare). The movies all look okay on Blu-ray. Given how old they are and the fact that most of the movies were made before CGI was really well developed, most of the movies do not look anywhere near as good as more recent movies do (and HD sometimes amplifies the fakeness of the effects). Some of the effects are pretty cheesy, and although I think they did about as good a job with the transfer absent a complete restoration as possible, there are limitations with movies this old. The original movie is on its own disc, then each subsequent disc has two movies.
This is a five-disc set (Parts 4 and 5 share a single disc, as does Freddy's Dead and A New Nightmare). The movies all look okay on Blu-ray. Given how old they are and the fact that most of the movies were made before CGI was really well developed, most of the movies do not look anywhere near as good as more recent movies do (and HD sometimes amplifies the fakeness of the effects). Some of the effects are pretty cheesy, and although I think they did about as good a job with the transfer absent a complete restoration as possible, there are limitations with movies this old. The original movie is on its own disc, then each subsequent disc has two movies.
Each of the discs has bonus content for the movie or movies on that particular disc. The last disc is a DVD of bonus material that has between 3 and 4 hours of additional bonus content. It looks like most (but not all) of the bonus material was carried over from the various DVD releases that have been put out over time, as opposed to newly created for this release. The first movie has the most bonus content, and then it tails off somewhat after that. Most of the bonus material is behind-the-scenes features with the actors or filmmakers of the particular movies. Each movie has at least one commentary track and then there are some deleted and alternate scenes for some of the movies. The Bonus DVD also includes a couple episodes from the (really bad) Nightmare on Elm Street TV series. and some more behind the story kind of features. All in all though, if you are a more casual fan of the series and do not need every single extra in existence and just mainly want the movies, then it is worth adding to your collection.
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