Favorite "A Nightmare on Elm Street" Movies
 

This list is as follows:

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

My rankings:
8. Dream Child
7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
6. Dream Master
5. The Final Nightmare
4. Freddy's Revenge
3. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
2. New Nightmare
1. Dream Warriors

I can't be bothered to rank 'em, honestly.

For me it's basically, the first and third one I like a whole lot, and New Nightmare just about as much. I like Part II a bit less, and I recognize that it's the outlier in the series and breaks a ton of the "rules", but those rules hadn't been fully established yet and even as a kid I always respected how it was so "different" from everything else in the series. I admire when people aren't afraid to take risks. It's the "weird one" but I'd honestly rather watch it than most of the others, on any given day.

So the first three and New Nightmare are basically the ones I'm most likely to just throw on at random just to watch 'em. No marathon or Halloween season required.

Unlike most people, I don't have any strong negative opinions on the remake. I think it's "fine", and the "worst" thing about it is that there were already a bunch of movies with the same title and thus comparisons were inevitable, as was the fact that it would come up short when those comparisons were made. It's not a particularly great movie, but in a vacuum I think it's perfectly fine. They tried. It was a sincere effort, even if they didn't do much to elevate the material. The whole thing was just a no-win situation; people can't/won't watch it without comparing it to the others, so it becomes pretty impossible to judge it objectively, and furthermore, the basic idea of doing Freddy without Robert Englund is something most people just flat out "nope" on its face. Remakes are inevitable, and one day there will be another Nightmare remake, for sure, but so long as Englund is alive I have a strong feeling that they simply won't be able to do any remakes that people will be open towards. You almost HAVE to wait until he's dead before you even make the attempt; people will only accept someone else as Freddy, I feel, once Englund is simply no longer an option and letting someone else do it is literally unavoidable.

The remake isn't great. But it's fine. On any given day, if given the choice, most times I'd honestly rather watch that one than 4, 5, or Freddy's Dead.

I don't have any problem with 4; it's fine, it's just not altogether one of the more memorable ones for me. Point of fact, I've seen the entire series many times but I STILL get scenes and kills between 4 and 5 mixed up sometimes.

5 kind of brings up the rear for me, even though Freddy's Dead is obviously really bad. But I did see Freddy's Dead in theaters and as a kid I liked it, so it sort of just scrapes by on sentimental value. And 5 to me suffers from having a really neat premise, and a bonus of letting us in on more of the backstory of Freddy, but doesn't really do enough with either of those things.

Out of the whole series, I really only think Freddy's Dead is a "bad" movie. Or at least, a really, really dumb one. And even then, there's PARTS to it that work. There's also a lot of parts that don't, but it's not altogether bad. If nothing else, Lisa Zane was pretty hot.

So, for me, Freddy's Dead brings up the rear, 4 and 5 and the remake are about equal in the "They're okay, I can watch them sometimes" department, I, III and New Nightmare are all about equal in the "Really Good" category, and II comes in just behind those three for having some inspired ideas that were mostly executed well but it's not quite in those other movies' league.

To be perfectly honest, though... no shade against that series, but on any given day if given the choice I'd watch the "worst" Freddy movie over ANY of the Jason ones. No disrespect to the Friday the 13th series, but even the best of them never engaged me as much as the worst Nightmare movie.

1
3
FvJ
4
NN
2
5
6
Remake

Freddy vs. Jason wasn't listed as an option, Andrew. :trazz:

I suppose there's no law in saying where it ranks for you. And I somehow knew you would. But it wasn't listed as an option! :lol:

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr...d2ozo1_250.gif

I'd honestly rank that one pretty low. Maybe not "low" but no higher than the middle of the pack. It does exactly what it sets out to do. But as an actual "movie"... it is so... so... SO f*cking dumb. To the point where I have to be in the mood for it. If I'm not in the proper mindset, I cannot help but mercilessly rip that movie apart for its unrepentant stupidity, combined with the fact that if we're being perfectly honest, you could probably take a bunch of random script pages and throw them in a sorting machine and get a better script than the one that movie actually had. It would not be at all difficult to write a much, MUCH better Freddy vs. Jason movie.

On the flip side... couple'a awesome tit shots in that one. Can't lie about that.

The Freddy content was pretty low in FvJ... but what was there was golden. I thought for sure we'd get a bunch of new Freddy movies by now with modern SFX. Almost 20 years later and all we've gotten is 1 bad remake and nothing else.

There definitely was some choice Freddy in FvJ, for sure. It elevates the rest of the movie, some of which is pretty cornball. I mean, great kills, a lot of good ideas and scenarios, but... it's not a movie, it's a theme park ride.

One could argue "That was the entire point", and there's some obvious truth to that. At the same time... I don't think it would've killed them to aim just a LITTLE bit higher. You obviously can't go full-on New Nightmare levels of self-seriousness but parts of it were still too goofy.

I honestly think it was mostly the dialogue, more than anything, that annoyed me. When we watched it last year during the marathon there were just some parts that were really cringe.

I did love it in the theater, though. It just sort of loses a little shine the more you watch it, I find, because the weaker parts stand out more.

It's not bad, though. I just think with as many as just two more passes at the script it could've been REALLY good. That whole bit with Destiny's Child razzing Freddy Krueger for what felt like ever reminded me a little too much of that time Busta Rhymes beat the crap out of Michael Myers.

Dream Warriors is a favorite of mine.

I don't think anything has come close to the original which I can watch anytime and still enjoy. I marathoned the whole series a few years ago and I can't honestly for the life of me remember much of the other ones or at least remember liking them. I do remember enjoying Dream Warriors the most as a sequel and I don't think I had much issue with the 2nd one. Though I find it hilarious that it's apparently got a reputation for being an unintentionally gay horror film. I know people think highly of New Nightmare, but I honestly just found it extremely boring.

I've also never been able to complete a whole viewing of the remake. Not by choice, but somehow I always have something interrupt me whenever I do try to watch it. From what I've seen, it was a pretty solid and faithful remake with the biggest problem really being Freddy himself. You just can't replace Robert Englund. So much of why that character worked was because of him, which was something they apparently learned when they thought they could just recast the man behind the makeup in Nightmare 2 to disappointing results.

Jackie Earle Haley was definitely an interesting choice, but the serious and growly take on Freddy just seems rather uninspiring as was his overall more realistic burn face. It's just Freddy without any of the personality, which was the one thing that separated Freddy from the other slashers of the era. Same thing happened with Chucky when someone had the bright idea of making the hysterical, aggressive, foul mouthed, and violent doll a f*cking boring robot.

I actually really agree with this. I've just started watching all the Friday the 13th films since I actually haven't seen a single one outside of Freddy vs Jason and the reboot. I've seen various clips on the internet of the whole franchise and I caught pieces of the original and Jason X throughout my life, but I've actually never seen any of those movies until recently. I just finished up A New Beginning a few hours ago and even though it doesn't technically have Jason in it, so far, I found it to be the most watchable of the bunch and even then, it wasn't particularly any good.

The kills so far have all been so tame and pretty trash with the exception of one extremely hilarious death in part 3 that made me pause the movie for a good 5 minutes of gut wrenching laughter and that's honestly been the high point so far. I guess this series was only ever really notable for pretty much introducing like every terrible slasher/horror movie trope known to the genre.

I remember the reboot pretty well and it's honestly the best of the bunch so far. I can definitely see how they pulled from the first four films and pretty much made something way more watchable and decent than whatever the hell I've seen so far. It's just an all around decent Jason film that kind of encapsulates what the series is about and it's a shame I haven't really seen much love for it considering what's come before...

The theatrical experience with FvJ definitely elevated it for me. Everyone was dying with laughter and reactions at every turn... the best possible experience to watch it in. Second to that, watching all of the Freddys and Jasons with my daughter all leading up to FvJ, and watching and hearing her be enamored by it. A 13 year old kid in today's world. She told me when it was done, "it was like seeing two gods fighting." Her words. She isn't wrong.

I'd have to even remember all the movies to rank them. I mostly remember the first, third and newer movies as I've seen them in more recent years. I re-watched the first recently and have seen that one the most, I think I saw the third movie two maybe three times so that's likely why it stands out more.

Freddy vs Jason wasnt listed because it wasnt a stand alone Nightmare movie.

I've been on this "Halloween" movie tear going through that series. I'll probably actually do the same with the Nightmare flicks next.....

Haven't sat through any of them in.... maybe decades.

Turo: That's a really interesting opinion on "Friday the 13th: A New Beginning"! It generally gets most of its hate for the whole "Fake Jason" thing, much like how Halloween III forever got trashed for not having Myers in it. However, in recent years that movie has recently been generally reevaluated as "a pretty decent movie otherwise" (I honestly wouldn't know, never saw it) once you get past the Myers thing, whereas most people find "A New Beginning" to just plain not be too good for multiple reasons.

I remember the first time seeing it I was disappointed it was a fake Jason, but also feeling like, "I sat through this whole crummy movie for that?!" :lol: And then as time went on the Fake Jason thing bothered me a lot less, and the rest of the movie bothered me a lot more. To me, it feels like the most poorly-acted of the bunch, and that grates on me.

The best thing about it, by far, is that it's got so many tit shots. The director said they pretty much shot a porno and then edited it down to an R. :lol: That's kinda what that movie feels like, in a sense.

Just curious, which kill in Part 3(D) did you find so funny?

I honestly think a huge bit of the hate for the Jason remake, is simply peoples' "No Remakes, Ever" attitude. Because frankly, AS a "real movie" the remake is arguably the "best" of the entire Jason crop, removed of all nostalgia.

Plus, of course, the blonde with the "stupendous" tits and her "perfect nipple placement". :lol:

Nightmare 2 only had the rep of being an "unintentionally gay" horror film back when you couldn't talk about those things too openly. Now that you can, the filmmakers have admitted that it was indeed written to be a rather INTENTIONALLY gay horror film. :lol: Not that there's anything wrong with that. It was definitely a bold choice at a time when you "couldn't" do things like that. And it does make the story just a little bit more textured. Most horror movies back then weren't exactly concerned with doing subtext, or presenting anything deeper than what was shown onscreen. So I honestly always thought that was pretty interesting.

I never thought Part 2 was a bad movie (although a couple bits are weird, like you could drop the exploding bird and the rest of the movie's fine). It's just more of an "odd duck" entry because the rest all stick to the same basic formula and that one was more "Amityville". But I like that they made it in less than a year but STILL figured it was worth trying harder than just doing the first one over with a new cast, like most people in their situation would've. Points for tryin', guys, much appreciated.

I'll be honest, my first time watching New Nightmare, I kinda thought it was boring, too. But I have to confess, at that age I was all about "Funny Freddy", which has totally changed over time, to the point where my favorite movies in the series have a tendency to feature a Freddy who's less goofy and more just plain cruel. I also wasn't quite catching all the callbacks to earlier movies, or the "Meta" stuff. My initial review of it was, "They missed the point". But then like the third time I watched it, something clicked and I was like, "...Ohhhhhhhh, waitasec. I think I done goofed." :lol: And now I really, REALLY like it. Trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube after Freddy had become a full-blown joke and make him a serious threat again wasn't going to work, in hindsight - the movie even toys with that idea a little bit - but it was a really brave thing to try and do. And I think they pulled it off really well even if it didn't play with most people.

You can also see a straight line where Craven went from that movie to "Scream" with his whole self-aware indictment of horror movies approach, so New Nightmare is historically important in that sense; without it, the Scream franchise might not've happened, as Wes clearly had a lot of things in his head that he wanted to explore and things he wanted to say about the genre and hadn't gotten it all out in that one movie. So that's pretty cool, too.

If I had to pick only three Freddy movies to watch forever, it's easily the first one, the third one, and New Nightmare. If I had to pick only two... f*ck it, I can't. :lol:

FvJ is a perfect example of why some movies NEED to be a communal experience to really "hit". Both of those scenarios you've described are pretty much the ideal way to experience it, and it's built by design for that.

Watching it alone, on TV, by itself, by YOUR self, as just a self-contained viewing experience and absent anyone else in the room to riff on it or having immediately watched a bunch of other Freddy or Jason movies... it just simply doesn't play anywhere near as well.

I don't think I'm honestly ever going to watch it again unless I do it as the latter part of a marathon. Because I've just randomly put it on a few times just to watch it like a "regular movie" and in that context, it just doesn't click. But it hits much better with a few of the other movies under your belt and fresh in your memory, first.

@Leo Honestly, I think each film so far has gotten progressively better, so there's that going for it. But again, I don't think there's been a single one I'd consider good or a must watch outside of the reboot. They really seem like movies you had to be there for to enjoy because they seriously don't hold up very well today.

A New Beginning just has a more contemporary feel to it compared to the others. It still has a lot of lame kills, questionable acting, and weird story choices, but you can definitely tell it was made in a time post Nightmare on Elm Street. I even joked that you could tell it was a more modern film because it had black characters in it. But I can't imagine anyone was really watching these movies for anything but the tits.

It was the handstand kill, man. Oh god, that sh*t caught me off guard. I knew he was gonna die, but I wasn't expecting that amazing shot of his body just crumbling so effortlessly. Also forgot to mention Crispin Glover's "dancing" in The "Final" Chapter. Had a good laugh over that too.

Yeah, I always thought the reboot was pretty good. Especially when you compare it to the first four films that it borrowed from. They're all extremely dated and you can tell they were just making sh*t up as they went. Characters who seemed important or had potential always seemed to get wasted too. The reboot at least had hindsight of all that and stitched pieces of those movies into one all encompassing Jason flick. Though holy sh*t that stupendous line made me cringe in the theater when I first saw it. He wasn't wrong though.

It's still a shame we never got any sequels to it. A Jason movie set in the winter has been a popular suggestion and honestly has some cool potential. But I also really liked the idea of a found footage film that they were thinking about as well. Still lots of stuff they could do with Jason.

I don't remember Nightmare 2 too well but I do remember it being a little weird. But overall, I don't think there was anything particularly bad about it. I thought it was just okay, but Dream Warriors was definitely the better sequel. As for New Nightmare, I did watch it before I marathoned the series and I did end up skipping New Nightmare because of just how boring I found it originally. Maybe another viewing would do it justice, but I seem to remember it just being too long and largely uneventful.

No way. I could see a case for 3, maybe, but 2 is better than 1? 5 is better than 1? Freddy's Dead is better than 1? There's no way. It's not even close.

Yeah Dream Child is by far the worst movie in the franchise. No way its better than 1.

That was about Friday the 13th, dude.

Oh. In that case... yeah, pretty much. 2 is better than 1. 3 is... eh, about the same as 2. 4 is better than 1-3, I think. 5 isn't better than any of the previous ones. 6, hell yeah... I love 6 and think it's definitely better than 1-5. 7, sure. 8, it's a guilty pleasure but no way is better than the last few. 9, it's probably the worst one of all. Jason X is pretty awesome... perhaps the most "cleverly made" one of all.