Harefooted Halloween: Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy

What I Liked: They go through every Nightmare on Elm Street in a good amount of detail.  All of the bits you ever wanted to know about the development, execution and release of these films is here.

What I Didn’t Like: The editing is pretty damn fast.  It almost feels rushed like they wanted to get through each installment (except maybe the original Nightmare) as quickly as possible.  I can sort of understand though because there are a whole bunch of movies that they needed to talk about.

Overall Impression: If you’re a fan (or even if you only like one installment) of the Elm Street films then this is a must see.  I know I said it can feel kinda hurried at times but it’s really a minor gripe, this thing is comprehensive.  Not only do they go through the five Nightmares but also Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, the television series, New Nightmare and Freddy vs. Jason.   

Every picture in the series has an interesting history and production.  Like I never knew that Nightmare 2 was intentionally written to have gay undertones which completely unintentionally turned into strong overtones in the final product.  Or that Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cutthroat Island) got the gig for part 4 because he kept pestering New Line until they finally gave in.  And maybe one of the most surprising things to find out was that A Nightmare on Elm Street saved New Line Cinema.  The entire company was riding on the success of that one movie and if it wasn’t a hit then they might never have made The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Se7en or fucking Blade.

I can’t recommend this enough.  Don’t be scared of the four hour running time.  It’s totally engrossing and makes me appreciate these movies even more than I already do.