March 28, 2026

It’s still a good time to be a Freddy fan! Back in September of 2025, Warner Brothers finally unveiled an epic 7-film collection of the first seven entries of the series in stunning brand new 4K restorations. I missed out on the steelbook box set which recreated all the original theatrical one-sheet posters for the individual discs but packaged inside of a giant red and green sweater tin, but I did get the regular standard 4K box set.

I’ve slowly been making my way through all the films, but by watching them completely out of order and out of chronology so that I can truly judge them on their own. And despite the 2010 remake and the mash-up film FREDDY VS. JASON not being a part of this 4K collection, I couldn’t help but revisit those too! Below is a breakdown of how I view the franchise, that has been with me since childhood, today in 2026!

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE (1985)

This new 4K presentation is spectacular!

Now, I’ve always had an appreciate for NIGHTMARE 2, but this 4K version felt like seeing it in a whole new way, and it’s much higher up in my ranking now because of it!

This is the weird sequel that immediately breaks all the rules established by the first one. None of the cast returns. Wes Craven, the main creative force and director did not return. They didn’t even bring back any of the iconic music composed by Charles Bernstein. But what you do have is a wild swing. A sequel in which Freddy possesses the body of a vulnerable, confused teen, now living in Nancy’s old home, and using him to infiltrate the real world. Why he has supernatural powers in the real world is beyond me? But there are some really cool set pieces, including Freddy Krueger literally tearing his way out of Jesses’ body in a epic FX-laden transformation, and the massacre of a group of teens having a pool party.

Maybe this was disappointing as a PART 2 in a franchise, but if you pretended this was PART 3 or even 4, I think it’s kind of a cool, wild direction to take a franchise after several entries. I’d like to pretend this is a latter sequel. Now with this crystal clear 4K presentation, Freddy is still in the dark and still scary as hell, but you can SEE him. The brilliant make-up FX work, the weird large brown contact lenses, it just really is cool. This is the most I’ve ever enjoyed PART 2!

If you’re a Freddy fan, you must upgrade to this 4K box set!!!

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: THE DREAM CHILD (1989)

I saw this in theaters opening weekend! And despite being disappointed, I was still a die-hard “Fred Head!” So much so, that when the VHS came out with a whole minute of additional footage, I cried when they rented it out to someone else. Seriously, true story! Wrote about it HERE!

Anyways, now I’m continuing my 4K box set journey. And what’s fun about it is I get to skip around and jump to whatever entry I want and can completely judge it on its own merits!

So, tonight, I was in the mood for THE DREAM CHILD!

The one thing I was able to take away from this pristine restoration tonight is that it really is a well directed, dare-I-say artistic filmmaker at work here in director Stephen Hopkins. The opening title scene is this blue-ish, tastefully shot sex scene, juxtaposed with title credits done in kids chalk writing. After meeting our new cast of characters, along with NIGHTMARE 4’s survivors Alice and Dan, we jump right in!

We re-experience Freddy’s “conception” and he is reborn! The body count is much, much smaller, tapping out at three, but at least all three are so strange and visually exciting. Dan becomes a motorcycle demon; Greta, the beautiful model, is forced to eat herself, literally! And Mark gets sucked into one of his own comic books. In between that is this very adult theme with teen pregnancy. Which was maybe a bit too high brow for the time. I know for me, at 13 years old, I didn’t care about any of the plot in this entry!

It’s great to finally have the “unrated” version in 4K! It’s never even been available on DVD. I still have that old-school VHS for the extra “gore” footage. And while still not a great entry in the franchise, I definitely appreciated it tonight more than I ever have. Kudos to Jay Ferguson for his score. I always liked that every NIGHTMARE entry had a different composer and that each brought their own vibe to that entry. A fun revisit…

FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE (1991)

Watched the new 4K disc and was hoping for a proper 3D finale but alas, it’s still the terrible red-and-blue anaglyph which never works for me. BUT hitting the automatic 3D on a 3D TV and it looked… pretty good.

Well, despite having a few fun things in it, this is probably the worst of the NIGHTMARE franchise, right? I think it’s the goofy tone after the somber NIGHTMARE 5. It’s like 5 was a 180 from the PART 4 (although on recent viewing, almost every Freddy line is a comedic one-liner) and now THIS is a 180 from PART 5! Full on farce. It’d be like if SCARY MOVIE was released as SCREAM 6. Or if Joe Dante had gotten to do JAWS 3, PEOPLE 0!

What’s funny is that there is a great concept underneath this silly movie. I was having a long discussion with my friend Dave Parker about this the other night – the idea of Freddy wanting to find a way to expand out of Springwood is GREAT. Every town DOES have an Elm Street. And even the kills are creative and trying to be in line with the franchise best that we got in DREAM WARRIORS. (Carlos’ being the best.) I don’t know if I buy the whole daughter angle? But Lisa Zane, for me, is one of the most attractive women to ever grace the screen in ANY horror film, so I’ll allow it.

And… arguably Freddy’s worst make-up of the entire series too. Oof.

Kudos to the cameos by Johnny Depp, Tom Arnold, and Rosanne Barr. Those are fun.

And hey, did you know Lezlie Deane (Tracy) was also in a dance-techno band called Fem2Fem. I saw them play in between Nine Inch Nails and opening act Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids at Roseland Ballroom in NY in 1994! All I remember about them was they were four chicks that made out with each other on stage. You never knew what you were going to see at a NIN show in the 90s! (Ah, the good ol’ days.)

Anyways, the new 4K restorations gave me a new found appreciation for NIGHTMARE 2 and 5. But… it only makes FREDDY’S DEAD worse.

FREDDY VS. JASON (2003)

OK. This is a very silly movie and very much a snapshot of the time it was made in (2003) but it’s the best, most logical way to combine these two titans of horror! And it’s all worth it for the last 15 minute WWE-style brawl!

Picking up where JASON GOES TO HELL left off, Jason is now relegated to hell. Freddy has been defeated because he’s been forgotten and covered up, and he can’t return unless he can feed off of people’s fears. And so, he resurrects Jason by pretending to be Mrs. Voorhees, instructs him to go back to Springwood and start killing so that the adults will assume it’s Freddy and give him the power to come back. But alas, Jason is a killing machine. You can’t stop him once he gets started!

The kids come up with a plan to pit Jason against Freddy for a throw down!

This is, to this day, one of my all time favorite theatrical going experiences. It came out on my BIRTHDAY of 2003! We had the massive East Coast black out a few days before, so there was a moment where I thought theaters wouldn’t be OPEN! But thankfully they were and a group of about 25 friends and I went and cheered like we were at a rock concert. It was the best.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER (1988)

My feelings on NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 4: THE DREAM MASTER are rather complicated. I can acknowledge that it’s one of the most commercial and succesful of the entire franchise. It’s what I call “popcorn movie” entertainment and came out at the height of Freddy-mania. And yet, it still remains one of my least favorite in the entire franchise. Look, it’s still better than 5 and 6, but not by much! And I also know it’s got some of the best Freddy stuff in it, hence why despite not liking it, I believe it is the quintessential Freddy movie. It’s the one I’d recommend if you’ve never seen a NIGHTMARE film but wanted to understand the universal appeal of them.

My biggest problem is like a lot of sequels in the late 80s, they disregard and disrespect what came before. DREAM WARRIORS was a hell of a ride. Kristen, Kincaid, and Joey survived and earned it. And we loved those characters, we were invested in them. So, to have them killed off in the first act to make room for new characters, while that makes narrative sense, is a bummer for the audience, especially as an impressionable teen when these were coming out. This is the entry where Freddy is (by Renny Harlin’s own admission) “James Bond.” He’s brightly lit for the whole movie, revealing the color in his make-up, which while still impressive, is most obviously make up. Almost every single line he says is a one-liner or dark joke. But hey, Englund is having a blast and has never been better.

I was wondering if this new 4K version would reveal something new to me about the sequel as revisiting the previous ones had. One thing I’ll say is the earlier scenes, in particular the junkyard scene with Kincaid is WAY too dark! I always used to laugh at Freddy’s “you shouldn’t have buried me, I’m not dead.” Because you could clearly see his mouth was not moving in that scene. But on the 4K, it’s darkened so much as to hide that flub. (Maybe it was always supposed to be dark, but I don’t remember it that way. And I saw this in theaters!)

Recasting Kristen, also a big mistake. I like Tuesday Knight just fine but she looks nothing like her predecessor so I have a tough time even connecting her to the character from DREAM WARRIORS. I kinda just pretend she’s a different character because she really is. I like a lot of the new cast, especially Dan and Rick, but all of them don’t feel like they get much to do. Again, this is the height of commercial Freddy Krueger. But DREAM WARRIORS remains my favorite.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS (1987)

For most of us, this is the definitive NIGHTMARE film, and by far, the best of the sequels. It takes all the basic elements of the original film, builds upon them, and amplifies them by ten! Somehow, Freddy Krueger is back, feeding off of the fear of Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette in her debut screen appearance). After an alleged suicide attempt, she’s committed to a hospital with other troubled teens, all of which are suffering a similar psychosis. They each dream of the same man with the burned face, dirty brown hat, red and green sweater, and glove made of knives every time they close their eyes. It turns out they are the last of the Elm Street kids. The last children of the parents that torched child murderer Freddy Krueger alive when he got off on a technicality.

The only person that can help these kids is the one person who has survived Freddy before, Nancy Thompson. (Heather Langenkamp) What’s fun is each of these new characters is a survivor. They each have their own unique abilities which translates to their dream power, which, when asleep, makes them “dream warriors.” But they also have a great fear and Freddy fully exploits that will evil glee! Whether its turning his blades into syringes for a former junkie, or turning a talented puppet maker into a puppet himself, Freddy is savage as F in this one!

Robert Englund is at his best here as Freddy, and the mythology is so rich and satisfying. Parts one and three really do feel like one big story. It’s the best of the bunch and yes, hands down, my personal favorite. It’s also what influenced all of the surrounding media at the time. Marvel Comics had done a two-issue magazine series (wrote about that HERE), while Innovation Comics did their own NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series that continued the storylines started by DREAM WARRIORS.

By the way, the most unsung hero of DREAM WARRIORS is composer Ken Harrison! Although Angelo Badalamenti gets sole credit on the “score” for DREAM WARRIORS, it’s actually music composed by Harrison, including the opening music “Dreaming/Basement Chase” that stands out as the best, most memorable music of the whole franchise! He’s only credited in the liner notes for the Varèse Sarabande 8 CD boxed set! And I’ve forever wondered why. Alas, I can give him kudos right here.

WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE (1994) 

Every couple of years, I try to give Wes Craven’s NEW NIGHTMARE another shot. I totally recognize why so many fans of the franchise like this one. I also understand that without NEW NIGHTMARE, we don’t get to SCREAM. And on a purely technical level, I acknowledge its some of Wes’ most confident directing, utilizing so many of the techniques he’d learned along the way. It also is one of the most interesting, unique, and intelligent scripts of his entire vast career. And yet I have come to terms with the following.

I really hate NEW NIGHTMARE.

Not only that, it’s my least favorite of the series.

Again, I think the writing and conceit is so brilliant and far ahead of its time. The meta approach and idea that Freddy had become the pop culture vessel of an evil that generation after generation continues to find ways to be contained in our storytelling. And that within the film, the NIGHTMARE franchise exists and Wes, Heather, Robert Englund, and Bob Shaye are playing fictionalized versions of themselves as the new “script” takes shape. I bet that if it were a novel, I’d actually love this thing and wonder why they never turned it into a movie.

Well, despite the filmmaking craft on display, and the returning familiar faces, I just don’t like it on any level. I don’t think it’s “fun” as the previous entries have been to varying degrees. I don’t think it’s scary, AT ALL. And it’s a bit of a slog. The biggest sin is the new glove design… sucks? As does the look of “Evil Freddy.” He looks like a plastic TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES villain, not the guy that just several years prior scared the shit out of me! (See above photo.)

So, yeah, I get it. I really do. I just don’t like it and I don’t think I ever will. It is wild to think that this was made just 10 years after the original. And now it’s been over 40 years since Freddy Krueger was first introduced and we’ve only had two more movies since then. I guess it’s a bit like The Beatles or Nirvana; Freddymania really did only last for less than a decade but its influence feels so much grander! I appreciate and envy the fans this works for. It doesn’t for me. More power to you.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)

Well, I’ll be damned…

I’ve made it a point in recent years, when it comes to a sequel, remake, reboot, etc. to only watch it completely out of context and to judge it on its own merit, and NOT as a part of a franchise marathon session. Pretend that I’d never seen any other entry but the one I’m currently watching, and decide if it work as its own movie.

I only saw the NIGHTMARE remake once in theaters and hated it so much that I swore I’d never watch it again. And yet, all these years later, I had an itch to revisit, especially since some friends had sworn by some of its ambitious ideas. And you know what? It’s not bad. It’s actually pretty solid.

Pros and cons:

PROS:
– Really stellar cast, from start to finish, from teens (ha!) to adults. (Hell, even Judith Hoag, the OG April O’ Neil has a quick uncredited role!)
– Freddy appears roughly every 5 minutes. So no F-ing around. We get a LOT of on-screen Freddy.
– Micro-naps.
– It is gorgeously shot, and easily one of the most beautiful looking horror movies of this era. (Another reviewer called the film pure “depression” because it perfectly captures that feeling, and it sure does.)
– There’s a genuine attempt to play up Freddy’s er… “creep” factor. And it makes it much more mean-spirited and unnerving.
– Such a killer trailer. One of the best trailers for any horror flick, really. (See below!)

CONS:
– Doing the wall gag with all CGI in the first 10 minutes. Oof.
– Not using any of the original Charles Bernstein score, except for the 5 notes when the title comes up.
– Not doing enough with the Micro-naps concept.
– Any recreations of scenes and shots from the original that make no narrative sense.
– A slightly messy narrative; the direct result of obvious studio tampering and a director that just didn’t give a damn. (Want to hear me put producer Brad Fuller on the spot for hiring Samuel Beyer? Listen to the Shock Waves episode 94 below!)

Not great by any means. Not even a necessarily good remake. But far better than you remember, and on its own, a beautiful looking 2000’s horror movie. This remake ended that era of polished, beautiful big-budget horror films, and boy, do I miss ’em.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)

Having made my way through all of the sequels in the 4K box set, all that was left was to cap it off with the original! For starters, the 4K presentation is terrific and the movie has never looked or sounded better. And both of those things are pivotal to the success of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET as one of the scariest movies of all time, especially the sound!

Let’s start there. What strikes me about the movie now is how it’s, for the most part, wall to wall score and sound. The catchy yet slightly out of tune melodies of the Freddy theme, the memorable nursery rhyme the jump-rope girls sing, and this eerie persistent drone that embeds the background of the entire film. It’s a beautiful subtle way to keep the audience constantly on edge.

Then there’s the ingenious plot, which has almost an urban legend / campfire tale quality to it. There’s a deformed man that stalks kids in their dreams. He wears a glove with finger knives. And if he kills you in your sleep, you die for real! He starts by tormenting Tina, and eventually her best friend Nancy (Heather Langenkamp). But Nancy uncovers the truth; that in life, he was Fred Krueger, a notorious child murderer who was freed from his trial on a technicality. The parents weren’t having any of it, so they tracked him down in his boiler room and burned him alive. But sometimes, someone so evil can not be put to rest. And so he returns in the dreams of the kids of the parents that killed him. The ultimate revenge. The ultimate boogeyman. Played perfectly by Robert Englund.

It really is the combination of Charles Bernstein’s score and Robert Englund’s performance that make this the classic that it is. The make-up on Freddy isn’t great, but between the dark lighting and it’s sloppy disgusting look, it works! This would be a perfect horror film if not for the ending. But in retrospect, I kind of look at it as the equivalent of the one-more-scare from CARRIE, or even the final jump scare of FRIDAY THE 13TH.

And of course, there’s Wes Craven, arguably the most intellectual of the “Masters of Horror.” Even the latter films from his filmography that didn’t 100 percent work always had very interesting themes and ideas in them. But it’s interesting to examine his early career. After I finished reading Joseph Maddrey’s excellent book, THE SOUL OF WES CRAVEN, I started rewatching all of his films again in chronological order. What struck me was the gradual progress. I still don’t personally like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT or THE HILLS HAVE EYES, per se, but I understand that they’re working from a far more visceral place than from craft. His TV movie, SUMMER OF FEAR, with Linda Blair and based upon a Lois Duncan novel is when we first see him click with real actors. The editing on his films improves with DEADLY BLESSING and SWAMP THING. But finally, it all just comes together perfectly for A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and the rest, as they say, is history.

If you want to hear me talk about all of the above in depth, FREDDY MANIA was the topic of Episode 11 of the Icons Of Fright podcast with special guest Lowell Greenblatt, the author of NIGHTMARE AUTOPSIS: A RETURN TO ELM STREET! (Embedded below for your convenience.)

Lastly, anyone else still have their talking Freddy Krueger doll from the 80s? “Let’s be friends!”

*All of the above reviews have come from my personal Letterboxd account where I’ve gotten back into the habit of reviewing all of the films I watch. Please feel free to follow along: https://letterboxd.com/RobertVGalluzzo