Which nightmare on elm street is better

The Dream Child is the first truly irredeemable entry in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and it is borderline unwatchable. The film squanders Alice, the fantastic final girl introduced in the preceding and greatly superior The Dream Master, who becomes an utter drag this time around. It also has serious daddy issues and gets lost in a boring mythology. A huge amount of the The Dream Child is dedicated to the backstory of Freddy's conception — as you probably know, his mother was raped by a hundred maniacs — and finds Freddy attempting to posses Alice's unborn son for There's a lot of potential in the idea of a possessed unborn child, which opens up a realm of primal psychological and body horror, but it's never effectively exploited.

The film has a couple engaging kill sequences — Greta's Erika Anderson force-feeding death scene is a fan favorite, but even that isn't frightening, it's just gross and ridiculous. Aside from the excessive backstory, it's the uneven tone that really keeps The Dream Child from thriving. It wants Freddy to be both funnier and darker than ever, leading to a movie that doesn't know what it is.

It's silly, but not fun. It's serious, but has no dramatic gravity. It's weird, but seemingly only because it can be nothing else. The Dream Child is messy, confusing, and ultimately not very entertaining. Freddy's Revenge is not good, and perhaps the biggest sin in a Nightmare on Elm Street film, it's not fun. It also makes absolutely no sense. Whatever logic and rules the first film established were casually tossed out the window to make way for a story that has no place within the grander mythology of the franchise.

While all the other films are all pretty directly related, the only connection in Freddy's Revenge is the fact that the protagonist, Jesse Walsh Mark Patton , lives in the old Thompson House and is plagued by Freddy Kruger. But he's attacked in a completely unusual way. Unlike every other film in the franchise, Freddy isn't murdering teens in their sleep; he's slowly possessing Jesse and using him as an avatar to enact his murderous desires.

Jesse is becoming Or if you're into homosexual subtext, he's "becoming" gay. While those involved in the production have long denied the homoerotic undertones, Freddy's Revenge is most interesting when taken an allegory for a gay teenager struggling to accept his identity.

There's a leather bar, there's a hunky confidant, there's fucking gym shower towel-whipping torture scene, for goodness' sake. Jesse even twerks his drawer closed. Even if the subtext was unintentional, which is almost unfathomable, the film has become an icon of Queer Horror, and as its one redeeming quality, Freddy's Revenge a fascinating spin on the traditionally heteronormative gender dynamics of the slasher film.

Ah, Freddy's Dead. What a mindless clusterfuck of a film. And yet, it's so weird and so oddball that's still enjoyable. That's a fairly unpopular opinion. You'll find Freddy's Dead at the bottom of most people's rankings, and I can respect that Freddy dons a witches cap and flies around on a broom at one point, so yeah, I get it , but there's something about its wretched ridiculousness that I enjoy.

It's the kind of horror film you could watch on hallucinogens and still have a great time, which is to say it's an absolute failure as a scary movie, but there's still an element of fun about it. Freddy's Dead marks the nadir of Freddy's transformation from terrifying villain to cartoonish slapstick enthusiast.

It features goofball kills — including when Freddy lays a bed of nails out underneath a falling victim, relishing in the moment like some two-bit comedian waiting for a punchline that never gets the laugh See also: Breckin Meyer 's stoner video game dream sequence.

For Nightmare to continue at all, it needed a spiritual cleansing, and thankfully, Wes Craven was still around to resurrect what he created a decade earlier. New Nightmare simultaneously revives the series, even while Craven tinkers with some of the same meta DNA that he would use to make Scream a massive hit, two years later.

It remains a very fun entry to watch today, while enriching the series mythology. This is by no means a controversial pick, as Dream Warriors is cited by the vast majority of Nightmare fans as the greatest sequel in the series—and they happen to be right. In fact, there are probably fans out there who would even stump for Dream Warriors as superior to the original Nightmare , and in some ways it very well may be, but we still have to give the original a slight edge.

Much of its strength comes from its cast of diverse, inherently likable and interesting characters. Everything about the casting of Dream Warriors is perfectly conceived. Before Nightmare , slashers in the mold of Friday the 13th were proliferating on the market, stories set at summer camps and sorority houses and mundane settings filled with nubile young teens. After Nightmare , those ideas suddenly seemed dated. Her repeated encounters with him leave her physically scarred but constantly gaining new knowledge that she may be able to use to defeat him.

Each time they come into contact with each other, the stakes raise—he gets closer to killing her, and she gets closer to learning how to beat him. It all builds toward the final encounter in a way that feels organic and cathartic. Even many Freddy fans who had never watched a single installment of The Goldbergs tuned in just for the treat of seeing their favorite villain once again, albeit in a comedic setting.

Currently, reports say that Wes Craven's estate is now taking pitches for a new Nightmare on Elm Street project, so Freddy likely won't remain dormant for too much longer. While we wait, here's a full ranking of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, including the six original continuity Freddy films, 's meta sequel New Nightmare, crossover Freddy vs. Jason, and 's Nightmare on Elm Street remake.

Without further ado, here are the Nightmare movies, ranked worst to best. This may seem like the obvious choice for the bottom spot on a Nightmare on Elm Street ranking, but that doesn't mean it's not the correct one. While Jackie Earle Haley does his best to try and escape from Robert Englund's shadow as Freddy, the script and cast surrounding him just isn't very good.

While the new Nancy, Rooney Mara, has turned in great performances elsewhere, she admitted after the fact that she really wasn't interested in making this movie, and it shows, as she sleepwalks through her performance.

Also, while the Nightmare on Elm Street remake has some interesting new ideas, it too often abandons them to ripoff scenes done better in the original. There are many A Nightmare on Elm Street fans with love for every movie Robert Englund plays Freddy in, and it's not hard to see why, as depending on the film, he's either endlessly charismatic or endlessly frightening.

Sometimes both at once. Unfortunately, Freddy's Dead was the apex of Freddy's stand-up comedian phase, and most of his jokes fall completely flat, such as "I'll get you my pretty, and your little soul too" while riding a broom. The scene with Nintendo's Power Glove is also groan worthy. You could make an argument for this being the best film in the series, and it would be hard to argue against it.

The precursor for Scream , A New Nightmare ushered in the meta-commentary and ushered out the one-liners and cheesy fun the series had become over the years. Wes Craven has long said that this was his original vision for Dream Warriors before having that idea shot down, but by the time this film came out, ten years after the original, the time was right.

This film challenges our notions about horror, film, and reality and gave the series a truly proper send-off, unlike the previous attempt at ending Freddy. It is visually stunning, has great characters, memorable kills, and terrific use of original characters Nancy and Don Thompson. Everything that we love about that decade and this franchise is encapsulated in this film, complete with top-of-the-line performances from Patricia Arquette and Lawrence Fishburn.

This is exactly what you want from a sequel. I love sequels and, truth be told, really struggled with my Top 3 of this list. But alas, here we are, at the top spot, and I am making my case for the original film being the best film in the series.

The story was unlike anything else out there. The performances were heads and shoulders above most genre films. A Nightmare on Elm Street had a style of its own, all while playing with the tropes and style of the slasher genre. It took the best and left the rest, aiming for genuine terror over jump scares, hoping to get the viewer on a primal level.