What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this slasher flick has a lot of over-the-top gore and violence, with the qualifier that it's often "nightmare," surreal violence. Nightmare visions include a face being torn off to reveal a staring skull, a geyser of blood pouring out of a victim's bed and pooling in defiance of gravity on the ceiling, and so forth. It's dream-like, but fatalities still result. The young people at the center of the film, though very highly evolved for horror-movie teens circa 1984, are still sexually active and at odds with their parents.
- Families can talk about the secret guilt that the parents share: that they killed Krueger and covered it up, and now the evil child-murderer is attacking their children rather than them. Considering the old sins-of-the-fathers biblical warning (in slasher-movie clothing), does that change what you think of Freddy and what punishment he deserves? Parents may also be able to make English class seem more interesting to horror-minded kids by mentioning that writer-director Wes Craven was once an English teacher.