A Nightmare On Elm Street 1-7 – Rachel Talalay BLU-RAY

Collection of the first seven instalments of the ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street’ horror franchise.

In ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street’ (1984), American teenager Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) begins to suffer from nightmares, only to discover that many of her friends are having similarly disturbed nights’ sleep. Their dreams are haunted by the hideously scarred former child murderer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) who, it soon transpires, has the power to kill them in their sleep. Freddy is out to exact his revenge on the children of those who burned him alive in retribution for his crimes, and the only way to avoid his reprisals is to avoid sleep – but Nancy knows that she can’t stay awake for ever.

In ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge’ (1985), the Walsh family have moved into the house formerly owned by the Thompsons and it is not long before teenage son Jesse (Mark Patton) is having bad dreams. He and girlfriend Lisa (Kim Myers) attempt to work out what is happening to him, but before long Jesse becomes convinced that Freddy has taken over his body in order to continue his murderous rampage.

In ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street: Dream Warriors’ (1987), Nancy, now a psychiatric doctor, teams up with Dr Neil Goldman (Craig Wasson) when a group of teenagers at his hospital begin to suffer a shared nightmare and soon realises that Freddy has returned to continue wreaking his revenge on the descendants of those who killed him.

In ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street: The Dream Master’ (1988), Freddy has killed off all the children who originally punished him for his crimes, but now he’s back and killing their friends. Luckily, Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox), one of the endangered kids, has the special ability to bring others into her dreams. She is the Dream Master and therefore the only one who can stop Freddy from wreaking more of his murderous havoc.

In ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street: The Dream Child’ (1989), Alice is expecting a baby. Unfortunately for her, the meddlesome Freddy finds out about this and begins to control the foetus’s dreams, hoping that the birth will be his means of returning to the land of the living. The Dream Master sets to work, taking the battle to Krueger one final time.

In ‘Freddy’s Dead – The Final Nightmare’ (1991), having wiped out all the children in his hometown, dreamstalking psycho killer Freddy decides it is time to head for pastures new. Luckily for him, he happens across a home for troubled teens and is soon indulging his unspeakable appetites once again.

Finally, in ‘Wes Craven’s New Nightmare’ (1994), a coda to the series in which Craven and his producer play themselves, persuading the now grown-up Heather Langenkamp to return to Elm Street one more time. She and Robert Englund are lured back to play their characters again, but this time they cannot walk away from them when they leave the film set at the end of the day…