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Dom Robinson reviews
Entertainment in Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: EDV 9083
- Running time: 438 (88/82/92/90/86) minutes
- Year: 1984/85/87/88/89
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 132 (25/26/31/27/23) plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: 5 * DVD 5
- Price: £53.99 (or £19.99 each)
- Extras: “Jump to a Nightmare”, Cast and Crew, Trailer,Audio Commentary (first film only)
Director:
- Wes Craven
Producers:
- Robert Shaye
Screenplay:
- Wes Craven
Music:
- Charles Beinstein
Cast:
- Freddy Krueger: Robert Englund
Nancy Thompson: Heather Langenkamp
Lt. Donald Thompson: John Saxon
Marge: Ronee Blakley
Tina: Amanda Wyss
Rod: Nick Corri
Glen: Johnny Depp
The credits above relate to the first film.
The privatisation of the bus service was a disaster.Freddy Krueger. He’s not a nice man.And this boxset brings together the first five Nightmare on Elm Streetmovies, which I presume are the only ones that Entertainment in Videohave the rights to given that there are another two films in the series aswell as the Freddy’s Nightmares TV series.
You know the way it works. Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) haunts theteens of America in their dreams and kills them. Many people get scared andseveral of them die. Those in the frame get wise to his events and kill himoff at the end, only for him to return again in time for another film, themost unlikely reincarnation being at the start of the fifth where his beingborn is done so in yet another dream(!)
And would you believe that Englund previously played the “nice” alien,Willie, in the science fiction TV series, “V”?
I could go into depth about each film, but I’ll just say that No.1 is the onewith Johnny Depp in one of his first film roles, No.2 is the one withthe bus, No.3 is the one in a mental hospital, No.4 is the one where a bitof weight-lifting goes wrong and No.5 is a complete and utter load of oldtosh and shouldn’t really have been made, because it left the door open fora sixth which is one step from being the worst movie EVER made (which isactually Satyricon by Fellini).
Oh, and the good news is that all five are uncut, according to theBBFC website.All are rated 18 apart from the fourth film which used to be a censored 18-certon video in its fullscreen version, but due to changing tastes in society,its reclassification – and its first time in widescreen – is an uncut 15-cert.
Working out? No pain, no gain(!)Each film is presented in the original 1.85:1 ratio and is anamorphic, withzero artifacts and look like someone’s finally paid attention to the qualitywhich makes a great change over the crappy fullscreen prints we’ve had to putup with on video for years. There’s the occasional glitch through the seriesbut nothing to complain about much.The average bitrate for the first film is 4.79Mb/s, occasionally peaking over9Mb/s.
The soundtrack has been remastered into Dolby Digital for all five filmswhich greatly boosts the scare-factor for any of Freddy’s killings and gives akick to Johnny Depp’s crank phone call in the first flick.
The five films.
On the first disc, the extras treat us to “Jump to a Nightmare” -another 6 chapter points that take you direct to Freddy’s special moments,Cast and Crew info for Heather Langenkamp, Wes Craven and a fewothers but not Depp nor Englund. The Trailer runs for 100 seconds andis in 16:9 anamorphic and Dolby Digital 5.1 and there is a feature-lengthAudio Commentary from director Craven, actors Langenkamp and John Saxon,plus Jacques Haitkin, director of photography.
Disc 2 contains the above without the commentary and the cast and crew thistime feature our ‘hero’ and Disc 3 goes for the same with the addition ofmusic video “Dream Warrior” by Dokken. The fourth follows the sameformula, but without a music video, while the final disc goes one better thanthe third with two rap music videos by unnamed artists, the songs being”Are You Ready For Freddy?” and “Anyway I Gotta Swing It”.
Subtitles are available in English and the menus contain music with animationin the form of clips from the films.
One weird thing is that the boxset is presented on five DVD5 discs, whenit could have been compiled onto one DVD5 and a couple of DVD9s, or at themost, three DVD9s.
And Freddy is born again.
Overall, this isn’t a bad little boxset from Entertainment in Video.It’s not exactly blessed with extras, but if your interests lie mainly in thepicture and sound quality then you won’t be disappointed. The packaging isalso quite impressive, opening sideways to reveal all five discs in order,(I saw this in a shop, since the review copies came as five individualcheck discs)which knocks Fox’sBuffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2scratch-a-thon into a cocked hat.
Serious Freddy fans, though, will instead go for the Region 1 boxset (right) whichnot only contains these five films, but also the sixth and seventh to completethe set, plus an eighth disc of extras alone for $130 retail.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.