1980s Slasher On Netflix Holds Up Better Than Most Horror Movies Decades Old

I distinctly remember the first time I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street because I watched it while staying over a friend’s house on Saturday, October 31, 1998, when I was 10 years old. That year I, like many of my grade-school friends, dressed as Ghostface from the Scream franchise while trick-or-treating. Hopped up on Kit-Kat bars and Mountain Dew, my friends and I were gearing up to watch a horror triple feature starting with Halloween, rolling straight into Friday the 13th, and concluding with A Nightmare on Elm Street.

We made it through the first two movies without issue because we had all seen the censored versions on TV and knew all of the beats by then. But as much as Halloween and Friday the 13th still hold up to this day, they’re clearly dated because they’re very much a product of their times. As the witching hour approached, we were in the height of our respective sugar highs, not knowing we were about to crash, and we popped A Nightmare on Elm Street into the VCR.