This one feels like an Off World post because it’s an interpretation, and my interpretations can be wrong. Off a Halloween retro reaction, I rewatched A Nightmare on Elm Street.
The film is layered. I always knew that. But watching it on my tenner Blu-ray player, a film I must have seen countless times, one of the scenes changed the context of the whole film for me.
It’s the scene before that last confrontation. Nancy calls her Dad Donald over to the house. Freddy melts into the bed and Nancy begs her police chief dad to get him.
I always thought that this scene confirmed Freddy’s existence. We see a close-up of Donald’s face. But what my brain never registered before is that he never confirms seeing the boogeyman.
His only reaction is to hug his daughter.
Chronologically, the sequels confirm he did indeed see Freddy. But take those out of the equation for a moment. What he sees is a house fire and his troubled daughter.
The hug, in my estimation, confirms that his character accepts that the situation is real to his daughter, and that actually is all that matters.
It reframes the whole film.
I have seen the calls to cancel films like Nightmare, and I get it. They’re not the nicest of films. They’re not designed to be for everyone.
But I think there’s another reading worth considering.
We all face our Elm Street at some point or another and when we do that situation can be very urgent and very real. Sometimes our house fire is invisible to others.
“Daddy” couldn’t fix this. It took the character’s inner strength to do that.
I think the overall message there is actually very relevant and very positive in today’s world.