Rate/Rank the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

[Robocop]

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - 9/10
Freddy's Revenge - 7/10
Dream Warriors - 3/10
Dream Master - 3/10
Dream Child - 3/10
Freddy's Dead - 2/10
New Nightmare - 8/10
Freddy vs. Jason - 7/10
Remake - 2/10

The reason I didn't like anything from Dream Warriors to Freddy's Dead was because Freddy became a jokester and lost his menace. I can't even enjoy them as B-Movies. The original is superb and part 2 was interesting despite the gay subtext, but at least Freddy was still dark and serious. New Nightmare was a long awaited return to form and FVJ was fun unlike the majority of the sequels. The remake was just terrible I can't express it into words. 

[JaseSF]

I'm pretty sure there was a previous thread lidentical to this one but well I liked Dream Warriors the best, then the first film, New Nightmare, Dream Master, Freddy's Revenge, Dream Child, Freddy's Dead and finally I absolutely hated Freddy vs. Jason.

[Criswell]

Oh yay unlike Friday the 13th iv'e seen all these films, not counting the from what Iv'e heard awful remake.

Nightmare On elm Street
Dream Warriors
New Nightmare
The Dream Master
Freddy's dead
The Dream Child
Freddy's Revenge
Freddy Vs Jason

[WilliamWeird1313]

from least favorite to most favorite...

7- Dream Child (i adore the ANOES franchise, its my favorite of the "big 3" slasher franchises, but seriously i HATE this movie... with there being only a handful of redeeming qualities even allowing me to sit through it during my annual ANOES marathons... the child star in this flick is just AWFUL!)
6- Freddy's Dead
5- Freddy's Revenge (despite how poorly it ranks on this last, i'd like to say thart i've re-watched this film again several times recently, and i think it's underrated and doesn't deserve so much of the ire it gets)
4- the original ANOES
3- Dream Master (stupid, but SO MUCH fun, and, despite the fact that some people will think i'm nuts for ranking this above the original ANOES, i just have to say that i... freaking... LOOOOOOVE... Tuesday Knight)
2- New Nightmare (pop-horror and meta-horror combine with fantastic results!)
1- Dream Warriors (blends the darkness and intelligence of the original ANOES and New Nightmare with the campy, cartoon surreality of the later entries, without overdoing either element)

the remake was abominable... better than the f13 remake, I admit, but nevertheless, it's not even worth ranking in my book

i'm also not counting freddy vs. jason, because of its oddball one-off status (i prefer to think of new nightmare as the franchise's curtain call, and for years new nightmare was my favorite) and also because, to this day, i remain torn on it.... on one hand, the part of me that appreciates quality cinema with good stories, good acting, and not blatantly superficial, opportunistic attempts to cater to the tween market and capitalize on pop culture cachet... that part of me hates freddy vs. jason thoroughly... on THE OTHER HAND, a different part of me, in fact a larger part of my personality i must confess, is the part of me that is still the same pimply-faced pre-teen crretin who eagerly geeked out over issues of fangoria and watched slasher films religiously when i was a kid... and that part of me simply canNOT hate any movie that has both freddy AND jason in it

[Psycho Circus]

Nightmare On Elm Street, Freddy's Revenge, Dream Warriors & New Nightmare are the only ones that exist to me. I will not even begin to accept the others having been made, never, ever. That way I don't have to get mad and realise there's nothing I can do about it.

[voltron]

I liked the first, Freddy's Revenge, and the Dream Warriors (DOKKEN!) ones the best. As for the rest I never really went out of my way to see them, but when I did see them I was not impressed in the least. Totally agree about the fact that Freddy became more of a jokester as the series went on, and that's what killed the series for me.

[crackers]

I am obsessed with all these films, I think they are great fun and pure entertainment. I have never or will ever watch the re-make. There is simply no point.
New nightmare I thought bought an new darker Freddy which I really enjoyed.
And Freddy Vs Jason? I can't complain. It is exactly what I thought it would be.

[Jack]

The first one was great, I'd give it a 5/5.  I think I saw Dream Warriors a while back and that was okay.  Didn't care for / only watched a little bit of the others.

[Robocop]

Seriously I don't get the love for Dream Warriors. It goes with a fantasy witch craft vibe which for me is one of the campiest concepts of the franchise. It turns Freddy into a one-liner prankster stripping away his menace spontaneously, it has shocking acting, poor pacing and all this combined makes the film feel dated.

For me out of the all the so-called 'corny sequels' (starting with part 3 and ending at part 6), I think part 5 had the most potential in terms of restoring the dark roots back into the series. It had a interesting story, great cinemagraphic, gruesome SPX and some very good design work. If it were taken more seriously and with slight changes to the script it could have been excellent. What we got though was crap.

[diamondwaspvenom]

I already made a thread like this.


Whatever, here's my ranking:

1) Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) 5/5
2) Wes Craven's New Nightmare 4.8/5
3) Freddy's Revenge 4.5/5
4) Dream Warriors 4.3/5
5) Freddy vs Jason  4.1/5
6) Freddy's Dead 4/5
7) The Dream Child 3.1/5
8) The Dream Master 2/5
9) Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) 1.5/5

[66Crush]

The first five are the best. The only one I haven't seen is "A New Nightmare" (I need to get around to it). The remake is OK, but 90% of what makes Freddy great is Robert Englund's personality. Anyone could play Micheal Myers or Jason, they are faceless non personalities. Freddy is so much a part of Robert, I can't believe thay would do a movie without him. The new Freddy is typical of too many modern movie characters: bland, boring and no personality. Too much realism in a performance is boring, I miss the days when actors really went for it.

[Psycho Circus]

For me out of the all the so-called 'corny sequels' (starting with part 3 and ending at part 6), I think part 5 had the most potential in terms of restoring the dark roots back into the series. It had a interesting story, great cinemagraphic, gruesome SPX and some very good design work. If it were taken more seriously and with slight changes to the script it could have been excellent. What we got though was crap.

I actually agree with you there. If you took away all the goofy stuff and humour from 4 & 5, then I think they would have been great movies. I still would have called it a day after that though.

[WilliamWeird1313]

You know, I don't really mind all the humor, cartoonishness, and silly stupidity of the sequels. I've always kind of viewed the ANOES series as a sort of pop culture ipecac. It eats up all our garbage and pukes it back in our faces. When the remake was coming out, everyone was abuzz about how this was going to "return the series to its dark roots." Dark roots are fine, but I kind of like the punky pink mohawk the franchise dyed its roots over with back in the 80's. If going back to the dark roots is what the remake did, then you can keep it. The only part where I think the series REALLY faltered was with Dream Child, which I chalk up less to the silliness and more to (what I found to be) irritating, unlikeable characters and a contrived, nonsensical plot (which did have a few shining ideas, but mostly surrounded by a bunch of toilet gunk).

Personally, I've always enjoyed the "trickster" character archetype, a la' The Joker, The Cryptkeeper, and Freddy Krueger. Freddy is a great example of that type, a motormouthed ADD-afflicted black humor juggernaut.

Circus, you mentioned that you think that if they took the humor out of Dream Master, then it would've been a great movie. I personally think Dream Master IS a great movie. It's corny and campy and surrealistic/absurdist cheese, but that's what I like. I'm a big animation hound, and one of the things I really dug about Freddy was how he was basically a homicidal cartoon character. In his world, the laws of reality are similar to the laws in a Looney Tunes short, only with more sex and death. Sex, death, and zany antics? Sounds like a party to me.

For better or for worse, the ANOES is a cultural snapshot of the 1980's, in all its gaudy, neon, plastic inanity. It all depends, I think, on whether you like, love, or hate the 80's (I loooove 'em), how you feel about the horror-comedy mash-up in general, and how beholden you think a movie's sequels should be to the spirit of the original.

Unsurprisingly, I'm a big fan of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, also.

[Kaseykockroach]

The original (of course)
Dream Warriors
New Nightmare
The Dream Child
The Dream Master
Freddy's Revenge
The Final Nightmare
Freddy VS Jason
The remake

[Olivia Bauer]

GOD TIER - Original 

Garbage tier - Everything else

MUST BE DESTROYED - The remake