Book Review: Welcome to Elm Street

A number of years after his passing, horror maestro Wes Craven continues to exert a serious influence on pop culture. There was the Radio Silence Scream reboot from earlier this year, which proved another massive box office hit; the innumerable ways in which his schlock cult classics Last House On The Left, The People Under The Stairs and The Hills Have Eyes retain their menacing influence on a thriving horror industry; and, of course, the iconic status of Craven’s other franchise, A Nightmare On Elm Street.

Within the last few months, for example, Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema in LA included the third installment in the series, Dream Warriors – arguably the finest of the Elm Street movies – in its slate programming, to mark the film’s 35th anniversary. But as production designer and special effects guru Mick Strawn notes in a memorable foreword to Welcome To Elm Street, such exalted status was a long away from pre-ordained.

In ’80s LA, Strawn writes, horror filmmakers “were also the gutter of Hollywood. We played among ourselves and occupied a social status in between porn stars and late-night TV lawyers, and most of us made considerably less money than both.”

But thanks to filmmakers like Craven, things took were to change drastically.

As Strawn continues: “Cut to: genre conventions, horror film festivals, millions and millions of dollars in merchandise, thousands upon thousands of horror movies made every year…” Welcome To Elm Street compellingly charts these developments, via some never-before-interviewed key players in the saga of the franchise, including – in a major coup – Freddy Krueger himself, the legendary Robert Englund.

Indeed, Welcome To Elm Street has many different strands. As well as being a fascinating look at the intensely pressurised – and sometimes absurd – world of ’80s Hollywood filmmaking, it also examines the way in which A Nightmare On Elm Street infiltrated pop culture at an almost molecular level. In a scenario familiar to many Gen Xers, Byrne recalls first encountering the Freddy’s New Nightmare TV series amidst WWF Wrestling and lurid US imports like Hunter, Riptide and Unsolved Mysteries on the-then new Sky One.

Around the same time, the author – a Naas native – recalls seeing the VHS covers for different Elm Street movies appear in his local video store, whilst Irish pound shops stocked Freddy toys and lunchboxes.

But Byrne’s main goal, and one in which he has succeeded wonderfully, is to dig into the Freudian themes and social commentary at the core of Craven’s creation – aspects that are a major part of why Freddy has become a horror character as recognisable as Dracula or Frankenstein.

And then there’s the sheer primal terror that animates the story. Reading anew Craven’s original inspiration – an LA Times account of young adults getting nightmares so intense they were drinking pots of coffee to stay awake at night, before ultimately passing in their sleep – stills sends a shiver down the spine.

It was to provide the impetus for Craven’s portrayal of the darkness at the heart of Reaganite suburbia – a vision that still disturbs, excites and enthrals.

Welcome To Elm Street is out now, published by McFarland.