Most Modern Slasher Movies Steal Nightmare On Elm Street's Best Trick
Most major successful slasher movies of the 2020s owe an unacknowledged debt to an under-discussed element of A Nightmare On Elm Street’s revolutionary premise. A lot has been made of the similarities between Vecna, the villain of Stranger Things season 4, and Nightmare On Elm Street franchise villain Freddy Krueger. The Netflix hit has acknowledged that the Springwood slasher was a major influence on the season’s supernatural villain and Freddy’s original actor Robert Englund even plays a pivotal role in the action of the series.
However, this is far from the first time that a contemporary hit has borrowed from the successful formula of A Nightmare On Elm Street. Director Wes Craven’s original movie effectively revolutionized the slasher sub-genre upon its 1984 release, adding a new element to the teen horror formula that has since been seen in almost every successful slasher of the 2010s and 2020s. The extent to which this influence is taken for granted goes to show just how much the Nightmare On Elm Street formula became the norm for slasher movies.
Related: Stranger Things 4 Just Made A Nightmare On Elm Street Remake Harder
Hits ranging from Freaky to the Fear Street trilogy, to Stranger Things season 4, to Candyman, to Happy Death Day, to SyFy’s Chucky series, and The Babysitter movies all combine fantasy and horror with their slasher movie setups including twists like ghosts, witches, curses, time loops, demons, possession, and time travel. While this could seem like part of the slasher formula to modern viewers, most slasher movies pre-Nightmare On Elm Street were Giallo-influenced serial killer thrillers with little or no fantasy elements. Hits like Black Christmas, Friday the 13th, and Halloween didn’t rely on
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