6. A Nightmare On Elm Street
A Nightmare Elm Street is one of the pre-eminent horror films of the 1980s, and remains a classic of the genre, with Wes Craven spinning a unique riff on the conventions of the time, blurring the line between dreams and reality, and featuring a fantastic performance by Robert Englund as Freddie Krueger. Elm Street is stylish and clever, suffused with subtext about Reagan's America, and also the AIDS epidemic. However, the sequels never matched this intellect - owing to the absence of horror legend Wes Craven - and grew progressively worse, with the terrifying Krueger transforming from an imposing paedophile into a campy comedy act. Sadly, this has ended up tarnishing the reputation of the original film, as the poor quality of the six sequels - except for the brilliantly self-aware seventh film,
New Nightmare - caused it to end up being bundled in with inferior horror franchises like
Friday the 13th, when in fact, it is far more imaginative than that, and even John Carpenter's revolutionary, inaugural slasher film
Halloween. The 2010 remake of Elm Street only compounded this fact, as again, another generation of youngsters will end up watching it and believing it to be the original. However, at least it lacks the pep and intelligence of the original, so hopefully will be quietly forgotten.