I still have grainy, late night, no-cable, cheap VHS dubs of this show from waaaaaayyyy back when, late-night-commercials and all, when I would stay up to whatever weird hour they would slap this show on -- just so I could tape it.
The series wasn't really ABOUT Freddy Kreuger - only the first couple of episodes actually involved him as anything but a Rod Serling-esquire announcer. Instead, each episode was a distinct nightmare, using the traditional horror themes of horrific childhood, dating, cannibalism, dating, money, death, dating, and... hmm... dating.
From the episode where a teenage boy accidentally says "I will love you forever" to the wrong girl, and is stuck with her (literally, at least for a moment, they grow together...), to the one where a young stewardess goes home with a strange man, only to find herself in his cabin, where he has a trophy room full of other stewardesses, and one I only vaguely remember which compared blind dates to hockey (and the injuries and penalties that go with it) - dating was definitely the scariest thing in the series.
One episode had Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator, etc.) as a motivated pizza merchant with a tasty new secret ingredient. Not original, but still creepy and fun....
Even so, some of the episodes were great. My personal favorite was "It's a Miserable Life" where a young man is trapped working in his parents' burger joint, when he wants to go off to college. Stuck talking to himself and doing little puppet shows with old cheeseburgers - until one late night when a weird guy comes through the drive through and suddenly his life is not the same. No, not Freddy, just a thug with a gun - turns out the whole mind-blowing episode is just that - the last thoughts that pass through the kid's head... along with a bullet.
The second half of the same episode (many of the Freddie's Nightmares episodes were essentially two vaguely connected short stories) followed his girlfriend, who was also wounded, but not killed in the drive-by, and who is taken to "the hospital from heck" - they cram in all the most creepy hospital nightmare clichés, and then some - from accidentally having your mouth sewn shut - or waking up during an operation - to having your dead boyfriend try and lure you into the morgue for a little cuddle.
Again, that was my favorite.
Some of the episodes were much dumber, like ALMOST ALL OF THE ONES THEY'VE MADE AVAILABLE ON VIDEO. They put the crummy ones out as representative of the series, and then nobody likes them, thinks the show stunk, and then they don't put any more on video. It's a Miserable Life is only available on PAL DVD in England - but I'm still gonna buy it.
The series wasn't really ABOUT Freddy Kreuger - only the first couple of episodes actually involved him as anything but a Rod Serling-esquire announcer. Instead, each episode was a distinct nightmare, using the traditional horror themes of horrific childhood, dating, cannibalism, dating, money, death, dating, and... hmm... dating.
From the episode where a teenage boy accidentally says "I will love you forever" to the wrong girl, and is stuck with her (literally, at least for a moment, they grow together...), to the one where a young stewardess goes home with a strange man, only to find herself in his cabin, where he has a trophy room full of other stewardesses, and one I only vaguely remember which compared blind dates to hockey (and the injuries and penalties that go with it) - dating was definitely the scariest thing in the series.
One episode had Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator, etc.) as a motivated pizza merchant with a tasty new secret ingredient. Not original, but still creepy and fun....
Even so, some of the episodes were great. My personal favorite was "It's a Miserable Life" where a young man is trapped working in his parents' burger joint, when he wants to go off to college. Stuck talking to himself and doing little puppet shows with old cheeseburgers - until one late night when a weird guy comes through the drive through and suddenly his life is not the same. No, not Freddy, just a thug with a gun - turns out the whole mind-blowing episode is just that - the last thoughts that pass through the kid's head... along with a bullet.
The second half of the same episode (many of the Freddie's Nightmares episodes were essentially two vaguely connected short stories) followed his girlfriend, who was also wounded, but not killed in the drive-by, and who is taken to "the hospital from heck" - they cram in all the most creepy hospital nightmare clichés, and then some - from accidentally having your mouth sewn shut - or waking up during an operation - to having your dead boyfriend try and lure you into the morgue for a little cuddle.
Again, that was my favorite.
Some of the episodes were much dumber, like ALMOST ALL OF THE ONES THEY'VE MADE AVAILABLE ON VIDEO. They put the crummy ones out as representative of the series, and then nobody likes them, thinks the show stunk, and then they don't put any more on video. It's a Miserable Life is only available on PAL DVD in England - but I'm still gonna buy it.