Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. It’s Friday and time for another review. Today I am reviewing the novelisation of the 1984 horror movie A Nightmare On Elm Street by Jeffrey Cooper.

A Nightmare On Elm Street by Jeffrey Cooper was initially published in 1987 by St. Martins Mass Market Press and is 72 pages long (the omnibus with the novelisation of the first three movies in the series is 334 pages long).

The Plot
In the Ohio town of Springwood, teenagers are plagued and terrorised by horrifying dreams of a menacing figure with a burned face, a red and green jumper and razor-sharp knives for fingers. His name is Freddy Krueger.

Characters
Nancy Thompson
Nancy is the main character in the book. She is a teenage girl determined to unravel the mystery behind attacks on the kids in her neighbourhood and put a stop to them. She later learns that a group of parents got together and killed Freddy for hurting neighbourhood children. His vengeful ghost is haunting their dreams and killing them in revenge against their parents.

Nancy is the one who has most of the conflict with Freddy, but I found myself unable to root for this version of her. She came off as wholly unbelievable and way too overdramatic. Movie Nancy is endearing, strong and intelligent, but I didn’t feel much of that from her in the book.

Tina Gray
Tina is Nancy’s best friend and is the first of Freddy’s victims. After a sleepover, Nancy and Glen are woken by Tina and Tina’s boyfriend Rod’s screams. Upon running to the room, they find Tina, the room, and everything in it covered in blood, while Rod has climbed out of the window and run off. Her character’s presence becomes an eerie thread throughout the book, even after her untimely demise.

Glen Lantz
Glen is their love interest of Nancy and tries to help her figure out what is going on with the kids in the neighbourhood. At one point, Nacy asks him to watch over her while she sleeps so that she can find Freddy in her dreams. What she finds is Freddy killing Rod in jail.

Later, when Nancy figures out what has been happening, she calls Glen to warn him, but his parents tell her he can’t come and answer the phone. He ends up falling asleep and getting killed by Freddy.

Rod Lane
Rod is Tina’s boyfriend and is awakened by her screams in the middle of the night during a sleepover at her house. He watches in horror as she is ripped apart and dragged around the room, lifted through the air by unseen hands. Because he was the only one with Tina when she was killed, he’s arrested and accused of her murder. Whilst in jail, however, he is visited by Freddy in his dreams and is killed by being hanged.

Freddy Krueger
Freddy is the book’s antagonist and the main reason I kept reading this book. He preys on the fears of his victims. Freddy is a child murderer who was burned alive by the parents of his victims. Now, he has come back from the dead to seek revenge by killing the children of his killers in their dreams. He, in my opinion, is the most like his character. Cooper’s portrayal of him in the book is just as menacing and terrifying as in the movies. He is the strongest character, and his creepiness permeates throughout.

Writing Style
I’m not really sure what to think and feel about this book. On the one hand, Cooper’s writing style makes the book easy to read. He draws you in nicely and plops you right in the middle of the action alongside Nancy and the gang. He weaves the elements of horror, mystery and psychological suspense together well. On the other hand, however, the characters feel even more over the top than they do in the movie. At least in the film, you can suspend your disbelief because you are distracted by the visuals. Here though, the characters don’t feel believable at all.

The plot feels a little far-fetched, though it is the novelisation of a horror movie where the ghost of an awful man invades people’s minds and kills them in their nightmares. So I can forgive a lot where the plot is concerned.

We do get to see some of the other characters’ backstories expanded upon, such as Nacy’s parents, which is nice and gives the book an added layer. On the whole, though, the book is almost exactly like the movie.

Final Thoughts
I love the movie A Nightmare On Elm Street. It was one of the first horror movies I watched (I think I was 8 when I watched it), and it is unforgettable, at least for me. The novelisation, however, while entertaining, is quickly fading from my mind library.

I will say, though, Tina’s dream sequence in chapter two is rather creepy and is possibly the most chilling part of the book. It feels a little more intense than in the movie, even though the events are essentially the same; I think it’s because your imagination can render the scene better than a film-maker.

It’s always worth reading a novelisation; they are often written based on original scripts used before a movie is shot, and so it’s interesting to see what has been expanded upon or excised from the story. However, I would only recommend reading this if you are a die-hard Freddy Krueger fan. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it if you’re new to the franchise, being that I think the movie is better – although it is an okay read, so if you like over-the-top horror mixed with a bit of melodrama, then maybe this is the book for you.

I am giving A Nightmare On Elm Street a 3/10.

Have you read any of the A Nightmare On Elm Street novelisations? Are you a fan of the franchise? What are your thoughts?

Thank you, as always, for reading my review. It really does mean a lot.

Until next time,

George

© 2023 GLT

Categories: Book Reviews, Reading

Tags: A Nightmare On Elm Street, book review, Elm, Freddy, horror, Krueger, review, Street