Week 30: “The Magnificent Heather Langenkamp!”
The ‘80s were filled with names of female actors who would
one day be labeled “scream queens” but few have had as big an impact as Heather
Langenkamp. Considering that the film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) put her
on the map and she starred in two subsequent sequels her resume is pretty empty
of any other horror films. She mostly
stuck to television series and guest appearances on several famous shows. Keeping with my series surrounding Wes Craven
and his films I thought it would be a good idea to explore one of the actors
that became an icon due to his films.
The original A
Nightmare on Elm Street was a major role for Langenkamp. It was her first starring role which
fortunately gave her a lot of range. She
wasn’t just a victim who was quickly dispatched by the killer. Audiences experienced the nightmare through
the eyes of her character Nancy Thompson and would get to see a dangerous
relationship develop between her and nightmare killer Freddy Krueger (Robert
England). As Nancy’s friends are killed
one by one she decides to discover the truth about the man who may kill her in
her dreams but soon discovers that her parents as well as the other parents in
the neighborhood may have had something to do with the murder of Fred
Krueger. It’s something she’s lived with
her entire life. Despite living in the
perfect neighborhood where nothing ever really happens, the truth is deeper and
darker. She comes from a broken home;
her mother is a drunk and separated from her police father whom she barely
speaks to and whom doesn’t understand her.
Looks are deceiving.
Nancy has the perfect BFF in Tina (Amanda Wyss) and an
understanding boyfriend Glen (Johnny Depp) and everything is fine until her and
her friends all dream of Fred Krueger at the same time. Now one of the great things about this film
is the great chemistry with the entire cast and Langenkamp is the leader. She’s able to make all the relationships
genuine and believable in a film in which everything becomes unbelievable. Part of buying into the world that Craven
crafted is believing all the characters that inhabit it and the entire cast
does a great job which is why the film endures to this day. Although it was England who became the
household name as the wise talking burned serial killer Freddy Krueger, it was
Langenkamp that ushered in a new type of horror film heroine. Her character of Nancy just didn’t scream and
run she found the strength and mindset to fight back when she didn’t have any
one else to fight for her. She became self-sufficient
and strong, something you’d see future horror films emulate.
It would only be a few years later that Langenkamp would
return as Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare
on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987).
The events of the original film have had an effect on Nancy who is now a
psychologist that specializes in helping teenagers deal with their
nightmares. In this film she shows up at
a hospital after Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette) has already tried to kill
herself because of her nightmares.
Kristen is one of a group of teenagers who are all being haunted by Fred
Krueger in their nightmares and Nancy is the only one who believes and understands
them. In this film Langenkamp gets to
play an older and wiser Nancy who gets to use her knowledge to help save others
in the same situation that she was once in.
Nancy and Krueger have a different relationship as she is the one that
beat Krueger so there is personal animosity present that wasn’t there in the
previous film; this is the first film in which Krueger would face off against a
previous foe. Nancy has an almost
kindred spirit connection with Kristen; a very sister like bond that’s not
explored by any other characters in subsequent films. This film allows Langenkamp the opportunity
to see her character grow and mature and ultimately sacrifice herself. This is a fitting end to one of horror’s most
enduring female characters.
This film ultimately became a fan favorite helping to make
Langenkamp one of the few heroines to actually gain as much notoriety as Robert
England himself. Her popularity and star
status would not rise as fast as Jamie Lee Curtis or Linda Blair due to the
fact that she did not star in a string of successful horror films throughout
the ‘80s and ‘90s. The Elm Street films are generally the only
horror films that provided her with a large enough role to actually matter.
Despite not having the opportunity to fully play the iconic
character of Nancy Thompson again (death will do that sometimes), she did
return to the franchise one final time playing herself in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994).
This was Craven’s chance to return to the director’s chair to craft a
whole new story based on the iconic characters that he created. Langenkamp would be herself, the mother of a
young boy who was married to a man who is secretly working on a new Elm Street
film with the real Craven. Fact and
fiction are about to collide when the nightmare world starts to turn
Langenkamp’s life upside down. After the
death of her husband, her son starts to experience debilitating nightmares of
Freddy Krueger, who has stepped into the real world to ensure that he lives on
in the minds of future generations.
Craven melds the real life world with the world of film and the fandom
created by the Elm Street series and Freddy Krueger himself. Nancy Thompson has grown up and become a
mother and a storyteller instilling in her child the fantasy that the world of
film is nothing more than a fairytale to be passed down from generation to
generation.
Langenkamp (the real person) has the opportunity to play her
most complicated character and she does so effortlessly. In a career character spanning three films
she’s been able to accomplish something that very few actors get the
opportunity to do. This has not only
made her one of the great heroines in horror film history but allowed the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise to
live with its own legacy despite the mediocre sequels that have come and gone
before and after.
The reason why Langenkamp had such an impact on me growing
up is because with these three films the Nightmare
on Elm Street franchise was at its strongest. No other horror franchise had an internal
trilogy that mattered this much (although some would argue Jamie Lee Curtis’
three film Halloween trilogy comes
close excluding that abysmal Resurrection
film)). I continued to watch these films
sans the rest (as I’m sure many fans have done as well). Langenkamp has always had that next door neighbor
“every girl” quality that endured her to fans.
Her only other major impact would’ve been the television
series Just the Ten of Us (1988-90)
which gave her, her longest role. Some
may remember her as Nancy Kerrigan in the TV movie Tonya & Nancy: The Inside Story (1994), which I only saw when
it was originally released. She also had
a part in the cult film The Demolitionist
(1995) but most of the rest of her roles have been small. She has yet to be given another amazing
opportunity of a Nancy Thompson but that doesn’t matter since that is the
character that she will always be remembered for and we fans will be thankful
for.
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