I can remember watching A Nightmare On Elm Street with a friend of mine when I was about eight years old. I’d seen a glimpse of it one night when my parents were watching it, and they sent me straight back to bed warning me that if I came back downstairs again there’d be trouble. I remember hearing both of my parents scream a few times, and mum shouting that she couldn’t bare to watch it anymore. I knew then that I just had to see it, but there was no way I was going to watch it on my own.
About a month later I had a friend over for the night, and we planned to sneak downstairs after my parents had gone to bed so that we could watch the film. All went well, and armed with lots of popcorn we began to watch the film.
It didn’t take long for us to both start screaming, and our popcorn ended up all over the furniture. My parents came rushing down the stairs, and gave us a right old telling off, and marched us right back to bed.
About an hour later we decided that we’d give it another go, and so we crept back downstairs to continue watching it. We were doing really well until one very gruesome scene involving rather a lot of blood at which point my friend wet herself, and I had no choice, but to go , and get my mum. She was furious with us, and we were both grounded by our parents for two weeks.
We both had terrible nightmare for weeks afterwards, but understandably we didn’t get much sympathy from our parents. I was convinced that Freddy Kruger was going to come, and get me. So every night I took a rolling pin on to bed with me so that I could defend myself against him.
Eventually my parents managed to convince me that he wasn’t real, and I was finally able to sleep well again.
To this very day I still find it very hard to watch that film, and when I do I make sure I have lots of cushions to hide behind, and the light stays on. I can watch most horror films, but there’s just something about that film which really creeps me out.
