Tthree blades tear the night sky of a suburban suburb. On this Wednesday March 6, 1985, the unforgettable displays Claws of the Night adorns the fronts of French cinemas, between THE Kings of gag et Pizza chef and Mozzarel. Titled in VO A Nightmare on Elm Street, this tiny horror film by Wes Craven was ingeniously renamed The Claws of the Night to the following a suggestion to the distributor from Claude Chabrol himself (at least that’s what the director of Vinegar Chicken !), who found this version more attractive than the American title, which was not very evocative for a French public unaware of these suburbs where nothing is more banal than a “rue des elms”.
From reading an article about three teenagers who died in their sleep, Wes Craven got the idea for this future cult film: in a small, seemingly uneventful town, high school students have the same dream in which they are chased by a sadist. The problem is that this nightmare leaves traces in reality… The dream killer has a name, Freddy Krueger (incredible Robert Englund, in the role of his life), a child murderer who once raged in the area before being burned alive by the residents of Elm Street, determined to take justice into their own hands.
After a triumphant American release in the United States, despite an R rating, prohibited for those under 17, and a notable appearance at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival where it won two prizes (criticism and interpretation), this new nightmare of filmmaker of The Last House on the left and of The Hill has eyes arrived in France preceded by a good reputation and a ban on children under 13 years old. Why, in France too, was love at first sight for Freddy? Freddy Krueger, this serial killer with a hand gloved with cutting blades, perpetrating his murders in teenagers’ dreams with some sinister incursions into reality…
Anti-Reagan fire
The jackpot of Claws of the Night is based first of all on the vision of a filmmaker: Wes Craven, therefore. From his first name Wesley, this son of a very pious family in Ohio, married and father of two children, began a career as a philosophy teacher until the day he admitted the obvious: this life did not interest him. . What he wants is to make films. He left family and work to settle in New York where he worked as a documentary editor before making his sensational debut as a filmmaker with The Last House on the left (Last House on the Left) in 1972.
Inspired by The source, by Ingmar Bergman, Craven shows the rape, torture and murder of two teenage girls by a handful of thugs then, above all, the merciless revenge of the parents of one of the victims, who in turn attack the criminals by matching their barbarity. The film causes a scandal, Craven is accused of complacency and of sending victims and executioners back to back… However, all of the author’s future cinema is there, in embryo. Six years later, in The Hill has eyes, he drives the point home: a nice family in a campervan fights back in blood against a tribe of degenerates who savagely attacked them in the Mojave Desert.
And in 1984, in The Claws of the Nightthe viewer discovers that in the distant past, before being resurrected as a dream demon, the child killer Fred Krueger was himself massacred by parents drunk with vengeance and formed into a militia, without realizing the future consequences of their madness. Pariah in the 1970s following the extreme radicalism of The Last House on the left and of The Hill has eyesworks typical of a post-Vietnam America undermined by crisis, violence and the questioning of institutions, Craven will enjoy a flashback under the first mandate of Ronald Reagan and the triumph of his conservative values, which The Claws of the Night brocades discreetly but fiercely.
Family, I hate you…
The exaltation of traditional family values by Reagan’s new right is godsend for the itchy filmmaker Wes Craven, who considers the family as a reservoir of destructive impulses just waiting to splash onto the screen. In the cinema, the time is no longer so much for uneasy and realistic horror but for the horrific spectacle which leans towards the side of teen movieanother flagship genre of the 1980s. Craven will paradoxically find himself at ease there and contribute to consolidating a new golden age of fantasy.
In The Claws of the Nightthe psychological and political subtext hits the mark: the parents of the teenage heroine, Nancy (Heather Langenkamp), but also those of her boyfriend Glen (Johnny Depp, in his first role on screen), of their girlfriend Tina (Amanda Wyss) and the other teenagers persecuted by this unlucky Krueger who cries for vengeance from a dreamlike beyond are directly responsible for what happens to their offspring. A responsibility that they flee, Nancy’s mother (Ronee Blakley) preferring to drown herself in alcohol, while her father (veteran John Saxon), a police officer, simply refuses to believe his daughter and therefore protect. Not only can we not count on parents, but breaking with them is the children’s only hope of survival. On the return to family values, Craven therefore has a clear opinion…
Equipped with his glove with razor-sharp blades, Krueger is part of the lineage of these new monsters that are the psychopaths of slashersa wave initiated by the stainless serial killer Michael Myers of Halloween (1978), followed by the no less tough Jason Voorhees of the saga Friday the 13th (started in 1980). The big difference with his colleagues is that Freddy is rampant in our dreams and, throughout the film, Wes Craven continues to sow doubt between what is dream or reality, blurring the border between the two with much more brilliance than two other fantastic films strangely released at the same time – Dreamscape (1984) by Joseph Ruben and Dream Lover (1985), d’Alan J. Growth.
Six sequels, a remake, a TV series…
Implacably efficient, The Claws of the Night connects anthology scenes and shocking images, aided by stunning handcrafted special effects and above all by an actor, Robert Englund, who knows how to combine terror and grotesquery. Trained in Shakespearean theater, previously seen in small roles in cinema (The Crocodile of Death the Tobe Hooper, Graffiti Party by John Milius…) and on TV as a nice alien in the series V, Englund finds in Freddy Krueger the role that will make him an icon.
Building on this artistic success on two fronts – it’s a damn good horror film AND a thrilling stab at Reaganite values –, The Claws of the Night imposes a new cult bogeyman and rakes in 25 million dollars at the end of its theatrical run, while it only cost 8. Sensing commercial success, producer Robert Shaye also convinced Wes Craven to add a scene at the end of the film in order to allow for the possibility of a sequel. Too bad if this sequence makes no sense, his intuition will prove to be the right one.
To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
At the head of New Line, a production/distribution company founded around fifteen years earlier (and which, in 2001, hit the super jackpot with The Lord of the Rings), Shaye experienced his first success as a producer. A triumph, even, which will generate no less than six very unequal sequels, a crossover which we would have done well without (Freddy vs. Jason), a remake produced by Michael Bay and quickly forgotten… and a TV series, Freddy the nightmare of your nights, in the form of a prequel. Wes Craven, who then saw his career take off like never before, dreamed of sailing towards other horizons with a predilection for romantic comedy and melodrama. He will never really succeed and will take his side by bringing, with Freddy comes out of the night (1994) and especially Scream (1996), a reflective dimension to the horror film, thereby marking the end of its golden age.
The Claws of the Night, ultra collector’s edition blu-ray 4K UHD, Warner, €49.99. Released November 6.
