A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

This week, the dads dive into A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Wes Craven's slasher masterpiece that introduced the world to Freddy Krueger and his very particular brand of sleep therapy. Steve—who's been a horror devotee since begging his mom to take him to Gremlins at age 4—picked this one to kick off their Shocktoberfest theme month, while Nic admits he stayed away from slashers until college, traumatized by an ill-advised childhood viewing of Pet Sematary. Both hosts marvel at how Freddy became such a cultural icon that kids trick-or-treated as him before ever seeing the films, complete with that jump-rope chant everyone somehow knew.

The conversation digs into what made this film revolutionary: the dream logic that feels genuinely universal, those stairs that won't let you run, the walls pushing through like fabric, the way reality keeps slipping. They geek out over the practical effects—that rotating room murder, the bed eruption requiring more blood than exists in the human body, all on a shoestring $1.8 million budget that somehow returned 31 times its cost. Steve points out the moral undertones running through these slashers, the unspoken rules about who survives. They both appreciate Heather Langenkamp's Nancy as a genuinely smart protagonist who figures out the rules and actually tries tactical solutions, even if Johnny Depp's Glenn keeps falling asleep on the job. The hosts also explore the darker subtext: a town that collectively committed vigilante justice, then buried the truth, leaving their kids vulnerable to supernatural blowback.

This is classic 2 Dads territory—two guys who can appreciate both the craftsmanship and the cheese, who know these films cold but still get a kick out of revisiting them. They're here for the crop tops on dudes, the talking watches, the priest who absolutely roasts a dead teenager at his own funeral. It's a love letter to the movie that made an entire generation afraid to sleep, delivered by two dads who clearly never outgrew it.