When quizzed as to whom are the classic characters in Hollywood horror, one of the first three names to be uttered will doubtless be Freddy Kreuger, the ultimate villain and main attraction of A Nightmare On Elm Street.

Freddy is an evil child killer. He appears in the form of a bogeyman in the dreams of children, brandishing knives for fingers on his gloved hand. But the children don't know where he came from or why he wants them.

We follow the kids as they struggle to work out why they are all sharing dreams about the same bogeyman and even more disturbingly, how its possible that the injuries he inflicts in their sleep are there when they awake.

Whether it's the horror of the story, or the horror of what's on screen that gets you the most, this is a film that's guaranteed to scare. It's one of the movies that helped write the rulebook on the slasher movie.

While it may have spawned a large number of sequels and Freddy became somewhat of a celebrity in his own right, the original is pure horror, and like all good horror movies, the monster remains hidden for much of the film.

There are many horror films today battling for originality yet this one stands head and shoulders above the crowd even 20 years on, with only Halloween and Friday the 13th coming close.