I saw A Nightmare On Elm Street at the cinema when it first came out and I thought it was a pile of crap.

Not only wasn’t it scary IMHO, but the dream format was basically an irritating excuse for a load of silly things to happen without having to even pay lip service to reality.  Hence a teen Johnny Depp (no less!) gets sucked into his bed and regurgitated in a geyser of blood, or a staircase turns to a gooey mush as the heroine tries to escape up it. And so on. Ad nauseam.

So I was somewhat surprised firstly that – lets not forget, child molester/murderer –  protagonist Freddy Krueger subsequently became a jokey and much beloved pop icon, and secondly that the series begat numerous sequels and reimaginings. I was also surprised that director the late Wes Craven subsequently brought us the Scream franchise (which I DID really like).

Posters for the first Nightmare have become very collectible, especially the UK quad (which I don’t own). There’s an interesting variety of approaches taken by artists across different markets. This French version, by Gilbert Raffin, is one of the more subtle ones. This is for sale here.