The Slayer
Has anyone seen this film and noticed the similarities between it and ANOES.
The Slayer involves a woman who is having horrible nightmares that some humanoid creature is stalking her, in the nightmares the creature has long nails and hands that look like they could be burnt. and there is a shillouette shot of the monster with the hand and long nails which looks exactly like the ones Wes Craven uses in ANOES.Also she tries to keep herself from falling asleep at one point burining herself with a cigarrette and boards herself up in a house at the end for the final showdown. and there is a scene where a guy is being killed and then dragged along the ground by the dream monster who is invisible, just like the girl in the bag being dragged through the school in ANOES.
The Slayer was released in 1981 3 years before ANOES, I think maybe Wes Craven saw this and perhaps borrowed a little from it
😉
Here's what Hysteria-Lives.co.uk had to say :
"THE SLAYER
(1981,US)
...A very good, creepy, atmospheric movie that thematically pre-dates Wes Craven's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984), by a number of years- but hasn't got a teen in sight!. A writer is haunted by dreams of 'the slayer', dreams which become to take shape in reality- with fatal results. Good gory fun. ...Re-released with cuts."
"But what probably piqued my interest most on second viewing was the similarities between this film and Wes Craven’s ,(much later), A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984). Both movies have a monster that comes alive and can only affect reality when someone is asleep (although ‘The Slayer’ is silent and only fleetingly seen threat (until the very end), as opposed to the wise cracking ‘Freddy’). And both movies have a heroine that, aware of this fact, desperately tries to stay awake by any means necessary- in THE SLAYER she tells her husband, "I know this sounds crazy but sometimes just as I’m drifting off to sleep I feel that...when I wake up my real life will be gone, my dreams will have taken its place..." and she keeps telling herself towards the end, "Stay awake, Stay AWAKE!". I’m not belittling Craven’s film, which is justifiably regarded as a classic, but it does make you wonder if he saw Cardone’s film and he was a ‘inspired’ in any way?"
www.hysteria-lives.co.uk/hysterialives/Hysteria/the_slayer.html