Harvard researcher Bill Pullman is dispatched to Haiti to investigate a drug that turns people into zombies and finds more than he’d bargained for. Inspired by actual events, the film balances some truly gruesome imagery with psychological tension as the waning days of the “Baby Doc” dictatorship send the island toward chaos. Among the support cast, Zakes Mokae is unforgettable as the fearsome chief of the Tonton Macoute.

Wes Craven created one of his most famous movie milestones with this supremely entertaining horror opus, melding influences from Polanski to Buñuel to Argento to achieve a bizarrely subversive box office hit. NIGHTMARE… went on to become a certifiable goldmine of a franchise and ushered in surrealism to the masses. Dead child-killer/dream demon Freddie Krueger (Robert Englund) proves a formidable homicidal anti-hero but finds a more than worthy opponent in feisty, brainy teen Heather Langenkamp. With Johnny Depp, John Saxon and Ronee Blakely.