“Women in Horror Month” Spotlight: Heather Langenkamp

February 9, 2015

Written by Fox Emm

Fox is a freelance writer and editor whose work can be found on several sites (bloggingonward.com, gorestruly.com, wickedhorror.com, and this one!) She's a movie, comic, book, and tech reviewer and overall horror fiend. Pet enthusiast. X-files fan. Small sentence writer. Her multi-author horror anthology is out on Amazon: https://getbook.at/badneighborhoodpaperback

Heather Langenly

If you don’t know the name Heather Langenkamp, then odds are you don’t know your 1980s slasher films, which basically means we can’t be friends. (You think I’m joking, don’t you?) In the above photo from New Line Cinema, you see Heather Langenkamp as the sassy Nancy Thompson. In case you still are drawing a blank (or if this particular photo reminds you too much of Emma Watson as Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series, as it did me.), I present to you the most compelling exhibit:

Freddy & Nancy

Heather Langenkamp was that Nancy Thompson. She returned to the role that made her famous several times since the initial Nightmare on Elm Street film in 1984. She returned in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and again in 1994 for Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (aka. A Nightmare on Elmstreet 7: New Nightmare/New Nightmare.) She also was the narrator of, and appeared in, the 2010 documentary about the Nightmare on Elm Street series called Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. Langenkamp is one of my favorite classic slasher Scream Queens, and her portrayal of Nancy, alongside Neve Campbell’s portrayal of Sidney Prescott from the Scream film series, did a lot to aid the growth of my love of 80s and 90s horror.

Of course over the years, Langenkamp has filled in various other films and television shows. She appeared in the 1989 film Shocker shortly after her first two appearances as Nancy Thompson, filmed her own documentary by the name of I am Nancy about her experience as a horror icon, and she also performed in the more recent 2012 release, The Butterfly Room.  She even appeared in American Horror Story: Freakshow in the episode Test Your Strength for which she was not credited.

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