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'Nightmare on Elm Street' Gets Gallery Treatment in Chelsea

By DNAinfo Staff on February 24, 2011 5:09pm  | Updated on February 24, 2011 5:04pm

By Tara Kyle

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — Wes Craven's 1980s horror classic "Nightmare on Elm Street" may have kept a generation of kids awake at night, but now, one Chelsea gallery is offering an art house homage.

Seven-minute film "N.O.E., "the work of German artist Markus Draper, is composed exclusively of recreated scenes outside a fictitious Ohio home from the movie. To do so, the painter and filmmaker spent nearly six months recreating scale models of the house of horrors out of acrylic paint and cardboard.

That film will begin a 10-day run Thursday night on a wall of the Vogt Gallery on W. 26th St. The arts space is a newcomer to West Chelsea and will celebrate its grand opening in April.

"It's not scary, absolutely that was not [Draper's] intention," said gallery owner, Johannes Vogt. "It's a completely different take, on how they transformed that house into almost a character, or actor.”

To bring that take to life, Draper hired a professional film crew and employed special effects including a fog machine, fire and artificial rain. Inside the gallery, a behind-the-scene's slideshow accompanies the film.

The film's score is a single track of 1980s style "acid house" music — tones that Vogt believes sound deeply strange to contemporary ears, but are vital to recreating the feel of the era.

For Vogt, who remembers staying up late to watch films from the franchise growing up in Munich, one favored moment is Draper's recreation of a scene at the end of the original film.

As the model house falls into ruin, flashlights shine through cracked windows at the back of the house, pulsating in step with the house music.

"You're waiting for something to happen, and it kind of lights up your viewing fantasy," Vogt said. "It has such an odd feel — I think it gives you shivers.”