Is it fair to say this movie doesn’t really hold up?

I might call it dated, but the effective parts work about as well as they always have. It's still a spooky flick.

The acting was always kinda janky, it's not really something that's gotten worse with age or anything. It was an oddly consistent thing for the first dozen or so years of Wes Craven's career: seems for him as long as you strongly conveyed your character's personality he didn't mind if your line readings were kinda stiff. By the late 80s he finally seemed to be able to get his actors to loosen up a bit.

(Heather Langenkamp in particular is actually great at portraying Nancy's determination and spunk even though she always sounds like she's reading off cue cards, lol).

Also it also helps to keep in mind that this is a borderline kids movie. Yeah, technically they targeted "teens" but they were definitely making this for the 12-16 year old range. That ain't a bad thing (it's like the most badass R-rated kids flick ever) but it was always kinda juvenile compared to, say, The Exorcist or even Alien, and that was by design.

No, you're just a smug cunt.

It’s a fun well-paced romp with cool effects, scares, gore and imagination… but the ‘rules’ seem inconsistent, like Craven is pulling the film out of his ass as it goes along, and yeah the acting is a bit ropey, but it’s a B-horror so that’s fine with me.

I came to it late and was hoping for something of the quality of Scream, it definitely falls short of that but has its own charm.

Nope. After watching a lot of the awful crap that's being produced nowadays, I would say it has only gotten better with age.

The acting, for a low-budget horror movie in 1984, is actually pretty good. The only painful one is Ronee Blakley, who acts like
she's on a soap opera. Other than that, everyone else is fine.

Wes Craven was a master of horror, and this is one of his greatest films, no matter what decade it is.

I don't agree. Now if you were talking about 4, 5, or Freddy's Dead, I'd say those haven't aged as well. By part 4 Freddy became too jokey.