The Nightmare on Elm Street series is one of the most iconic horror series in history. It was created by Wes Craven in 1984 with Robert Englund portraying the character for the majority of the series and Jackie Earl Haley in the reboot. The series depicts the efforts of teenagers and young adults o stop a mysterious specter named Freddy Kreuger who haunts and kills them in their nightmares. As of now, the series consist of nine movies including a crossover with the Friday the 13th series and a reboot.
The series was created in the 80s, and like a lot of series that originated in that time, it lacks consistency, the story goes in crazy directions, and generally the horror element fades and focuses more on humor. The purpose of this post is to compartmentalize the overall story, improve on characters, and form consistency in the face of really bad writing. The titles of the films will be A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy’s Revenge, and A Nightmare on Elm Street: New Nightmare.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
In March 1981, Tina Gray awakens from a nightmare wherein she is attacked by a disfigured man wearing a blade-fixed glove. The following morning, Tina is consoled by her boyfriend Rod Land, her best friend Nancy Thompson and Nancy’s boyfriend Glen Lantz. But it’s revealed that a student named Joey Crusel was found drowned in his waterbed and Ron Grady was found with claw marks through him. The cops are investigating the deaths. One day in class, their classmate Sheila Kopecky, falls asleep in class and has an asthma attack and dies. While her mother goes out of town, Rod spends the night at Tina’s house along with Nancy and Glen. When Tina falls asleep, the disfigured man chases Tina. Rod is awoken by Tina’s thrashing and sees her dragged and fatally slashed by an unseen force, forcing him to flee as Nancy and Glen awaken to find Tina bloodied and dead.
The next day, Rod is arrested by Nancy’s father Don Thompson despite his pleas of innocence. Afterwards, Nancy’s estranged friend Jesse Walsh approaches her with his condolences and the two mend their friendship. Jesse’s friend Ron had died recently under similar circumstances. At school, Nancy falls asleep in class and a burned man, who calls himself Freddy, chases her. She burns her arm on a pipe which awakens her in class. Nancy goes to Rod at the police station, who recounts Tina’s deaths along with his own nightmares. Later on, that day comic book fan Mark Gray is found cut to pieces. At home, Nancy falls asleep in the bathtub and is nearly drowned by Freddy. She then sees Freddy prepare to kill Rod in his cell. Nancy awakens and she and Glen go to the police station only to discover Rod’s body hanging in his cell.
At Rod’s funeral, Nancy’s parents become worried when she describes her dreams about Freddy. Jesse’s mother, Cheryl Walsh, takes him to a sleep disorder clinic where, in a dream, Jesse grabs Freddy’s fedora and pulls it from the dream into reality.
Marge reveals to Nancy that Krueger was an insane child murderer who was released on a technicality and then burned alive by parents living on their street seeking vigilante justice. Nancy realizes that Krueger, now a vengeful ghost, desires revenge and to satiate his psychopathic needs. Nancy tries to call Glen to warn him but his father prevents her from speaking to him. Glen falls asleep and is killed by Krueger.
Jesse contacts Nancy and they decide to pull Krueger out of the dream world and kill him in the real world. Both rig booby traps around the house. Jesse tries to stay awake long enough to pull Nancy out of her dream when she grabs Krueger, but he falls asleep and is attacked. Krueger goes after Nancy and explains that he deliberately left her for last so she would stay awake long enough to become comatose. He also reveals how he killed the other teens. Nancy manages to grab Krueger and he chases her. The booby traps affect Krueger enough that Nancy is able to light him on fire and lock him in the basement.
Nancy rushes to the door for help. Jesse arrives to find that Krueger has escaped from the basement. They hear Marge scream and Nancy and Jesse go upstairs to find a burning Krueger smothering Marge in her bedroom. After Jesse puts out the fire, Krueger and Marge vanish into the bed. Krueger then rises from the bed in front of Nancy and Jesse. They realize that Krueger is powered by his victim’s fear and they calmly turn their back to him. Krueger evaporates when he attempts to lunge at them. The two turn to see that Marge is fine and proceed to make their way out of the front door into the bright and foggy morning towards the police lights.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy’s Revenge
The story picks up six years after the events of the first film. Teenager Kristen Parker dreams she is being chased by Freddy Krueger. When Kristen wakes up, she goes to the bathroom, and is again attacked by Freddy who causes her to slice her wrist with a straight razor. Believing Kristen to be suicidal, her mother admits her to Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, where she is placed under the care of Dr. Maggie Burrough. At the hospital, Kristen fights against the orderlies who try to sedate her because she is afraid of falling asleep. The new intern therapist, Nancy Thompson, calms her down and earns her trust.
Nancy works as an intern therapist at the Westin Hills Mental Institution for teens and is pregnant with Jesse’s baby, although Jesse is away on business. While Nancy is in her office Dean comes in and after saying nothing cuts his own throat.
Nancy is introduced to the rest of Dr. Maggie Burrough’s patients: Phillip, a habitual sleepwalker; Kincaid, a tough kid from the streets who is prone to violence; Jennifer, a hopeful television actress prone to cigarette burns; Will, who uses a wheelchair because of a prior suicide attempt; Taryn, a recovering drug addict; Carlos who has hearing problems, and Joey, the youngest, who is too traumatized to speak.
One night, Kristen is attacked in her dreams by Freddy but she unwittingly pulls Nancy into her dream; this allows both of them to escape. Kristen reveals that she has had the ability to pull people into her dreams since she was a little girl. Over the next two nights, Freddy throws Phillip off a roof and kills Jennifer by smashing her head into a television.
In their next group session, Nancy reveals to the remaining patients that they are the last surviving children of the people who banded together and burned Krueger to death many years ago. Both Nancy and Maggie encourage them to try group hypnosis so that they can experience a shared dream and discover their dream powers. In the dream, Joey wanders off and is captured by Freddy, leaving him comatose in the real world; Nancy and Maggie are relieved of duty. Krueger reveals himself to Nancy. Taryn, Kincaid, and Kristen talk to Nancy about Krueger. Nancy learns that Krueger is using her baby’s dreams to manifest while in the store he shifts between the dream world and the real world.
Maggie is told by a nun, Sister Mary Helena, that Freddy is the son of a young woman on the hospital staff who was accidentally locked in a room with dozens of mental patients who raped her continually during a riot before the hospital was burned down and rebuilt, and that the only way to stop him is to lay his bones to rest. She and Nancy ask Nancy’s father, Officer Donald Thompson, where the bones are hidden, but he is uncooperative. Nancy rushes back to the hospital when she learns that Kristen has been sedated. Maggie stays behind to convince Donald to help them.
Nancy and the others again engage in group hypnosis to reunite with Kristen but are all separated by Freddy. Taryn, Carlos, and Will are killed by Freddy while Kristen, Nancy, and Kincaid find one another. The trio rescue Joey but are unable to defeat Freddy because he has become too powerful. Freddy senses that his remains have been found. He takes possession of his own skeleton and kills Donald before incapacitating Maggie, though he points out something special about her.
Freddy returns to attack the others but Joey uses his dream power voice to send him away. Donald tells Nancy that he is crossing over but he is revealed to be Freddy in disguise. He stabs Nancy and prepares to kill Kristen, stabbing and killing Joey in the process, when Nancy rises up and stabs him with his own glove. Maggie awakens and pushes Krueger’s bones in a hole and douses them with holy water before dropping in the prayer cross, seemingly destroying Freddy. Nancy is taken to a hospital before she can succumb to her injuries. Jesse appears at the hospital and is told that their baby got a small cut but is okay.
At one of the teen’s funeral, Maggie sees Sister Mary Helena again and follows her; she loses sight of her but finds a tombstone that reveals her to be Amanda Krueger, Freddy’s mother. That night, Maggie goes to sleep with Kristen’s miniature version of Nancy’s Elm Street house on her nightstand; she does not notice its lights turn on.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: New Nightmare
Six years after the events of the second film Nancy and Jesse are divorced and she lives in Los Angeles, California, with their young son, Dylan. One night Dylan has a nightmare that his family is attacked by a burned man with metal claws on his hand. Waking up to Dylan’s screams, she spies a cut on his hand next to the scar he was born with.
When she returns home from work, Nancy sees Dylan starring at the wall. When she interrupts him, he has a severely traumatizing episode where he screams at her. Dylan’s strange behavior cause her to call Jesse. He agrees to rush home from his workplace out of state. Jesse falls asleep while driving and is slashed by Freddy’s claw and wrecks and is hospitalized. His accident seems to affect Dylan even further, which concerns Nancy’s friend and babysitter Julie. She suggests she seek medical attention for Dylan and herself after she has a nightmare at the hospital in which Freddy, terrorizes her and tries to take Dylan away.
Maggie has just finished having a counseling session with Spencer Lewis and Debbie Stevens but notices that the other teen is absent. She learns that Greta Gibson had die from suffocation while eating dinner with her family and guest. Later on, Spencer is playing games at home but gets sucked into the game. In the game he falls in a hole but in real life he falls off a building. Julie’s friend, Debbie is lifting weights when Freddy crushes her body with the weights. Maggie digs into Krueger’s past and learns he had a daughter. Maggie finds her adoption papers and realizes that she is Freddy’s daughter. Her birth name was Katherine Krueger. Her name was changed to Maggie Burroughs when her father was arrested and subsequently murdered.
Dylan’s health continues to deteriorate. He becomes increasingly paranoid about going to sleep, and fears Freddy Krueger. Nancy contacts Maggie and about Krueger’s return. Maggie attempts to contact Kristen but isn’t able to reach her. They decide to go see her. While driving she has a vision of herself dressed in a nun’s habit with a name-tag saying Amanda Krueger at a strange asylum. She is attacked by patients at the hospital but saved by Kristen. Freddy appears and chases Kristen and her and they are separated when they run into a crowd of patients. Freddy drags Kristen throws her into a furnace. Maggie and her boyfriend John make it to her house. Her husband, Dan, says she’s asleep. They notice there’s a fire and they see that Kristen’s bedroom is on fire with her in it.
Nancy and Maggie meet up and Maggie reveals that she’s Krueger’s daughter. After the death of her mother, she was taken into foster care and adopted but for some reason she can’t remember. This creates tension between the two but they go to Kincaid for aid. Reluctantly he refuses to help due to how dangerous Krueger is but Krueger appears in the real world incapacitating Nancy, Maggie, and Dylan, and killing Kincaid and throwing John out a window, impaling him on a gate. He cuts Dylan’s hand again before disappearing.
Nancy takes a traumatized Dylan to the hospital, where Dr. Heffner, suspecting abuse, suggests he remain under observation. While Nancy and Maggie talk to the doctor, Julie tries unsuccessfully to keep the nurses from sedating the sleep-deprived boy. Dylan falls asleep from the sedative. Freddy brutally kills Julie in Dylan’s dream by stabbing her in the stomach and snapping her neck. He cuts Dylan’s hand again.
Capable of sleepwalking, Dylan leaves the hospital of his own accord while Nancy and Maggie chase him home across the interstate as Freddy taunts and dangles him before traffic. Jesse wakes up stealing adrenaline and the three of them return home, Freddy emerges completely into reality and abducts Dylan to his world. Nancy and Maggie find a trail of Dylan’s sleeping pills and follows him to a hellish construct of Freddy’s boiler room while Jesse stays awake for them to bring him into the real world. Freddy fights off the two and chases Dylan. He reveals that he’s manifesting into the real world due to Maggie’s bloodline and Dylan’s fears. Freddy manifest and attacks Jesse.
Nancy and Maggie are wounded but manage to overpower Krueger and push Freddy into the furnace and light it. Freddy is weakened in the real world and while briefly incapacitated Jesse uses the adrenaline on Maggie. Jesse holds off Krueger as Maggie uses the other syringe on Nancy who pulls Dylan back into the real world. Jesse is wounded and nearly killed but is stopped when Maggie and Nancy attack Freddy. The two of them overpower Krueger and kill him before they torch the house with Krueger’s body inside. The four of them escape and are rescued by the police officers and firefighters, who are unable to find Krueger’s remains.
And there you have it folks. That’s Narik’s A Nightmare on Elm Street trilogy tied up in a neat little bow. In the comment section below let us know what you think of our trilogy.
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