A Nightmare on Elm Street/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Why does Freddy kill in a boiler room in the remake?

  • It could be a reference to him being the groundskeeper and apparent maintenance man of the pre-school, but the basement of that place... just looked like a generic basement. Its unlikely its a reference to the place where he died either, since the building the parents chased him into just looked like a storage shed of some sort.
    • Because...well, just because fans would not be happy if it was anything other than a boiler room?
  • I saw a bunch of pipes and stuff there. Also, Rule of Scary.

What happened to Alice?

  • She survived the fifth movie and then was never mentioned again. What happened?
    • What's important is that she and her son survived. If she had returned, it would most likely have been only a matter of time before she ended up meeting the same fate as Nancy, more for predictable writerly reasons than in-universe ones. (Originally the protagonist of "Freddy's Dead" was going to turn out to be her son, but that plan was scrapped.) I'm glad that Freddy has at least one long-time major enemy in this continuity with a record two wins/escapes to zero losses over him. It's a refreshing change. Let her live her life in peace, I say.
    • She and Jacob have appeared in several Expanded Universe stories (which tend to ignore each other, so she's died twice); they are Innovations Nightmares on Elm Street comics, the Black Flame book Perchance to Dream, the Wildstorm series Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors, and "Dead Highway, Lost Roads" (a short story from The Nightmares on Elm Street: Freddy's Krueger's Seven Sweetest Dreams).

Why was Springwood just fine in Freddy vs. Jason?

  • In the sixth movie, Springwood was a town full of insane parents because all of the kids had been killed by Freddy. When Freddy vs. Jason starts up, the town seems normal enough, if not a little freaky about Freddy coming back. Did they just pretend the sixth movie never happened? On that note, who renovated 1428 Elm Street? It was a total wreck ever since the third movie.
    • Presumably there was a cover-up. Just try to roll with it.
    • The text in the begining of the 6th movie says it takes place "Ten years from now". Assuming this doesn't mean "Ten years from 1991 when this movie was released" and is instead intended to be relative to the viewer, then Freddy's Dead hasn't happened yet, just like Jason X.

Why does Freddy need the glove?

  • I mean, he can do pretty much anything he wants in the dream world. Why would he need any kind of weapon? Wouldn't he be able to just turn his fingers into claws if he really wanted to? Wouldn't he be able to turn his entire body into a set of claws if he really wanted to?
    • Why does Freddy need a hat? Why does Freddy wear a red and green sweater? Why doesn't Freddy have perfect skin and flowing hair, when he can take any form? Because that's how he likes it, I guess. He used the glove when he was alive, even though I'm sure there were other weapons available. Could have used a gun, or a chainsaw, or a hammer. Instead he made a cool glove. He's always been more about style than body count. The glove is stylish. It's Rule of Cool meets Rule of Scary.
    • Freddy has obviously grown attached to his favorite murder weapon, just as people sometimes become fond of the power tools, vacuum cleaner, teddy bear, etc. that they've had for a long time. This was what he was using to kill people since long before he died--or a replica of it, anyway. He's used to it and he enjoys it.

Glen died naturally? Yeah right!

  • From what I can gather, if Freddy kills a victim in their dreams, real-world witnesses would see it as a natural death (i.e. Tina murdered by Rod since he was in the room at the time, Rod hanging himself, Sheila suffering asthma attack, etc.)...so how could Glen's death in the first film (dragged into the bed and shot out in a geyser of blood) be explained as a non-Freddy involvement?
    • They probably never technically found a body, just a huge amount of blood that matched Glen's blood type. As for how they explained it, that's where the Weirdness Censor first began to kick in. Since so many of the pillars of Springwood's community played a part in Freddy's death, they really, really don't want to believe he's somehow come back; even Nancy's dad, who visited the the crime scene and had already heard about the dreams from Nancy, still didn't want to believe it. My guess is the police report just got tossed into the back of a filing cabinet and nobody ever brought it up again (especially since her father, who eventually did accept the truth, assumed that Freddy was beaten after the first movie).
    • To elaborate what the previous troper wrote, and referring to only the original movie, I think that the authorities and witnesses are likely assuming that the deaths (including Glen's) happened in a non-supernatural way, even if they have no idea what else could have caused them. Horror movie characters, particularly in settings like this, aren't Genre Savvy enough to consider supernatural causes, and the first movie takes place long before the people of Springwood finally realize and accept that Freddy is real. I don't think it's ever stated or implied that real-world witnesses see anything different than what the audience is directly shown.
      • Tina's death, in particular, would have looked pretty strange to investigators; it wouldn't take a blood-spatter analyst to see that the blood on the wall and the ceiling included streaks, not just splashes, and if I recall correctly, when Tina was dropped back onto the bed, it caused blood to splash on to Rod (either from hitting a pool of blood or just plain splattering). Nevertheless, as improbable as it may be that Rod made the cuts, made the knife vanish without a trace, pushed Tina's bleeding and thrashing body up the wall and onto the ceiling while screaming hysterically, and splattered her onto the bed, that's still a more likely scenario than the idea of a long-dead quasi-corporeal demonic serial killer with dream powers doing it.
      • Rod immediately goes on the run, which looks a bit suspicious, no?
      • Rod's death would have been pretty easy to explain, under the circumstances.
      • The death of Nancy's mom had to have looked pretty crazy. I can only imagine it was explained away as being the result of her falling asleep with a lit cigarette--one that managed to engulf the bed, and only the bed, in flames, and quickly reduce her body into a meaty skeleton. That scene, in particular, was probably the one that led to Nancy's father later realizing Nancy was right about Freddy Krueger.
        • In response to what the previous troper said about nancy's mother, the second movie reveals that Nancy supposedly was driven insane by watching glen's death and her mother was said to have commited suicide. Considering that nancy's mother was a notorious alchoholic, it probably made sense to the populace of springwood.
      • As for how Glen's death would be explained...I dare say the event was probably downplayed in the official report and dismissed as unsolvable.
        • A scene was deleted of glen's body rising from the bed either burnt or blood stained,but almost unscathed. Maybe he was found electrocuted and the blood was just an illusion by freddy. or he cut an artery.
    • Regarding the sequels, particularly those up to part 5, the series did eventually get to the point where the dream deaths were considerably different than the deaths as they appeared in the real world, especially since the movies turned more and more to elaborate sets, themes and effects for each of the kills, and Freddy was progressively Flanderized into a wise-cracking, pun-spewing comedian. Even the 80's audiences eventually got to the point where they considered the complete Genre Blindness of Springwood's adults an Ass Pull, given the repeated reports of Freddy's likeness from friends of the victims during those periods of egregious deaths-by-coincidence that would occasionally plague the town. This is probably the main reason why New Nightmare used a completely different continuity, and both Freddy's Dead and Freddy Vs. Jason (mostly) dropped the adults-in-denial theme.

Freddy killed every kid in Springwood? How?

  • It was established in Part 3 that Freddy could only invade the dreams of the children of the lynch mob. In Part 4 and 5 the only way Freddy could attack anyone else was by proxy in Alice's (and later Jacob's) dreams. So how in the hell did Freddy somehow kill every single kid in Springwood in Freddy's Dead? The only explanation I can come up with is Ass Pull.
    • Technically, it was in ten years that he was able to pull a feat like that. Its possibly that the reason why Freddy was strong in FD was because A) he had a long time to this and B) he can invade dreams and kill people. Freddy's Revenge shown that he didn't need the lynch children anymore in order to attack, when proclaimed that the teens at the party were all his children now. Freddy can attack teenagers in their sleep, thus making Springwood into a ghost town by FD.
      • Freddy's Revenge mostly became a case of Canon Discontinuity afterward though. Dream Warriors re-established Freddy's ability to only target the Elm Street kids. It was only after Alice inherited Kristen's power (which, we can assume, was corrupted when that energy passed through him before reaching her) that he was able to touch anybody else, since Alice's dreams would bring them right to him. Freddy's entire plan in Part 5 was for the very reason that he needed an intermediary (Jacob) to continue killing. FD pretty much seemed to retcon that plot point entirely.
      • Always assumed Freddy could go into anyone's dreams, but just went after the children of those who killed him first. The only reason he needed Alice and Jacob in The Dream Master and The Dream Child was because he was weak and contained, and needed to act through them.
      • The theory that Freddy vs. Jason is an interquel between Dream Child and Freddy's Dead got me to thinking about this one. Freddy can only go after people who know and are afraid of him in that movie but, apart from Nancy briefly referring to the idea in the first movie, that didn't really seem to hold in the other movies. Maybe that rule's a new tactic on his part. He always fed on fear, but he didn't originally need it. At first, his dream-stalking rules confined him to the Elm Street kids. Once they'd died, he needed Alice's powers to get around them and keep killing and, when he lost her, he used Jacob instead. When he lost both of them, he had to find another way out, and that's when he figured out that he could spread through people's fear of him. But the parents also realized that, and they managed to cover up his existence completely for awhile, which kept the town safe. But then Freddy vs. Jason happened and, since now so many of the Springwood kids know about Freddy again (and every new victim just adds to the domino effect), things quickly fell apart and the town was decimated.
    • The Your Belief Makes It Real loophole he used to come back and kill anyone he liked in an area that's afraid of him was not just some brand new sudden Ass Pull: Joey explicitly brings up the possibility in Part IV.
    • As for Freddy's Revenge, which isn't Canon Discontinuity as much as some fans might wish it, I read somewhere that per Word of God, after his defeat in the first movie, Freddy's spirit was confined to 1428 Elm Street, where he was able to possess Jesse and go after whoever he wanted using him as the conduit. His defeat at the end of that film freed him from the house but put the "Elm Street kids" restriction back on him, leading into Dream Warriors.

Why did Nancy pulling Freddy out of the Dream World not work in the first Nightmare, but it worked in Freddy's Dead?

  • Was it because Nancy's mother was asleep and Freddy was able to go back into the Dream World, whereas in Freddy's Dead, there was nobody close enough who was asleep?
    • You're all thinking too hard. Freddy's using magic, not science. With no laws of reality to weigh him or the "dream demons" down. They can pretty much change the rules whenever they want.
      • They're still rules. If Freddy could just break out and kill whoever he wanted when he damn well felt like it, it mostly defeats the entire purpose of parts 3-5.
    • And the reason Freddy revives himself in a different way each time is because the previous thing failed. If this troper were Freddy, he would definitely rule that possessing someone was a bad idea after Elm Street 2.
    • Remember that Nancy didn't kill Freddy when she brought him out. She tried Talking the Monster to Death, Freddy tried to tackle her and he vanished in mid-jump. Though this was presented as a victory for her when it happened, in light of the Twist Ending and the sequels, Freddy probably just slipped back into the dream world. He's probably not "stable" in the real world: once he's human you have to kill him fast before he disappears again.

What are the limits of Freddy's powers?

  • If he is limited to Springwood...
    • Is it because he is a "local" monster, and therefore known only to the people of this town?
    • Can he attack visitors to the town, like someone staying at a motel at Springwood between Point A and Point B? Would they only be vulnerable if they'd heard the legend of Fred Krueger?
      • It depends on which point in the series it is, since Freddy keeps finding new ways to go after people. During the first three movies, if your parents weren't involved in torching him, you're safe. During the fourth and fifth movie, you're probably safe as long as you're not friends with Alice Johnson (since, long story short, he was using her as a focal point and going after people she knew). During Freddy vs Jason, you're probably safe as long as you've never heard of Freddy, but if you do know about him, you might be dead. If you go to Springwood at all during the sixth movie then you're probably screwed no matter what, since by that point he seems to control everything within its borders.
    • Why don't people move the hell away?
      • I don't see why he would be limited to Springwood, just the people who know about him, so moving away wouldn't help them at all, it would only help more people find out about him, making more people vulnerable.
        • He's bound to Springwood according to Freddy's Dead, though Freddy vs Jason contradicts that (the heroes of FvJ never tested their theory that running wouldn't help, so they could just be wrong, or maybe once you've already been targeted leaving won't help anymore). Going by Freddy's Dead, there's a mystical boundary in place, though hitchhiking in Maggie's body allowed him cross over it. As for people leaving, by Freddy's Dead (set "10 years from now," which could mean 2001 or 2021 depending on how you read it) Springwood's become a ghost town save for the adult victims who've gone insane and are pretty much Freddy's puppets. I don't know if you can save yourself by leaving town, but a lot of people must have tried to have reduced Springwood to that state.
  • If he isn't...
    • Can he attack people who have never heard of him?
      • At first he could only attack the children of the parents who killed him. A plot point in the fourth movie allowed him to start killing all the Springwood kids, but he was stuck in the town until the sixth movie.
    • Is there any true defense against him aside from fatal familial insomnia or buttloads of caffeine?
      • Hypnocil.
        • Yeah, you can either keep taking hypnocil (a dream suppressant that causes long-term brain damage) or fight him and win. Or maybe just never go to Springwood, if you weren't born there. Otherwise, if he gets into your dreams, sooner or later you're toast.
    • Why doesn't he infect everyone's nightmares?
      • The rules. At first, he can only target the children of his killers (who mostly live on Elm Street). Then, because absorbing Kristen's powers gave him a loophole, he could target all the kids of Springwood. Then, because Maggie's arrival in Springwood gave him yet another loophole, he could go after everyone in the world (he died before he could really take advantage of that upgrade). The movie series is mostly the story of Freddy trying to find new ways of getting around the rules.
    • What "rules", if any, does he/must he follow? What imposes these rules?
      • Well, the rules limit who he can target, though he does find ways to get around them and find new victims. If you die in a dream you die in real life, though the cause of death isn't always the same. If Freddy's grabbed by a dreamer and then they wake up, he's pulled out too: when he's in the waking world, he has a few minor powers but he's more or less human and can be beaten and killed. He takes people's souls when he kills them, which gives him at least some of their memories and knowledge (which he's only too happy to use to taunt or trick their surviving friends) and which also gradually makes him more powerful (which mostly means he's a more powerful dream-warper, and he can influence waking reality in more drastic ways, such as making the rest of the world forget that his victims ever existed). And his effective range for new victims seems to be Springwood itself (though once you've become his target, leaving town might be useless).
      • As for where the rules come from, good question. Whatever it is that allowed him to come back for revenge also puts mystical limits on just how he can go about getting revenge. The series as a whole says he's the guardian of the gate to the world of nightmares, chosen right before he died by the "dream demons" to serve as their emissary. The rules must be whatever metaphysical rules someone who's put in that role and given those powers has to follow. Freddy, of course, is constantly trying to Rules Lawyer his way around those limits so he can kill more and more people.

Freddy's death scene in New Nightmare

In New Nightmare, Freddy get shoved into an "oven" and then before he dies he turns into... the devil? Did I miss something where Freddy became a demon that only Ray Harryhausen could love?

    • It's stated in New Nightmare that "Freddy" is a demon that has taken the form of the Freddy from the films and that the only way to prevent him from entering the "real world" (Well, the fictional version of the real world as portrayed in the flm...don't ask.) is to keep making Nightmare On Elm Street movies.

Confusion over "K. Kreuger".

In Freddy's Dead, the characters are misled into believing that one of the teens is Freddy's long-lost child, but it really turns out that it's their adult therapist. However, they'd seen newspaper clippings that documented when Freddy's arrest and lynch-mob demise took place, which ought to have given them a good idea of the age of his kid. So why didn't anyone notice that their initial candidate was a dozen-odd years too young to have been K. Kreuger? Especially given that the film takes place "ten years from now" (i.e. from when the viewer watches the film), meaning that by now he's too young to have been conceived before Freddy's death.


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