I'd bet my left testicle that you could ask almost anyone - family, friend, or stranger - who Freddy Krueger is and you'd get a response at least as elementary as "That guy that kills kids in their dreams." No matter if you're the type who's into touchy-feely movies, art-house cinema, or glossy teeny-bopping crapola, you can't deny the fact that, as much as you hate it, Freddy has become as pervasive in pop culture as Mickey Mouse.
When I heard that a remake of Freddy's exploits was on its way, I was skeptical, to say the VERY least. They even went so far as to re-cast the role, which at the time felt like Grand Theft Character (Robert Englund IS Freddy Krueger). Then the news that Jackie Earle Haley was taking over the role dropped, and it intrigued me... after all, his turn as Rorschach in the Watchmen adaptation was Oscar-worthy, in my opinion. After I saw the first teaser trailer, I was sold. And, believe you me, I'm a hard sell when it comes to remakes of movies I love.
A few years ago, I wrote an essay on the history of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise for my movie site in celebration of the release of Freddy vs. Jason, so I thought now would be as appropriate a time as any to break it out, spruce it up, and release it to a new audience. After all, isn't that what they're doing with the new film?
Submitted for your approval... the history of Frederick Charles Krueger!
In December 1941, the patients lodged in the criminally insane ward of the Westin Hills hospital in Springwood, Ohio brutally gang-raped nurse Amanda Krueger after she was accidentally locked inside with them for an entire weekend. The next year, "the bastard son of a hundred maniacs" was born. By the age of ten, Freddy was already showing signs of his maladjusted psyche by playing alone and brutalizing small animals.
The next year, Freddy was made a ward of the state after attacking his mother with a butcher knife. For the few years following the incident, Freddy was sent to live in many foster homes and was picked on at school. He was eventually sent back to live with Amanda, which didn't last long... beating and raping your mother will make sure you don't get to live at home for very long, after all.
As was the custom in those days, these childhood/teenage incidents were swept under the rug, and Freddy was able to get a job as the janitor at Springwood High School. While working there, he met his future wife Loretta. During the first few years of their marriage, Freddy held up the front of family man while occasionally raping prostitutes (which sounds kind of difficult, if you ask me, but I digress). In June 1966, Freddy and Loretta had a daughter named Katherine. This prompted Freddy to attempt to reform, and for a little over a year he succeeded.
From 1967 until 1971, Freddy set out on a mission to murder every child in Springwood. That September, Loretta busted Freddy by checking out exactly what he had been doing in the basement of their quaint little home. It shouldn't surprise anyone that he murdered Loretta, but he didn't count on Katherine witnessing it. She subsequently turned Freddy in, but Freddy fled the authorities while Katherine was moved to a foster home.
Between the Septembers of '71 and '74, Freddy killed ten more children before finally being busted by Lieutenant Donald Thompson. Much to the chagrin of the parents of Springwood, Freddy was released on a technicality when it was discovered that his arrest warrant was signed in the wrong place. The night of his release, a mob of angry parents tracked Freddy down and trapped him in his boiler room torture chamber, burning him alive. Thompson and the other parents hid Freddy's remains in the trunk of a car buried deep inside an auto graveyard, never speaking of the incident again.
In the decade that followed Freddy's murder, the only thing going on in Springwood was the maturation of the angry parents' children into supple young teenagers. As we find out in Freddy's Dead, Krueger sold his soul to become a "dream demon" before his death, and he decides that 1984 would be as good a time as any to begin his quest for revenge on the people who killed him by getting at their children where they couldn't be protected.
It all goes according to plan, until Lt. Thompson's daughter Nancy thwarts Freddy by discovering that she can pull him into the real world and defeat him just like any other human. It seems that all is well, once again, but, as we well know, that wasn't the case. In the next installment, Freddy's Revenge, Krueger tries to re-enter our world by possessing Jesse Walsh, whose family now lives in the Thompsons' old house. With the help of his girlfriend Lisa, Jesse is able to purge Freddy from his body.
This by no means kept Freddy from trying to get up to his old tricks once again in The Dream Warriors. Nancy, the heroine from the first film, is now a psychiatrist specializing in dream therapy. While working with a group of hospitalized children (all of whom once lived on Elm Street), she discovers that they are facing Freddy in their dreams. Her and her colleague Neil recommend that the children be put on Hypnocil (a dream suppressant), but they're overruled by the hospital brass and fired.
This prompts Nancy to work with the children, helping them realize that they can use "dream powers" to face-off with the ethereal badass, just as she did in the first film. Freddy kidnaps mute patient Joey, so Nancy leads an excursion into the dream world with the help of Kristen (one of Patricia Arquette's first film roles), whose power is the ability to pull others into her dreams.
While Nancy and the kids battle Freddy in the dream world, Neil (at the behest of Amanda Krueger's ghost) forces her father to help him bury Freddy's earthly remains. Nancy and Donald become casualties in the end, but it seems that the kids and Neil are able to put Freddy's reign of terror to an end for good. But, of course, Freddy returns once again in The Dream Master. Before Freddy finally gets to Kristen, she passes her dream power to her friend Alice.
Unbeknownst to Alice, Freddy uses her naiveté to lure new fodder into his realm. She eventually learns that her dream power is that she is the guardian of the gate of good dreams (Freddy being the guardian of the nightmares, obviously). She releases the souls of all the children Freddy ever killed, seemingly defeating him once and for all and leaving her and her boyfriend Dan to live happily ever after.
The Dream Child marks the return of Alice and Freddy, who is now trying to get back into the real world through the dreams of Alice's unborn child. In her dreams, Alice is informed by Amanda that the only way to defeat Freddy is to help put her soul to rest. Not knowing what she means by this, Alice and her friends (who don't believe her stories about Krueger) are terrorized until only she and her friend Yvonne are left.
Yvonne is saved by Amanda in her nightmare, which causes her to finally believe Alice. While Alice fights with Freddy in the dream world, Yvonne treks to Westin Hills to find the remains of Amanda, whose body was hidden somewhere on the grounds. Once Yvonne does this, Amanda is able to help Alice finish Freddy off once again. Alice has her child, Jacob, and her, her father, and Yvonne move away from Springwood (the smartest thing anyone's done in the entire series).
As we all know, Alice didn't really rid this or any other world of Freddy. When Freddy's Dead begins, ten years has passed since the last film, and he has finally succeeded in killing off every child in Springwood. That's not good enough for the psycho, of course, and he tries using his daughter Katherine (who has no memory of who she is) as a way to leave the confines of Springwood to hunt elsewhere. Of course, Katherine doesn't go for it, discovers that she too has the power to pull things out of her dreams, and puts daddy dearest down for good with a convenient stick of dynamite.
In what proves to be the best, and most original, of the entire series, New Nightmare marks the return of Freddy, but in a whole new way. Freddy is pissed off that he was put to rest in the previous Nightmare on Elm Street sequel (who wouldn't be pissed off at that?). So, when Freddy learns that Heather Langenkamp has turned down the chance to return as Nancy in a new Nightmare sequel, he decides to terrorize and kill the cast and crew of the original film as well as Nancy's family. Heather wins in the end, killing Freddy the same way he was originally killed in the fictional Nightmare (burning him alive).
In Freddy vs. Jason, a lot of time has passed since Freddy was put down in Freddy's Dead, and the citizens of Springwood have erased any and all traces of Freddy's existence by locking up the children who remember Freddy in Westin Hills, and keeping the other ones in the dark about him. We find out that the fear of Freddy is what fueled his powers as a dream demon all along, so, to help the kids remember him, he searches the bowels of Hell for someone he can send to Springwood that is as good at killing teenagers as he was (which will make everyone believe Freddy's returned in the process, thus returning his powers to him). Naturally, he can find no one more suited for the job than Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees.
There's just one problem: Jason doesn't want to stop killing once Freddy gets his powers back. This leads the protagonists (one of them who, once again, has the power to bring things out of her dreams) to instigate a fight between the two at Jason's home turf of Camp Crystal Lake. Jason seems to win the battle in the end, but Freddy winks at us all, letting us know that we'll never truly be rid of him no matter who takes him out.
Whether the new film is comparable to the Halloween remake or to the Dawn of the Dead one remains to be seen, but, like those, we have the originals to look back upon fondly. While I'm hoping that Jackie Haley fills the rather huge glove of Robert Englund, it'll never change fact that the original Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the greatest horror films of all-time, and I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane (Elm Street?) as much as I did.
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