User:DaveMuadDib/Sandbox/Freddy Krueger

Okay, so I'm having a go at rewriting the whole article, and doing so in my sandbox so I don't demolish the offical page or its edit history in the process. If you would like to contribute to my effort, please do so in the talk page. References are especially welcome :-) DaveMuadDib 04:38, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Reference:
Jabba the Hutt
Jason Voorhees (work-in-progress version)

(Note: If this page makes it to the official page, the comment marks need to be removed from the text at the start and end of this article. They're here to avoid this sandbox being categorised.)

Freddy Krueger
Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger
Portrayed by	Robert Englund
In-universe information
Race	White
Gender	Male
Affiliation	Serial Killer

This article is about the fictional character. For the Reuben single of the same name, see Freddy Kreuger (single).

Freddy Krueger is the primary fictional character from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films. He was created by Wes Craven and has been played by character actor Robert Englund in every film. In the film series, Krueger is portrayed as an undead serial killer who specifically targets children. In the original script, Freddy Krueger was a child molester — a fact which is alluded to in later installments of the series —because that was the most sick and evil pathology which Craven could imagine. The decision was made to turn him into a child murderer in order to avoid being accused of exploiting a spate of highly publicized child molestations which occurred in California around the time A Nightmare on Elm Street went into production. Craven designed Freddy as a supernatural being with the power to attack his victims from within their own dreams and nightmares; any injuries inflicted to a character in the 'dream world' - including death - are inflicted 'for real'.

Referred to primarily as Fred Krueger in the first movie, the fictional killer went on to become popularly known as 'Freddy Krueger' in the proceeding films, with his full name later revealed as Frederick Charles Krueger. Consistent In all Nightmare on Elm Street films, Freddy is recognisable by his severely burned face, a tattered red-and-green striped sweater, a dirty brown fedora hat, and his primary murder weapon: a home-made glove with knives welded to the fingertips.

In June 2003, he was ranked #40 on the American Film Institute's "100 Heroes and Villains" list.

Appearances

The character, created by Wes Craven, has appeared in a number of different media. Freddy's canon exists primarily in the official film series, but there are also a number of licensed spin-offs, including comic books, novels, and video games. While Freddy's screen time in the original 1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street film was relatively limited, he has always been the primary (and only) antagonist of the Elm Street series, and is the only character to appear in every film. As the series progressed and Freddy's popularity continued to grow with the fans, his presence in the films became increasingly focal, as did the character's tendency towards giving morbid one-liners before or after dispatching a victim.

A Nightmare on Elm Street films

A scene from A Nightmare on Elm Street

Wes Craven created Freddy Krueger as the supernatural antagonist of his 1984 film, A Nightmare on Elm Street, as a mysterious serial killer that exists only in the dream world of his victims. He is confronted by the film's protagonist Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), who temporarily defeats him at the end of the movie by turning her back on him, and therefore depriving him of his power. The film also saw the first appearance of Freddy's trademark in-film nursery rhyme, adapted from "Buckle My Shoe", that would accompany his appearance in most of the proceeding films. Usually performed by a group of ethereal schoolgirls playing skip rope, the words are as follows:

One, two, Freddy's coming for you,
Three, four, better lock your door,
Five, six, grab your crucifix,
Seven, eight, better stay up late,
Nine, ten, never sleep again.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) sees the return of Freddy Krueger after the critical and commercial success of its predecessor, but the film is criticised for its heavy deviation from Craven's original vision, ignoring a number of rules that were established in the original film. Freddy appears out of the Dream World on several occasions, and the plot revolves around his possession of the film's protagonist Jesse (Mark Patton); an idea that was abandoned in the later sequels.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) is co-written by Wes Craven, after having no contribution to the development of Part 2. Due in part to Craven's return, Dream Warriors is considered by some to be the "real" sequel to the original film, correcting or overlooking many of the events of Part 2. Aside from a storyline involving Kristen Parker's (Patricia Arquette) psychic ablities and Freddy's reunion with Nancy Thompson, a good deal of the film is devoted to expanding Freddy's back story. A mysterious nun in the film explains that Krueger's mother was trapped in a sanitarium and raped hundreds of times by the inmates, resulting in her pregnancy with Freddy, and establishing his nickname: The Bastard Son of a Hundred Maniacs. The film goes on to reveal that the nun was a ghostly apparition of Krueger's mother, Amanda. Dream Warriors also marks Freddy's evolution as a comedic figure, containing a number of trademark one-liners and elaborate death sequences.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) is a direct sequel to Part 3, and the most commercially successful film in the entire series. The film sees Freddy return from his temporary banishment, taking power from the fear of his surviving victims. Krueger kills all three young survivors from Part 3, and uses the psychic ability of Kristen Parker (This time, portrayed by Tuesday Knight) to manipulate the film's protagonist Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox) into bringing him more victims. Alice is able to dispatch Freddy by showing him his own reflection, an idea explored in the film through a fictional nursery rhyme, based on The Lord's Prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
The Master of Dreams my soul will keep.
In the reflection by my side,
Evil will see itself, and it shall die.

However, The Dream Master is the only film where Freddy is defeated by confrontation with his own reflection, and the nursery rhyme does not appear again in any of the sequels. The film continues to expand Freddy's comic nature, with his deaths becoming increasingly character-based and extravagant.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1988) sees the return of Freddy's new nemesis, Alice Johnson, and the film documents his character's attempts to return to existence through the dreams of Alice's unborn child, Jacob. The film focuses more on the story Amanda Krueger, drawing a number of symbolic parallels between her pregnancy and Alice's. The Dream Child is one of the darker sequels, but with just three victims, Freddy's bodycount is the lowest in the series at that time, although the death scenes are especially elaborate. Freddy is eventually defeated when Alice convinces her unborn son to reject the serial killer's manipulations.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) was supposedly the final entry in the Elm Street series, and has the most emphasis on comedy, with much of the film comic-book like in nature. As with Part 5, Freddy only kills three people in the film, and it is also the only film in the series where Krueger does not kill anyone with his finger-knives. Freddy's Dead makes an exceptional effort to expand on Freddy's back story, with numerous details and exploration of the character's history. (To do: Absorb elements from "origin")

Despite Freddy's 'death' in the sixth entry in the series, the character was resurrected to an extent in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). However, the film occurs in a fictitious 'real world' where the Elm Street films exist as out-of-universe motion pictures. The 'Freddy' that is depicted in the film is a representation of a greater evil, taking the form of the fictional character as it enters the 'real world' of the film.

In the character's first cross-franchise appearance, Freddy has a brief cameo in the ninth entry to the Friday the 13th slasher series, Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (1993). At the end of the film, just after Jason has been banished to hell, Freddy's gloved arm appears from the soil, pulling Jason's abandoned hockey mask into the ground. This was considered a 'teaser' to their screen confrontation, which would be eleven years in the making.

Freddy vs Jason

Freddy vs. Jason (2004) sees the 'official' resurrection of Freddy Krueger's character, who is pitted against Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th series of films, in a long-awaited crossover. The film depicts Krueger in limbo, where it is revealed that a massive cover-up operation took place to erase the public memory of Freddy (and with it, deprive him of his powers), with all newspaper and oral evidence either removed or concealed. Krueger masquerades as Jason's mother, convincing the statuesque killer to travel to Elm Street in Springwood, Ohio, so that he can resurrect the residents' fear for the exiled entity, and thus restore Krueger's supernatural powers. As the film progresses, with Jason 'stealing' Freddy's kills as his rampage continues uncontrollably, the film culminates in a showdown between the two horror icons. Jason is shown to 'win' the showdown, but the ending is left deliberately ambiguous.

A prequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street is rumoured to be in production, though little official news has been given.

Freddy's Nightmares TV series

In 1988, a syndicated television series named Freddy's Nightmares was released to capitalise on the success of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. The series began shortly after the theatrical release of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, which was the most commercially successful of the Elm Street sequels.

The series, which ran for 44 episodes, was hosted by Robert Englund in full Freddy Krueger make-up, but the series bore little relevance to his character, who served as little more than the host of the Twilight Zone-style show. One of the most notable exceptions is the first episode of the series, entitled No More Mr. Nice Guy, which gave a portrayal of Freddy's unsuccessful trial, his execution at the hands of an angry mob, and his return from the the grave. The episode also gave its own version of Freddy's 'first kill', with his supernatural murder of the police officer that lynched him in a Dentist-style nightmare. The episode was directed by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre creator Tobe Hooper, and is considered to be strictly non-canonical, partly due to the fact that it contradicts much of what was established in the Elm Street films.

The series starred a number of then-unknown actors, including Morris Chestnut, Lori Petty, and most famously, Brad Pitt. It was cancelled in 1990.

Comic Books and Novels

As well as the successful film series, Freddy's character has also appeared in a number of licensed comic books. Marvel presents: Freddy Krueger's Nightmares On Elm Street by Steve Gerber is one such release, which depicts Freddy's mother Amanda giving him away to an orphanage, his subsequent adoption at the age of one, and the constant violence that surrounded him. In Gerber's storyline, Freddy's new adoptive parents were murdered on his first night with them, and he was then kidnapped and sold on the black market to a pimp. The pimp used Freddy's youthful innocence to lure women in without arousing police suspicion. When the pimp catches a teenage Freddy with one of his girls, he slashes him with a razor blade. In the story, Freddy later gets his revenge, killing the pimp and running away. Bloodthirsty, he goes on to have dreams about murdering innocents. During his trial, he receives a psychiatric evaluation.

Another, more accepted entry in the comic series by the now-defunct Innovation Comics depicts Krueger attempting to escape Springwood (much like in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare) by using Jacob Johnson's psychic powers. This story is meant to bridge the gap between A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 and Freddy’s Dead.

Freddy has also appeared in a number of novel adaptations, particularly a series entitled Freddy Krueger's Tales Of Terror. One entry in the series, entitled "Fatal Games" and written by Bruce Richards, depicts the story of Krueger's illegitimate child, named Al (short for "Alfredrick"). In the novel, Al lived with an adoptive family, where he unknowingly teased his adoptive brother that he was Krueger's child, only for Krueger to later reveal that he actually is Al's father. In this story, Krueger was "defeated" when Al sacrificed himself and tackled the killer into a furnace. It was left unclear as to whether Al was genuinely Freddy’s son, or if Freddy was just manipulating the child into killing for him.

Other Media

Title screen from the NES Nightmare on Elm Street game

Freddy also appeared in two video game additions to the A Nightmare on Elm Street series; one for the NES in 1989 by LJN and one for DOS/Commodore 64 by Westwood Studios. Both were simply titled A Nightmare on Elm Street, and drew most of their inspiration from the third entry in the film series, Dream Warriors.

The NES version was a side-scrolling platform game that featured 'dream skills' and had the goal of collecting and destroying Freddy's remains, while the DOS/C-64 version was a more text-based game that featured many of the protagonists from the 1987 film as playable characters. The games were generally faithful the rules laid out in the film series, featuring numerous showdowns with a digital Freddy, and were relatively well-received among video-game playing fans of the horror series. However, an officially licensed video game release that allow the player to control Freddy himself has never been released.

Despite the various alternate storylines in the franchise, including television, books, comics and video games, only the events depicted in the official film series are considered to be canon, although the films themselves are sometimes inconsistent in what they present or imply about Freddy's past.

Characteristics

Before the character's transgression into the supernatural, Freddy Krueger was depicted as a "filthy child murderer" who was responsible for killing a number of children in the fictional Elm Street, Springwood, Ohio.

To Do: Expand

Concept and creation

A Nightmare on Elm Street series

In 1981, Wes Craven developed the idea for A Nightmare on Elm Street after reading a series of newspaper articles about a number of mysterious deaths amongst young Asian-American immigrants. The incidents were connected in that all of the victims reported having terrible nightmares, before finally dying in their sleep of apparently unexplainable causes. Craven decided that if he were to develop the idea into a horror film, he would need to create some kind of antagonist to personify the supernatural menace that would haunt the film's characters.

Primary in the genesis of Freddy Krueger, Craven later revealed that he "wanted to do something that was tied into the deepest recesses of our subconscious." Concurrently, one of his initial ideas was to draw from the various fears and concepts that are universal amongst all cultures, particularly that of the predator. With fangs already utilised by mythical creatures such as vampires and werewolves, Craven decided that his antagonist could possess a form of claw, such as that of the bear. This concept developed into the character's home-made glove that he uses as his primary weapon, with claw-like knives welded to the fingertips.

Craven claims that the name Fred Krueger is taken from a boy that bullied him at school. Additionally, the character Krug from Craven's earlier film The Last House on the Left (1972) is also derived from the name. The appearance of the character was developed from another one of Craven's childhood experiences. (((A vagrant outside Wes' window as a child. Red and Green = two hardest colours for the eye to process. Originally red and yellow. Burns = A form of mask.)))

To finalise the hideousness of his new character, Craven wanted to make Fred Krueger a child molester; the most despicable trait that Craven could possibly think of. However, at the time of the film's production, California was plagued by a series of genuine cases of child molestation, and Craven decided to change Krueger simply to a "child murderer" to avoid controversy.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare

1994's Wes Craven's New Nightmare was the first Freddy Krueger film to be directed by Wes Craven since the original, released a decade earlier in 1984. The film takes place in a fictional version of the 'real world', where the Elm Street series of films exist as films. The Freddy that features in the film is actually the representation of a 'real' evil, and differs in appearance to the actual character. Designed by KNB studios, he is a more muscular Freddy, with leather trousers, a trenchcoat, and a new biological glove. While this 'Uber-Freddy' - also portrayed by Robert Englund - still has many of the original character's trademarks, he was imbued with a generally more stylised, and somewhat abstract appearance. His face resembles exposed muscle more than burns, and his fedora and sweater are of cleaner material and bolder colours. Compared to the traditional Freddy Krueger of the Elm Street series, the Uber-Freddy's appearance is described in the film as being "darker" and "more evil".

Perhaps the film's most memorable development to the character was his new claw; a bio-mechanical hand rather than a glove, with the addition of an extra blade on the thumb. The claw's design was inspired by the abstract glove that appears on the film poster for the original A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Freddy Krueger in popular culture

To Do: Expand!

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Origin

Sister Mary Helena Westin Hills psychiatric hospital

Flashbacks in the sixth entry to the series reveal that as a young child, Freddy exhibited sociopathic behavior, including killing small animals. He was often ridiculed by classmates, which made him an outsider in social circles. Also in Freddy's Dead, whilst Freddy is living in the care of an abusive alcoholic named Mr. Underwood (Alice Cooper), it is shown that a teenage Freddy grew to associate pain with pleasure. He claimed to have learned the "secret of pain" from self-mutilation, and went on to murder his adoptive father, with no apparent consequences.

Further back story from Freddy's Dead establishes that when Krueger reached adulthood, he married a woman named Loretta, with whom he fathered a daughter named Kathryn. The Krueger family was shown to reside at 1428 Elm Street in the fictional town of Springwood, Ohio. In the film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Freddy's past is tied with the house that appears in every Nightmare film: 1428 Elm Street. In 1992, a companion book to the film series, The Nightmare Never Ends, was released containing a short hypothesis by author Andy Mangels regarding the inconsistent appearances of the house on 1428 Elm Street shown in the Nightmare sequels. Mangels suggests that Freddy's past shown in Freddy's Dead takes place at another street number – though the film blatantly shows the house number at 1428. A from the film also shows the central character finding Freddy's old lair behind a poorly sealed wall in the basement of 1428 Elm Street. The article from The Nightmare Never Ends has created confusion for the fan community, even though the for the film and Director/Screenwriter Rachel Talalay confirmed that Krueger's family lived in the house that would become infamous. Andy Mangels himself had no part in the scriptwriting or production of the film, so his theory cannot be considered canon. In circumstances that remain unexplained in the movie canon, 1428 Elm Street would later become occupied by Nancy Thompson and her mother, Marge, by the time of the events of the first film.

Freddy kills Loretta in front of young Kathryn.

Throughout the film series, Freddy is described as having worked at the local power plant, where he took 20 Elm Street children to murder them in the boiler room. The police were unable to solve the cases and newspapers dubbed the mysterious killer the "Springwood Slasher". Freddy's Dead continued to establish that while Freddy was abducting children from Elm Street, his daughter Kathryn was still only a very young child. At a similar time, Krueger's wife Loretta accidentally discovered that down in the basement of the house, Freddy had concealed a secret room where he kept many different implements of torture, newspaper clippings that documented the disappearances, and a number of versions of his famous glove. Despite a desperate promise that she would not reveal what she had seen, Loretta was strangled to death by Freddy in front of their young daughter, and he explained to her that he had done it "for snooping in daddy's special work."

Freddy accepts the Dream Demons' offer.

In 1966 on the film's timeline, Freddy was arrested for the murders of the missing children. Young Kathryn was put into foster care, and was taken away from Springwood under the adopted name of Maggie Burroughs. As explained by Marge Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street, because Krueger's search warrant was not signed correctly, all evidence was considered inadmissible and Krueger was released in 1968. After Freddy's trial, Amanda Krueger hanged herself in the tower where she was imprisoned and raped. That same night, the neighborhood parents of the children that Freddy had killed formed a vigilante mob, cornering Krueger in his boiler room and burning him to death in an arson attack.

As depicted in Freddy's Dead, as the flames engulfed his boiler room, Freddy was approached by three Dream Demons. In his dying moments, the demons offered Freddy the chance to achieve immortality after his death, and to avenge his murder with the help of powers to distort reality in the dream realm. It was an offer that Krueger was happy to accept. As implied in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, his remains were taken to the fictional Penny Brothers Auto Salvage and locked in the trunk of an old red Cadillac. For reasons that are never explained in the film canon, the Thompson family moved into Krueger's old house on 1428 Elm Street.

Krueger met three notable adversaries in the period before Freddy's Dead:

• Nancy Thompson, the daughter of the family that moved into his old house. Nancy was the first of the Elm Street children to learn about Krueger's past and the first to vanquish him. She returned in the third, only to be killed by Freddy, who had taken the physical form of her father as a disguise.
• Kristen Parker, a girl with the ability to bring people into her dreams.
• Alice Johnson (who became the Dream Master), gained Kristen's power and the dream powers of her friends. Out of all these girls, Alice is the only one (supposedly) who has remained alive. After removing the souls Krueger gained over the years he was left powerless. A year later, Alice became pregnant and Krueger started using the dreams of her unborn child to kill again. Alice vanquished him with the help of Krueger's mother, Amanda. After Krueger was contained, Alice supposedly moved away before he was released and caused the events of Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.

Freddy's Dead

Freddy and Maggie (Kathryn) face off.

After a decade of systematically slaughtering all of the children of Springwood in their dreams, the town was shown to have now been under Freddy’s influence. By absorbing his victim’s souls, Freddy was now powerful enough to blur the lines between dreams and reality. The remaining adults were kept in a mass psychosis after their children had been murdered. When there was no one left to kill, Freddy sought to leave Springwood — hoping to continue his murder spree in another town full of more children. Only one person could arrange for this to happen: his long lost daughter, Kathryn.

Krueger used what was left of his supernatural resources to track down his daughter, who was now an adult named Maggie Burroughs and was working as a counselor to troubled teens in another city. Since her mother's death, Maggie was raised by adoptive parents and had suppressed the horrible memories of her early childhood. After catching up with Maggie, Freddy attempted to sway her to help him do his bidding. She proved, though, that a thirst for murder was not hereditary and instead schemed with Doc, her coworker (and dream psychiatrist), to help destroy Krueger once and for all. After pulling him out of her dream, and into reality, Maggie shoved a pipe bomb into Krueger's chest, killing him and releasing the dream demons that had given him his power.

Powers and abilites

As long as his victim was dreaming, Krueger could inhabit and control their dreams, twisting them to his own ends. Any physical harm done to a person in this dream world would carry over into the real world, allowing him to easily commit multiple murders. Krueger often toyed with his victims by changing his form and surroundings, usually resembling the boiler room where he was burned. His powers increased as more and more kids believed he existed. At the height of his powers, he could cause severe damage in the real world. This included possession of humans (as shown in the second Nightmare film and Freddy vs Jason) or his corpse (as shown in the third). If one of his victims wakes up while he's touching them in the dream world, Freddy comes into the real world as well, where he is still superhumanly strong and durable, but can be wounded. This was used for extensive fight scenes in 'Freddy's dead' and 'Freddy vs Jason'.

In a person's own dream, Krueger could also use their deepest fears and personality against them, which became a trademark in the films. A few victims managed to use their own imagination to consciously manipulate their dreams against him (a technique known as lucid dreaming), but this had little effect on Krueger, who was completely in control of their dreams already. These kids were known as "dream warriors". Another of Krueger's powers involved absorbing the souls of his victims into his own body after they had been killed, which served to make him more powerful. As he gained a victim, their face would appear on his chest.

Inspiration

Craven's inspiration for Krueger included a series of stories in the LA Times about a series of mysterious deaths -- all the victims had reported recurring nightmares beforehand, and died in their sleep--, a homeless man who had frightened him as a youth, and a bully at his school. Also, the 70s hit "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright sealed the story for Craven, giving him not only an artistic setting to "jump off" from, but the signature synthesizer sound from the Elm Street soundtrack which can be heard at the beginning of Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver."

Memorabilia

The Nightmare on Elm Street series spawned a huge merchandising collecting cult. Even 20 years after the first film was released, the mercandising is still ongoing, with sites like ebay listing hundreds of Nightmare on Elm Street memorabilia every day and new products rolling off the assembly line and in to toy stores around the world.

A private collector from New Zealand has established an online collection of Nightmare on Elm Street and Freddy Krueger memorabilia. This collection spans more than 20 years, and is one of the largest on the internet to date [2].

New Line vs Wes Craven

As the Nightmare on Elm Street series progressed, director Wes Craven's original vision of Krueger as a true personification of evil was altered several times. Due to the enormous popularity of the films, the succeeding writers/directors chose to develop Freddy into more of a sardonic, wisecracking and flamboyant anti-hero of the 1980s horror genre. On two occasions, Craven was drawn back to his creation in order to try and "rectify" the former producers' alterations of his creation.

Initially, Craven did not intend any sequels and wanted the first film to be a stand-alone movie. When the original Nightmare became a mega hit, however, New Line insisted on following it up — in spite of both Craven, and original Nightmare heroine Heather Langenkamp ("Nancy") declining involvement. The second entry, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge was released to box office success — topping the profits of the original. Once the buzz died down, however, spectators largely panned the film for its inconsistent continuation from the premise of the first film, and its otherwise weak story.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors was, in essence, the true sequel to the original and, thanks to Craven's scriptwriting, gave the series a new lease on life. Craven wanted Dream Warriors to be the end of the series, but the studio refused. Craven and New Line's relationship ended for a number of years as a result of their conflicting visions for the Nightmare enterprise. Later, in the Craven-directed movie Scream a character would say that "the first movie was great but the rest sucked" — a jab at the other films.

As the series progressed, Craven finally had the opportunity to revisit his creation a second time by creating Wes Craven's New Nightmare, a non-canon spinoff. This film departs from the other entries by taking place in the real world and removing Freddy's previous comedic undertones. It, however, became the least profitable of the series. Once again, Craven and New Line parted ways. It is stated at the Internet Movie Database that Craven watched all of the previous movies before he filmed New Nightmare, and that he could not understand the plot line at all.

See also

• Wes Craven's New Nightmare
• Freddy vs. Jason
• Friday the 13th

External links

• The Nightmare on Elm Street Companion