How Freddy’s Dead Saved My Sanity

by Nelson

When I first saw it, A Nightmare on Elm Street scared the absolute hell out of me. Afterwards, I slept with my parents for an entire week and made sure to keep a baseball bat within reach while sleeping upon finally returning to my own bedroom. The irony was that I’d begged to watch the damn movie. After first hearing about him from some of my classmates in Mrs. Pugh’s first grade, I got absolutely fixated on Freddy Krueger and refused to shut up about him until my dad finally relented and took me to Movie Gallery to rent the movie.

Looking back on it, that was probably my first ever trip into the horror section. I remember looking at what seemed to be an endless amount of Elm Street boxes and wondering where to start, but my dad would take the decision entirely out of my young hands by adamantly insisting that we overlook the sea of sequels and start with the original movie. His logic made sense. To this day, I’m not sure if he knew what he was doing by issuing such a decree, but, regardless, we went home that day with Wes Craven’s 1984 classic, and my young psyche shattered into a billion pieces right about the time that I saw Tina dragged across her ceiling and sliced open in front of her helpless boyfriend. I was never quite the same again.

But I wasn’t done with Freddy, either.

I don’t know why I kept going back. Hell, I don’t know why my parents let me. But, soon enough, I was bringing the rest of the movies in the series home, one by one. As much as the prospect of being turned into a human shish kabob frightened me, there was something about this Krueger guy that I found strangely appealing. I’m not sure if it was the sweater, the glove, or the gradually developing sense of humor, but I just couldn’t get enough of his antics, even if he did have me staying up late at night hoping that I wouldn’t have a dream that happened to kill me.

Eventually, I made my way to Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare and, in doing so, managed to mostly heal the wounds inflicted on me by the unrelenting terror of the original Nightmare on Elm Street. Not because Freddy’s Dead sought to finally dispatch of its titular character once and for all, but because Freddy’s Dead embraced Freddy Krueger’s comedic side like no other entry in the series ever had. Oh sure, Freddy had been known to get in some clever one liners now and again, and there was that time he ate a pizza made of screaming people meatballs, but we’d never had anything like the antics of Freddy’s Dead before. In the opening segment alone, Freddy manages no less than two costume changes and gets to drive a damned bus into a kid while admonishing him for “screaming while the bus is in motion!”

It’s absolutely glorious.

Being able to laugh with Freddy was invaluable for me. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t still a little worried that he might show up in a dream and gut me like a fish, but it did mean that I thought there was a reasonable chance that he might say something funny before doing so. I figured that, in a best case scenario, Krueger may entrap me in a video game like he does to Spencer in The Final Nightmare, and that didn’t sound entirely unappealing, especially not to a first grader who was pretty obsessed with Super Mario Brothers 3.

I wouldn’t call Freddy’s Dead the best entry in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, but it is certainly one of my favorites. From a fantastic soundtrack featuring Iggy Pop, The Goo Goo Dolls, and a slew of generic grunge bands that I’ve never heard of before or since, to a 3D finale that I can actually watch from within the comfort of my own living room wearing an old school pair of paper glasses with red and blue lenses, there’s just absolutely no denying that this movie isn’t just one of my favorite Freddy movies, it’s one of my favorite horror movies, period. It may not be the most horrific horror movie out there, but this is a movie that features Freddy Krueger transforming his trademark razor glove into a video game playing power glove as he sets out to dispatch of the movie’s stoner character and beat his high score while still managing to work in a cameo scene for Alice freakin’ Cooper. It’s moments like that one that I reflect on whenever the unrelenting weight of the world is proving too much for me to bear. It gives me a sense of comfort knowing that, no matter what, I can go home, pop in Freddy’s Dead, fish out my 3D glasses, and take a dizzying trip through the mind of the legendary Springwood Slasher.

Though few Elm Street fanatics seem to love it as much as I do, I’ve always viewed Freddy’s Dead as a full-on celebration of the titular Son of a Hundred Maniacs. He takes center stage in practically every way, with the movie’s plot revolving mostly around Freddy’s pre-dream demon life and the identity of his long lost daughter, revealed to have been taken away from Krueger by the local authorities after folks found out that he was killing neighborhood children. I suppose that adding in a long lost child plot device six movies into the saga isn’t exactly a celebrated story twist, but I certainly wasn’t overthinking the idea the first time I saw this movie. Today, I sort of look at the idea of Freddy coming home from his evening child killing shenanigans to a wife and daughter who have no idea as being pretty creepy, but maybe that’s just me.

When it was released to home media, substantial scenes that were present in the theatrical version of Freddy’s Dead were mysteriously missing, including sequences that offered some pretty important character development and background building moments with Maggie, who of course goes on to play a pretty pivotal role in the movie’s plot. Thanks to a friend who is basically like a professor to my Elm Street student, I’ve been able to obtain the original cut of the movie, and it has become one of the most valued pieces of my ever-growing Freddy Krueger collection. As much as I’ve always loved every aspect of the original Nightmare on Elm Street series, I’m not sure if it would have been possible without the magic of Freddy’s Dead. It may not be your favorite of the series, but Freddy’s Dead let me love the character again after he initially threatened to scar me for life.