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Nightmare on Elm Street has come a long way: from creator Wes Craven’s childhood nightmares to one of the most recognisable and profitable horror franchises that spans nine films, a 44 episode TV series, videogames and comic books. The film series changed horror with its bizarre supernatural premise as well as introducing the world to Johnny Depp, who has the dubious honour of being Freddy’s best and bloodiest kill. Most importantly, it funded the creation of New Line cinema, making films like Lord of the Rings possible.
The infamous horror icon was in life a child murderer, who was acquitted on a technicality but was burned to death by angry parents, before returning to seek vengeance by murdering their children in their dreams. However, as the franchise continued Freddy’s origins developed; Dream Warriors recounted how he was the ‘bastard son of a hundred maniacs’ when his nun mother was accidentally locked inside an asylum for the criminally insane, whilst part six introduces a murdered wife, a daughter and powers gained by making a deal with strange floating worm shaped demons. However, arguably what makes Freddy most recognisable is that until the remake he has always been brilliantly portrayed by Robert Englund, giving the character a sadistic personality unlike other slashers like Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees. Freddy often has one-liners and his killings take place in highly imaginative ways, ranging from the creation of human puppets to metamorphosing into cockroaches to blood geysers.
The franchise was inspired by two unrelated events: a burnt tramp that tormented the young Wes Craven from beneath his bedroom window one night, and two unaccountable deaths of people in their sleep he read about. This led to the creation of a horror legend, and possibly the best slasher film of the 80s (although considering the competition this is not actually saying much). However, Craven’s original vision was only for a singular film; the studio changed his original ending and realised the profits that could be made. So Craven was quickly removed from the production, although he would return for Dream Warriors and The New Nightmare, which make up by far the best of the sequels.
However the other Nightmare films do admittedly leave much to be desired; the first unimaginatively named sequel Freddy’s Revenge, had Krueger attempting to take physical form, ignoring the point of the franchise. By part 5 (Dream Child) the franchise was running out of ideas (Freddy tried to resurrect himself through an unborn foetus), leading to declined profits. Freddy’s death took place in 1991 3D which, needless to say, looks awful.
Despite having died, Freddy Krueger followed the cinematic truism that you cannot keep a highly profitable murderer down returning for potentially the most intelligent and disturbing film of the franchise. Craven returned with the idea of having Freddy leave the cinema and start attacking the actors in Hollywood, a truly bizarre concept taking itself into undiscovered territory – whilst unfortunately scaring away the audience who clearly wanted more bizarre dream killing scenarios.
Since then Freddy has returned to the screen twice, losing in battle with screen rival Jason in an atrocious crossover film and being remade by Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes, who seem to specialise in making dire films. Hence I think it is the regrettable truth that Freddy is unlikely to make another good film, but thanks to his recent US box office will continue his reign of terror.
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