# A Nightmare on Elm Street (film)

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American slasher film about a spectral child murderer who stalks, in their dreams, the children of the members of the lynch mob that killed him.
    Written and directed by Wes Craven.

## Freddy Krueger

* I'm your boyfriend now, Nancy.

## Nancy Thompson

* [to Glen] Whatever you do... don't fall asleep.

## Children

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

## Dialogue

    Nancy: Fingernails? That's amazing, you saying that. It made me remember the dream I had last night.
    Tina: What'd you dream?
    Nancy: I dreamed about this guy in a dirty red and green sweater.
    Tina: But what about the fingernails?
    Nancy: He scraped his fingernails along things. Actually, they were more like finger-knives or something, like he'd made them himself. Anyway, they made this horrible sound. [imitates screeching sound]
    Tina: Nancy. You dreamed about the same creep I did.
    Glen: That's impossible.
    Tina: Please God...
    Freddy: [revealing his knives] This... is God.
    Nancy: [about Krueger] What'd he look like? You get a look at him?
    Rod: No.
    Nancy: Well then how can you say somebody else was there?
    Rod: Because somebody cut her. While I watched.
    Nancy: And you didn't get a look at the guy?
    Rod: I couldn't see the fucker. You could just see the cuts happening, all at once.
    Nancy: What do you mean all at once?
    Rod: I mean it was as if there were four knives [looking down at his hand] cutting at the same time. But invisible ones. I probably could've saved her if I'd moved sooner. But I thought it was just another nightmare, like the one I had the night before. There was this guy who had knives for fingers.
    Nancy: [about the Balinese way of dreaming] But what if they meet a monster in their dreams? Then what?
    Glen: They turn their back on it. Take away its energy and it disappears.
    Nancy: But what happens if they don't do that?
    Glen: Well, I guess those people don't wake up to tell what happens.
    Nancy: What I learned in the dream clinic. That's what I'm trying to prove, Mother. Rod didn't kill Tina and he didn't hang himself. There's this guy; he's after us in our dreams.
    Marge: But that's just not reality, Nancy.
    Nancy: [pulling Krueger's hat out of a drawer] It's real, Momma. Feel it.
    Marge: Give me that damn thing!
    Nancy: It even has his name written in it. Fred Krueger, mom. Fred Krueger! Do you know who that is, Mother? Because if you do, you better tell me 'cause he's after me now.
    Marge: Nancy, trust your mother for once, please. You'll feel better when you get some sleep.
    Nancy: Feeling better?! You call this feeling better?! Or maybe I should grab that bottle and veg out with you. Avoid everything happening to me by just getting good and loaded.
    [Marge slaps her]
    Marge: Fred Krueger can't come after you, Nancy. He's dead! Believe me, I know.
    Nancy: You knew about him all this time, and you've been acting like he was someone I made up!
    Marge: You're sick, Nancy. You're imagining things. You'll feel better when you sleep, (picks up a bottle of gin) It's as simple as that.
    Nancy: [throws bottle of gin onto floor] Screw sleep!
    Marge: Nancy! It's only a nightmare!
    Nancy: That's enough!
    Nancy: Mother! What's with the bars?
    Marge: Security.
    Nancy: Security? Security from what?
    Marge: Not from what - from whom. Come down to the cellar. You want to know who Fred Krueger was? He was a filthy child murder who killed at least twenty kids in the neighborhood. Kids we all knew.
    Nancy: Oh mom.
    Marge: It drove us crazy when we didn't know who was doing it, but it was even worse after they caught him.
    Nancy: Did they put him away?
    Marge Well, the lawyers got fat and the judge got famous, but someone forgot to sign a search warrant in the right place and Krueger was free, just like that.
    Nancy: What did you do, mother?
    Marge : A bunch of us parents got together and tracked him down. We found him in old abandoned boiler room, where he used to take his kids.
    Nancy: Go on.
    Marge : We took gasoline and poured it all around the place and made a trail of it out the door. We lit the whole thing up and watched it burn. He's dead now. He's dead because Mommy killed him. [unwraps a cloth, showing Krueger's glove] I even took his knives. So it's okay. You can sleep now.
    Nancy: [on the phone, about Glen] Hi, Daddy. I know what happened.
    Lt. Thompson: I haven't been upstairs yet.
    Nancy: Yeah, but you know he's dead, right?
    Lt. Thompson: Yeah, apparently he's dead.
    Nancy: Listen, Daddy, I've got a proposition for you. Listen very carefully, please.
    Lt. Thompson: Nancy.
    Nancy: I'm going to go and get the guy who did it, and I want you to be there to arrest him when I bring him out. Okay?
    Lt. Thompson: Just tell me who did it. I'll go get him, baby.
    Nancy: Fred Krueger did it, Daddy, and only I can get him. It's my nightmare he comes to.
    Nancy: I know you're there, Krueger.
    Freddy: You think you was gonna get away from me?
    Nancy: I know you too well now, Freddy.
    Freddy: And now you die.
    Nancy: It's too late, Krueger. I know the secret now. This is just a dream. You're not alive. This whole thing is just a dream. I want my mother and friends again.
    Freddy: You what?
    Nancy: I take back every bit of energy I ever gave you. You're nothing. You're shit.

## Taglines

* Sleep Kills.
* She is the only one who can stop it... if she fails, no one survives.
* If Nancy Doesn't Wake Up Screaming, She Won't Wake Up At All...
* The first word in terror from the creator of Scream
* A scream that wakes you up, might be your own...
* Whatever you do, don't fall asleep...or you'll meet the terrifying Freddy.

## Cast

* John Saxon - Lt. Thompson
* Ronee Blakley - Marge Thompson
* Heather Langenkamp - Nancy Thompson
* Amanda Wyss - Tina Grey
* Nick Corri - Rod Lane
* Johnny Depp - Glen Lantz
* Charles Fleischer - Dr. King
* Robert Englund - Freddy Krueger

## External links

Encyclopedic article on A Nightmare on Elm Street on Wikipedia
* Official website
* A Nightmare on Elm Street quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* A Nightmare on Elm Street at Rotten Tomatoes
A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise :
| Films | A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) · Freddy's Revenge (1985) · Dream Warriors (1987) · The Dream Master (1988) · The Dream Child (1989) · Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare  (1991) · Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) · Freddy vs. Jason (2003) · A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) |
| Television | Freddy's Nightmares (1988–1990) |
| Comics | Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989) · Nightmares on Elm Street (1991–1992) · Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) · A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Beginning (1992) · A Nightmare On Elm Street Special (2005) · A Nightmare On Elm Street: Paranoid (2005–2006) · Fearbook (2006) · A Nightmare on Elm Street (2006–2007) · New Line Cinema's Tales of Horrors (2007) · Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash (2007–2008) · Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors (2009) |
| Documentaries | Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010) · I Am Nancy (2011) |
| Related | Last words in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise · Friday the 13th franchise |