Freddy Krueger

Freddy Krueger (/ˈkruːɡər/) is a fictional character in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. He first appeared in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as the spirit of a serial killer who uses a gloved hand with razors to kill his victims in their dreams, causing their deaths in the real world as well. In the dream world, he is a powerful force and almost completely invulnerable. However, whenever Freddy is pulled into the real world, he has normal human vulnerabilities and can be destroyed.[2]

## Appearences

In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy is introduced as a child killer from the fictitious town of Springwood, Ohio, who kills his victims with a bladed leather glove he crafted in a boiler room where he used to take his victims. He is captured, but is set free on a technicality when it is discovered that the search warrant wasn't signed in the right place. He is hunted down by a mob made up of the town's vengeful parents and cornered in a boiler room. The mob douses the building with gasoline and sets it on fire by throwing Molotov cocktails, burning him alive. While his body dies, his spirit lives on within the dreams of a group of teenagers and pre-adolescents living on Elm Street, whom he preys on by entering their dreams and killing them, fueled by the town's memories and fear of him. He is apparently destroyed at the end of the film by protagonist Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), but the last scene reveals that he has survived. He goes on to antagonize the teenage protagonists of the film's sequels, including Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton), Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette), Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox), and Lori Campbell (Monica Keena).

In A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, more of Freddy's backstory is revealed by the mysterious nun who repeatedly appears to Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson). Freddy's mother, Amanda Krueger (Nan Martin), was a nurse at the asylum featured in the film. At the time she worked there, a largely abandoned, run-down wing of the asylum was used to lock up entire hordes of the most insane criminals all at once. When Amanda was young, she was accidentally locked into the room with the criminals over a holiday weekend. They managed to keep her hidden for days, raping her repeatedly. When she was finally discovered, she was barely alive and pregnant, with the result that Krueger was regarded as "the son of a hundred homicidal maniacs" due to it being impossible to determine which of the rapists was his biological father. However, in A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, it is implied that Freddy had identified which one of them was his birth father (also portrayed by Englund in a dream sequence), and hates his mother for rejecting him. Later, in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, it is revealed that he was adopted by an alcoholic named Mr. Underwood (Alice Cooper) who abused him throughout his childhood until Freddy finally murdered him as a teenager. Freddy tortures animals and engages in self-mutilation, and becomes a serial killer by murdering the children of people who had bullied him when he was a child. Prior to his murder, he is married to a woman named Loretta (Lindsey Fields), whom he eventually murders. He also has a daughter, Katherine (Lisa Zane), who seeks to end her father's horrific legacy once and for all, killing him at the end of the movie.

After a hiatus following the release of The Final Nightmare, Krueger was brought back in Wes Craven's New Nightmare by Wes Craven, who had not worked on the film series since the third film, Dream Warriors. New Nightmare coincides with the approaching anniversary of the release of the first film. Robert Englund, who portrayed Krueger throughout the film series and its television spin-off, also took the role as a fictional version of himself in New Nightmare; it is implied that Englund was stalked by his character, who is an ancient demonic entity that took on the form of Wes Craven's creation, and has come to life from the film franchise's fictitious world. Having been in various manifestations throughout the ages due to the entity can be captured through storytelling, it is hinted that it was once in the form of the old witch from Brothers Grimm's fairy tale Hansel and Gretel when it was held prisoner in this allegory. Englund describes to his former co-star and friend Heather Langenkamp that this embodiment of Freddy is darker and more evil than as portrayed by him in the films; he struggles to keep his sanity intact from Krueger's torments and goes into hiding with his family. Krueger aims to stop another film of the franchise from being made, eliminating the films' crew members including Langenkamp's husband Chase Porter (David Newsom) after stealing a prototype bladed glove from him, and causes nightmares and makes threatening phone calls to producer Robert Shaye. The entity also haunts Wes Craven's dreams, to the point that he sees future events related to Krueger's actions and then writes them down as a movie script. Krueger sees Langenkamp as his primary foe because her character Nancy Thompson was the first to defeat him. Krueger's attempts to cross over to reality cause a series of earthquakes throughout Los Angeles County, including the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Langenkamp, with help from her son Dylan (Miko Hughes), succeeds in defeating the entity and apparently destroys him; however, Krueger's creator reveals that it is again imprisoned in the fictitious world, indicated by the character's later appearances in films and other medias.

In 2003, Freddy battled fellow horror icon Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) from the Friday the 13th film series in the theatrical release Freddy vs. Jason, a film which officially resurrected both characters from their respective deaths and subsequently sent them to Hell. As the film begins, Krueger is frustrated at his current inability to kill as knowledge of him has been hidden on Elm Street, prompting him to manipulate Jason into killing in his place in the hope that the resulting fear will remind others of him so that he can resume his own murder spree. However, Freddy's plan proves too effective when Jason starts killing people before Freddy can do it, culminating in a group of teens learning the truth and drawing Freddy and Jason to Crystal Lake in the hope that they can draw Freddy into the real world so that Jason will kill him and remain "home". The ending of the film is left ambiguous as to whether or not Freddy is actually dead; despite being decapitated, when Jason emerges from Crystal Lake carrying his head the head looks back and winks at the viewers. A sequel featuring Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) from the Evil Dead franchise was planned, but never materialised onscreen. It was later turned into Dynamite Entertainment's comic book series Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash.

In the 2010 remake of the original film, Freddy's backstory is that he was a groundskeeper at Badham Preschool who tortured and sexually abused the teenage protagonists of the film when they were children. When their parents found out, they trapped him in a boiler room at an industrial park and set it on fire with a Molotov cocktail made out of a gasoline canister, killing him. As a spirit, he takes his revenge on the teenagers by haunting their dreams; he is particularly obsessed with Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara), who had been his “favorite” when she was a child. Krueger's power comes from his prey's memories and emotions upon remembering the abuse they suffered at his hands. His bladed glove is made out of discarded pieces of his gardening tools. Nancy destroys him at the end of the film by pulling his spirit into the physical world and cutting his throat; the final scene reveals that Freddy's spirit has survived, however.