History Franchise / Anightmareonelmstreet

* WeakerInTheRealWorld: Freddy may be all-powerful and unstoppable in the DreamWorld, but if his victims manage to pull him into the real world, he's reduced to his human self.

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Freddy's claws. In ''Freddy's Revenge'', he slices straight through both a teenager's torso and the door that was behind him.

* BladeBelowTheShoulder: Freddy Krueger's blade-fingered glove started out this way, when he was still alive and his glove, merely a homemade murder weapon. In dreams, it evolves into more of a built-in weapon, which alternately appears on his hand whole when he sheds a disguise, or sends its blades springing out from his (or a puppet's, or a possessed boy's, etc) fingertips. In ''Film/WesCravensNewNightmare'', a scene is filmed in which Freddy amputates his hand and replaces it with a razor-tipped robotic version, but this element doesn't seem to have carried over into the character's subsequent appearances. See also WolverineClaws.

* CreepyChildrenSinging: "Freddy's Coming For You"

* SelfMutilationDemonstration: Freddy Krueger does this a few times in the series, mostly just to horrify his victims. In the first film, for example, he says "Watch this!" before cutting his own fingers off, causing a strange green liquid to squirt from them. Later, he answer's Nancy's "What are you?" by cutting into his own chest, revealing more green pus and what looks like maggots under his skin. In the second movie, he emphasizes his "You've got the body, I've got the brain" line by peeling back the skin on his own skull. In the sixth, he cuts off his fingers (again) while counting the ways people have tried and failed to put him down for good.

* ShapeshifterDefaultForm: Freddy Krueger possesses near-limitless shapeshifting abilities in the dream world, regularly using it to impersonate other people or even inanimate objects. While he can assume any form he desires, he prefers to appear as his post-death burnt self, presumably to scare his victims. His "real" form, if any, are [[DemBones his skeletal remains]].
* SinisterScrapingSound: Freddy with his claw on most anything.

* WolverineClaws: Freddy's primary weapon is a glove with blades attached to each finger. So iconic that for people who aren't superhero comic fans this trope could have been named "Freddy Claws".

* MotiveDecay: Subverted; after slaughtering the children of the parents of Springwood responsible for killing him, the film franchise changes Freddy's motives to [[OurSoulsAreDifferent collecting souls]] to increase his powers, occasionally trying to find a way to transfer his powers into the real world, and sometimes just [[AxCrazy killing for the sake of killing]]. By ''Freddy's Dead'', he becomes an OmnicidalManiac, intending to kill the children in every town in the world he can spread to.

* ForTheEvulz: Freddy doesn't have any motive for killing people beyond the fact that he finds it entertaining. However, the sixth film suggests that his [[AbusiveParents abusive foster father]], along with several mean orphans, and the fact that his own mother abandoned him at birth, had a hand in making him such a sadist, although his ChildByRape (of a nun, by 100 different psychopaths) origin implies that at least some of it was InTheBlood even beforehand. The remake tries to change this and make his character ''slightly'' more of a monster than his original incarnation, adding to the fact is Freddy isn't given a big backstory in the remake.

* ''ComicBook/NewLineCinemasTalesOfHorror'' (2007) -- Features two stories, ''[[Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre The Texas Chainsaw Salesman]]'' and ''Copycat'' about serial killer who is trying to pose as Freddy Krueger.

The ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' film franchise centers around SlasherMovie icon Freddy Krueger (played by Creator/RobertEnglund in every film except the 2010 reboot) and his exploits in killing the teenagers of Springwood. The franchise features these films:

* '''''Film/{{A Nightmare on Elm Street|2010}}''''' (the 2010 reboot) -- Creator/JackieEarleHaley and Creator/RooneyMara star as Freddy and Nancy in this Creator/MichaelBay-produced {{remake}} of the original film. It generally follows the story of the first film, though not without some alterations (including an attempt to make Freddy look like an innocent victim of a town of overzealous parents). Review buzz ended up as negative (going by Website/RottenTomatoes), but the reviews themselves have a more lukewarm feeling to them, which reflects upon the generic-but-not-horrible feel of the film.

[[caption-width-right:301:No rest for the wicked. Or even the innocent.]]

* FreezeFrameBonus: Unlike subsequent films, the gloves for the first two movies were almost carbon copies in terms of design. In posters for the second film, it's obvious that the blade on the index finger is broken near the "fingertip" and soldered back together, but if you pause the first film at just the right spots, such as the "No running in the hallways!" scene or the bathtub sequence, you can see that this was actually a feature of the first film's glove that carried over to the second film.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Freddy Kreuger was originally perfectly human person, with no extra-normal abilities. Post-death and he became a borderline RealityWarper.

-->'''Freddy Krueger:''' "Come to Daddy, Peter... *starts licking Peter's face and rubbing it with his bleeding stump of a hand*

** ''A Nightmare on Elm Street: Suffer the Children'' (2005

* '''''Film/{{A Nightmare on Elm Street|1984}}''''' (1984) -- Directed and written by Creator/WesCraven. In the original film, Creator/HeatherLangenkamp plays Nancy Thompson, an average teenage girl who has nightmares for several successive nights. Her friends (including Creator/JohnnyDepp in his first acting role ''ever'') end up murdered, one by one, [[YourMindMakesItReal in their sleep]] -- by the same man Nancy sees in her nightmares: a badly-burnt man who wears a red-and-green striped sweater, wields a knifed glove, and calls himself Freddy Krueger. Nancy confronts her mother, who tells her that Krueger, a child murderer[[note]]In the original script Freddy was explicitly stated to be a child molester; that idea was scrapped due to a rash of allegations of sexual abuse in preschools during the 80s and early 90s. This side of Freddy was still hinted at in several of the original movies, but it was only made canon in the 2010 reboot.[[/note]] known as "The Springwood Slasher", died as the result of a vigilante murder by the parents of his victims after [[PoliceAreUseless a botched police investigation let Freddy go free]]. Freddy wants revenge against his killers, so he decides to kill the children of those parents in their dreams, where their parents can't protect them. Can Nancy stop Freddy once and for all? Well...since several sequels followed this one, one can only assume...

* ''I Am Nancy'' (2011) -- Creator/HeatherLangenkamp took Creator/WesCraven's ''[[SelfReferentialHumor New Nightmare]]'' to the [[CashCowFranchise next logical step]] and made a [[GenreShift comedic documentary]] [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1536421/ about herself and Nancy.]]

* '''''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreetPart2FreddysRevenge''''' (1985) -- Five years after the original film, Freddy -- who wants to kill outside of the Dream World -- plans to break into reality; to circumvent the BroughtDownToNormal effect, he plans to possess [[AmbiguouslyGay Jesse Walsh]], the teenage son of the latest family to move into 1428 Elm Street. Franchise fans consider this either the best or the worst of the series, due in part to the film's increased emphasis on BodyHorror and the excessive HomoeroticSubtext.
* '''''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet3DreamWarriors''''' (1987) -- Creator/WesCraven returns to the franchise (though not as director) in this film, set a year after the last. Freddy begins to kill off kids in their dreams again, with all the unusual deaths -- which occur primarily on Elm Street -- deemed suicides by the stumped authorities. The number of Elm Street teenagers eventually dwindles down to a small handful that the authorities whisk off to Westin Hills Sanitarium, where Nancy Thompson -- now a recently graduated psychologist -- works. Together with the skeptical Doctor Neil Gordon, Nancy sets out to help Elm Street's last teenagers, dubbed the "Dream Warriors" for their ability to manifest special powers during their dreams, defeat Freddy once and for all. Fans usually regard this film as good, as this film started the trend of creative (and ironic) deaths and introduced Freddy's now-trademark dark sense of humor (including his penchant for {{Bond One Liner}}s).

* '''''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet5TheDreamChild''''' (1989)-- After his defeat in the previous film, Freddy finds a way to return to life: through the dreams of Alice's unborn baby son, Jacob. The dream demon intends to mold Jacob into the perfect little host body (or murder machine; the film leaves Freddy's exact plans for Jacob vague), and to do so, he kills off Alice's friends and feeds their souls to the developing bundle of joy. This film tried to combine the darkness of the early films with Freddy's new wisecracker persona.
* '''''Film/FreddysDeadTheFinalNightmare''''' (1991) -- A SeriesFauxnale vaguely set "[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture ten years from now]]" (which is supposed to be 2001) and originally was released in 3D, with the last act being the only 3D filmed part. ''The Final Nightmare'' has Freddy, who has now killed off damn near every non-adult in Springwood, concoct [[GambitRoulette a complicated scheme]] to escape Springwood's borders and begin his reign of terror elsewhere. Since Freddy can only hitch a ride in the psyche of his own flesh and blood, Freddy lures his long-lost daughter to Springwood as part of the plan to escape the dying town. ''The Final Nightmare'' explores [[StartOfDarkness Freddy's own dark background]] while ratcheting the campiness of the last two entries UpToEleven. While the film has its fans, franchise devotees usually regard this entry as mediocre due to the farcical treatment of Freddy's GrandFinale.

* '''''Film/{{A Nightmare on Elm Street|1984}}''''' (1984) -- Directed and written by Creator/WesCraven. In the original film, Creator/HeatherLangenkamp plays Nancy Thompson, an average teenage girl who has nightmares for several successive nights. Her friends (including Creator/JohnnyDepp in his first acting role ''ever'') end up murdered, one by one, [[YourMindMakesItReal in their sleep]] -- by the same man Nancy sees in her nightmares: a badly-burnt man who wears a red-and-green striped sweater, wields a knifed glove, and calls himself Freddy Krueger. Nancy confronts her mother, who tells her that Krueger, a child murderer[[note]]In the original script Freddy was explicitly stated to be a child molester; that idea was scrapped due to a rash of sex abuse scandals in preschools during the 80s and early 90s. It's still hinted at in several of the original movies, but was never stated outright until the 2010 reboot.[[/note]] known as "The Springwood Slasher", died as the result of a vigilante murder by the parents of his victims after [[PoliceAreUseless a botched police investigation let Freddy go free]]. Freddy wants revenge against his killers, so he decides to kill the children of those parents in their dreams, where their parents can't protect them. Can Nancy stop Freddy once and for all? Well...since several sequels followed this one, one can only assume...

* '''''Film/{{A Nightmare on Elm Street|1984}}''''' (1984) -- Directed and written by Creator/WesCraven. In the original film, Creator/HeatherLangenkamp plays Nancy Thompson, an average teenage girl who has nightmares for several successive nights. Her friends (including Creator/JohnnyDepp in his first acting role ''ever'') end up murdered, one by one, [[YourMindMakesItReal in their sleep]] -- by the same man Nancy sees in her nightmares: a badly-burnt man who wears a red-and-green striped sweater, wields a knifed glove, and calls himself Freddy Krueger. Nancy confronts her mother, who tells her that Krueger, a child murderer [[note:In the original script Freddy was a child molester; that idea was scrapped due to a rash of sex abuse scandals in preschools at the time.[[/note]] known as "The Springwood Slasher", died as the result of a vigilante murder by the parents of his victims after [[PoliceAreUseless a botched police investigation let Freddy go free]]. Freddy wants revenge against his killers, so he decides to kill the children of those parents in their dreams, where their parents can't protect them. Can Nancy stop Freddy once and for all? Well...since several sequels followed this one, one can only assume...

* '''''Film/{{A Nightmare on Elm Street|1984}}''''' (1984) -- Directed and written by Creator/WesCraven. In the original film, Creator/HeatherLangenkamp plays Nancy Thompson, an average teenage girl who has nightmares for several successive nights. Her friends (including Creator/JohnnyDepp in his first acting role ''ever'') end up murdered, one by one, [[YourMindMakesItReal in their sleep]] -- by the same man Nancy sees in her nightmares: a badly-burnt man who wears a red-and-green striped sweater, wields a knifed glove, and calls himself Freddy Krueger. Nancy confronts her mother, who tells her that Krueger, a child murderer[[note:In the original script Freddy was a child molester; that idea was scrapped due to a rash of sex abuse scandals in preschools at the time.[[/note]] known as "The Springwood Slasher", died as the result of a vigilante murder by the parents of his victims after [[PoliceAreUseless a botched police investigation let Freddy go free]]. Freddy wants revenge against his killers, so he decides to kill the children of those parents in their dreams, where their parents can't protect them. Can Nancy stop Freddy once and for all? Well...since several sequels followed this one, one can only assume...

* '''''Film/{{A Nightmare on Elm Street|1984}}''''' (1984) -- Directed and written by Creator/WesCraven. In the original film, Creator/HeatherLangenkamp plays Nancy Thompson, an average teenage girl who has nightmares for several successive nights. Her friends (including Creator/JohnnyDepp in his first acting role ''ever'') end up murdered, one by one, [[YourMindMakesItReal in their sleep]] -- by the same man Nancy sees in her nightmares: a badly-burnt man who wears a red-and-green striped shirt, wields a knifed glove, and calls himself Freddy Krueger. Nancy confronts her mother, who tells her that Krueger, a child molester/murderer known as "The Springwood Slasher", died as the result of a vigilante murder by the parents of his victims after [[PoliceAreUseless a botched police investigation let Freddy go free]]. Freddy wants revenge against his killers, so he decides to kill the children of those parents in their dreams, where their parents can't protect them. Can Nancy stop Freddy once and for all? Well...since several sequels followed this one, one can only assume...

* '''''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet3DreamWarriors''''' (1987) -- Creator/WesCraven returns to the franchise (though not as director) in this film, set a year after the last. Freddy begins to kill off kids in their dreams again, with all the unusual deaths -- which occur primarily on Elm Street -- deemed suicides by the stumped authorities. The number of Elm Street teenagers eventually dwindles down to a small handful that the authorities whisk off to Westin Hills Sanitarium, where Nancy Thompson -- now a recently graduated psychologist -- works. Together with the skeptical Doctor Neil Gordon, Nancy sets out to help Elm Street's last teenagers, dubbed the "Dream Warriors" for their ability to manifest special powers during their dreams, defeat Freddy once and for all. Fans usually regard this film as good, as this film started the trend of creative (and ironic) deaths and introduced Freddy's now-trademark dark sense of humor (including his penchant for {{BondOneLiner}}s).

* '''''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet3DreamWarriors''''' (1987) -- Creator/WesCraven returns to the franchise (though not as director) in this film, set a year after the last. Freddy begins to kill off kids in their dreams again, with all the unusual deaths -- which occur primarily on Elm Street -- deemed suicides by the stumped authorities. The number of Elm Street teenagers eventually dwindles down to a small handful that the authorities wisk off to Westin Hills Sanitarium, where Nancy Thompson -- now a recently graduated psychologist -- works. Together with the skeptical Doctor Neil Gordon, Nancy sets out to help Elm Street's last teenagers, dubbed the "Dream Warriors" for their ability to manifest special powers during their dreams, defeat Freddy once and for all. Fans usually regard this film as good, as this film started the trend of creative (and ironic) deaths and introduced Freddy's now-trademark dark sense of humor (including his penchant for {{Bond One Liner}}s).

* {{Flanderization}}: Freddy himself. Part of the appeal of the character for the first couple of films was that unlike a lot of slasher film killers, Freddy talked and would make the occasional wisecrack to his victims as he kills them. Sadly, as the sequels progressed, the writers would make Freddy a literal wisecracking machine, with lame puns and other jokey dialogue. At the sixth film, he was completely comical and only his killing characters and his scary-ass look kept him from being dismissible as a joke. ''New Nightmare'' and ''Freddy vs. Jason'' reversed this decline, though ''Film/FreddyVsJason'' still features callbacks to past one-liners, such as referring to an African American girl he kills as "Dark Meat" and playing pinball with Jason. According to interviews before it's release, ''Freddy Vs Jason'''s portrayal was intended as a sort of AdaptationDistillation. Using the wise-cracking nature of the later movies, but taking it to levels that they summed up as [[DudeNotFunny "A sick dog"]].

* PrimalFear: The whole idea behind this series was to make a film and boogeyman who is a compendium of all the primal fears that are known to be the subject of nightmares for people in every single part of the world (drowning, falling, being chased and finding yourself unable to run away, being eaten alive, being forced to watch helplessly as a friend or loved one is victimized, etc.), and actually uses those nightmares to get to them. The only universal nightmare that seems left out is end of the world dreams. That might be because, as Freddy's tied to the dream world itself, its ending is ''his'' primal fear.

** [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly Freddy Needs Fear Badly]]

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Who else?

* OmnicidalManiac: Freddy Krueger started out as a SerialKiller, but he became even worse over time. He was always a sadist, but at first he pretended that he wanted revenge for his death at the hands of a lynch mob until he just dropped all pretense and continued killing when this goal was already completed. With nothing to stop him, he eventually [[ChildlessDystopia murders every child in Springwood]] and [[DrivenToMadness drives their distraught parents to utter madness]]. After the entire town is destroyed, he just creates another "Elm Street" in a neighbouring city and admits that he intends to repeat this until literally everyone is dead.

* OmnicidalManiac: Freddy became increasingly worse over time. He was always a sadist, but at first he pretended that he wanted revenge for his death at the hands of a lynch mob until he just dropped all pretense and continued killing when this goal was already completed. With nothing to stop him, he eventually [[ChildlessDystopia murders every child in Springwood]] and [[DrivenToMadness drives their distraught parents to utter madness]]. With the entire town destroyed, he just creates another "Elm Street" in a neighbouring city and reveals that he'll never stop killing until everyone's dead.

* ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' (2006) -- Eight issues series released by Creator/WildStorm. Contains the stoyrlines ''Freddy's War'', ''Demon of Sleep'' and ''Double Shift''.

* CaffeineFailure: One of the later movies had a character actually eating coffee grinds in an attempt to stay awake and avoid Freddy. It did not work, at all.

* ''ComicBook/NewLineCinemasTalesOfHorror'' (2007) -- Features two stories, ''[[Franchise/TheTexasChainsawMassacre The Texas Chainsaw Salesman]]'' and ''Copycat'' about serial killer who is trying to pose as Freddy Krueger.

* BroadStrokes: ''Freddy's Revenge'' and how it relates to the rest of the series.