History Headscratchers / ANightmareOnElmstreet

*** The reason is that adults are useless. Pulling Freddy into the real world and locking him up is exactly what Nancy tries in the first movie. Her goal wasn't to kill him, it was for her father to arrest him which is part of why she was stalling so hard. It fails hard but that was the game plan. We don't know that killing him in the real world won't stick either. If Freddy's Dead is considered Canon (and I've never heard otherwise) and to a lesser extent Freddy vs Jason which even if you count his wink at the end as confirmation that he survived there is nothing about Freddy's real world incarnations that suggests his disembodied head is at all dangerous. To the above troper he's only been dragged into reality twice (three if you count FvJ) the first time he slipped back through the sleeping mother, the second and third times it worked like a charm. He'd probably survive as well, he doesn't seem to be in pain from his burns any of the times he comes into the real world.

** What's important is that she and her son survived. If she had returned, it would most likely have been only a matter of time before she ended up meeting the same fate as [[spoiler: Nancy]], more for predictable writerly reasons than in-universe ones. (Originally the protagonist of "Freddy's Dead" was going to turn out to ''be'' her son, but that plan was scrapped.) I'm glad that Freddy has at least one long-time major enemy in this continuity with a record two wins/escapes to zero losses over him. It's a refreshing change. Let her live her life in peace, I say.

[[folder: About the maniacs]]
In the fifth movie when we see Amanda Krueger get trapped inside the dungeon where all the 100 maniacs were kept, how did they survive if they have no food or water? Judging by Amanda Krueger’s speech in the fourth movie she was trapped there “during the holy days” (so, for several days, maybe a month) what the hell did the inmates and her ate and drank during that period? Notice they didn’t have beds either and you also need sleep to survive, but probably feeding is the most immediate plot hole.
* When we're talking about the kinds of holidays that would be likely to even bring an Asylum down to a skeleton crew it's at most a four-day weekend. Humans can go that long without water, they'll just be mighty unhappy about it.
** But she said she was there for a month.
** I assumed that they somehow kept her hidden.
* There were probably some water taps in that huge communal cell, and a pass-through port to allow the inmates to be fed. The inmates weren't completely abandoned during the holidays, they just made sure that whomever was tasked to slip them their meals couldn't see or hear ''Amanda'' when they dropped off the food.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Why was Springwood just fine in Freddy vs. Jason?]]
* In the sixth movie, Springwood was a town full of insane parents because all of the kids had been killed by Freddy. When Freddy vs. Jason starts up, the town seems normal enough, if not a little freaky about Freddy coming back. Did they just pretend the sixth movie never happened? On that note, who renovated 1428 Elm Street? It was a total wreck ever since the third movie.
** Presumably there was a cover-up. [[MST3KMantra Just try to roll with it.]]
** The text in the beginning of the 6th movie says it takes place "Ten years from now". Assuming this doesn't mean "Ten years from 1991 when this movie was released" and is instead intended to be relative to the viewer, then Freddy's Dead hasn't happened yet, just like Jason X.
*** Freddy's Dead already happened by the time the events of Freddy vs Jason start. There are some clips from Freddy's Dead included in the FvJ introduction sequence.
** As for 1428 Elm Street renovation, maybe it was Dr. Campbell before he moved in. Or whatever heirs Thompsons had did it and sold the house to him. Maggie's birth date and apparent age prevent ''Freddy's Dead'' from taking place later than early 2000s though. And since FvJ takes place in 2003-2004... yeah, a cover-up. That must be it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Freddy killed every kid in Springwood? How?]]
* It was established in Part 3 that Freddy could only invade the dreams of the children of the lynch mob. In Part 4 and 5 the only way Freddy could attack anyone else was by proxy in Alice's (and later Jacob's) dreams. So how in the hell did Freddy somehow kill ''every single kid'' in Springwood in Freddy's Dead? The only explanation I can come up with is AssPull.
** Technically, it was in ten years that he was able to pull a feat like that. [[WildMassGuessing Its possibly that the reason why Freddy was strong in FD was because A) he had a long time to this and B) he can invade dreams and kill people. ''Freddy's Revenge'' shown that he didn't need the lynch children anymore in order to attack, when proclaimed that the teens at the party were all his children now. Freddy can attack teenagers in their sleep, thus making Springwood into a ghost town by FD.]]
*** Freddy's Revenge mostly became a case of CanonDiscontinuity afterward though. Dream Warriors re-established Freddy's ability to only target the Elm Street kids. It was only after Alice inherited Kristen's power (which, we can assume, was corrupted when that energy passed through him before reaching her) that he was able to touch anybody else, since Alice's dreams would bring them right to him. Freddy's entire plan in Part 5 was for the very reason that he needed an intermediary (Jacob) to continue killing. FD pretty much seemed to retcon that plot point entirely.
*** Always assumed Freddy could go into anyone's dreams, but just went after the children of those who killed him first. The only reason he needed Alice and Jacob in ''The Dream Master'' and ''The Dream Child'' was because he was weak and contained, and needed to act through them.
*** The theory that ''Film/FreddyVsJason'' is an interquel between ''Dream Child'' and ''Freddy's Dead'' got me to thinking about this one. Freddy can only go after people who know and are afraid of him in that movie but, apart from Nancy briefly referring to the idea in the first movie, that didn't really seem to hold in the other movies. Maybe that rule's a new tactic on his part. He always fed on fear, but he didn't originally need it. At first, his dream-stalking rules confined him to the Elm Street kids. Once they'd died, he needed Alice's powers to get around them and keep killing and, when he lost her, he used Jacob instead. When he lost both of them, he had to find another way out, and that's when he figured out that he could spread through people's fear of him. But the parents also realized that, and they managed to cover up his existence completely for awhile, which kept the town safe. But then ''Film/FreddyVsJason'' happened and, since now so many of the Springwood kids know about Freddy again (and every new victim just adds to the domino effect), things quickly fell apart and the town was decimated.
** The YourBeliefMakesItReal loophole he used to come back and kill anyone he liked in an area that's afraid of him was not just some brand new sudden AssPull: Joey explicitly brings up the possibility in ''Part IV''.
** As for Freddy's Revenge, which isn't CanonDiscontinuity as much as some fans might wish it, I read somewhere that per WordOfGod, after his defeat in the first movie, Freddy's spirit was confined to 1428 Elm Street, where he was able to possess Jesse and go after whoever he wanted using him as the conduit. His defeat at the end of that film freed him from the house but put the "Elm Street kids" restriction back on him, leading into Dream Warriors.
[[/folder]]

If i'm remembering right Nancy and friends were clearly older than Kristen and friends. How many years ago was Freddy killed? Did some people who didn't have kids yet join in the angry mob? Or has there been enough time for all of them to have grown into teens?

[[folder:Why does Freddy kill in a boiler room in the remake?]]
* It could be a reference to him being the groundskeeper and apparent maintenance man of the pre-school, but the basement of that place... just looked like a generic basement. Its unlikely its a reference to the place where he died either, since the building the parents chased him into just looked like a storage shed of some sort.
** Because...well, just because fans would not be happy if it was anything other than a boiler room?
* I saw a bunch of pipes and stuff there. Also, RuleOfScary.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Glen died naturally? Yeah right!]]
* From what I can gather, if Freddy kills a victim in their dreams, real-world witnesses would see it as a natural death (i.e. Tina murdered by Rod since he was in the room at the time, Rod hanging himself, Sheila suffering asthma attack, etc.)...so how could Glen's death in the first film (dragged into the bed and shot out in a geyser of blood) be explained as a non-Freddy involvement?
** They probably never technically found a body, just a huge amount of blood that matched Glen's blood type. As for how they explained it, that's where the WeirdnessCensor first began to kick in. Since so many of the pillars of Springwood's community played a part in Freddy's death, they really, ''really'' don't want to believe he's somehow come back; even Nancy's dad, who visited the the crime scene and had already heard about the dreams from Nancy, still didn't want to believe it. My guess is the police report just got tossed into the back of a filing cabinet and nobody ever brought it up again (especially since her father, who eventually did accept the truth, assumed that Freddy was beaten after the first movie).
** To elaborate what the previous troper wrote, and referring to only the original movie, I think that the authorities and witnesses are likely assuming that the deaths (including Glen's) happened in a non-supernatural way, even if they have no idea what else could have caused them. Horror movie characters, particularly in settings like this, aren't smart enough to consider supernatural causes, and the first movie takes place long before the people of Springwood finally realize and accept that Freddy is real. I don't think it's ever stated or implied that real-world witnesses see anything different than what the audience is directly shown.
*** Tina's death, in particular, would have looked pretty strange to investigators; it wouldn't take a [[Series/{{Dexter}} blood-spatter analyst]] to see that the blood on the wall and the ceiling included streaks, not just splashes, and if I recall correctly, when Tina was dropped back onto the bed, it caused blood to splash on to Rod (either from hitting a pool of blood or just plain splattering). Nevertheless, as improbable as it may be that Rod made the cuts, made the knife vanish without a trace, ''pushed Tina's bleeding and thrashing body up the wall and onto the ceiling while screaming hysterically,'' and splattered her onto the bed, that's ''still'' a more likely scenario than the idea of a long-dead quasi-corporeal demonic serial killer with dream powers doing it.
*** Rod immediately goes on the run, which looks a bit suspicious, no?
*** Rod's death would have been pretty easy to explain, under the circumstances.
*** The death of Nancy's mom had to have looked pretty crazy. I can only imagine it was explained away as being the result of her falling asleep with a lit cigarette--one that managed to engulf the bed, and ''only'' the bed, in flames, and quickly reduce her body into a meaty skeleton. That scene, in particular, was probably the one that led to Nancy's father later realizing Nancy was right about Freddy Krueger.
*** In response to what the previous troper said about Nancy's mother, the second movie reveals that Nancy supposedly was driven insane by watching Glen's death and her mother was said to have committed suicide. Considering that Nancy's mother was a notorious alcoholic, it probably made sense to the populace of Springwood.
*** Nancy's father was Springwood's police chief. He'd lost his wife to "suicide" and his daughter had apparently lost her mind, following the violent deaths of her friends and boyfriend. Any investigation carried out by his officers or the county sheriff would've been pretty discreet, to avoid making a respected fellow cop's miserable situation any more painful.
*** As for how Glen's death would be explained...I dare say the event was probably downplayed in the official report and dismissed as unsolvable.
*** A scene was deleted of Glen's body rising from the bed either burnt or blood stained,but almost unscathed. Maybe he was found electrocuted and the blood was just an illusion by Freddy. Or he cut an artery.
*** But but... that spoils the "coroner puking in the bathroom" joke!
** Regarding the sequels, particularly those up to part 5, the series did eventually get to the point where the dream deaths were considerably different than the deaths as they appeared in the real world, especially since the movies turned more and more to elaborate sets, themes and effects for each of the kills, and Freddy was progressively [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]] into a wise-cracking, pun-spewing comedian. Even the 80's audiences eventually got to the point where they considered the complete GenreBlindness of Springwood's adults an AssPull, given the repeated reports of Freddy's likeness from friends of the victims during those periods of egregious deaths-by-coincidence that would occasionally plague the town. This is probably the main reason why ''New Nightmare'' used a completely different continuity, and both ''Freddy's Dead'' and ''Freddy Vs. Jason'' (mostly) dropped the adults-in-denial theme.
* This made more sense in the first movie, when Freddy made a token attempt, Glen's death aside, of making the deaths look like they had a mundane explanation. As mentioned, like Tina murdered by Rod since he was in the room at the time, Rod hanging himself, Sheila suffering asthma attack... occasionally he still does it in later movies, like making it look like one of the kids sleepwalked their way off a tower and another getting into a car accident. However, the deaths get more and more bizarre as the series goes on to the point it becomes unbelievable that anyone could think these weren't supernatural. I think the adults know what's going on but are just plain in denial because it's so horrific and it's not like they are actually able to do anything about it. It isn't until Hypnocyil comes along that the adults even have a means to prevent Freddy from killing the kids. The whole plot of Freddy Vs. Jason relies upon the adults finally getting off their butts to do something and they're so effective at it Freddy has to bring in Jason to get around their measures.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Freddy's death scene in ''New Nightmare'']]
In ''New Nightmare'', Freddy get shoved into an "oven" and then before he dies he turns into... the devil? Did I miss something where Freddy became a demon that only Creator/RayHarryhausen could love?
** It's stated in New Nightmare that "Freddy" is a demon that has taken the form of the Freddy from the films and that the only way to prevent him from entering the "real world" (Well, the fictional version of the real world as portrayed in the flm...don't ask.) is to keep making ''Elm Street'' movies.
** The monster/demon/creature/whatever has grown to ''like'' being Freddy, and it must be trapped in stories to keep it from wreaking havoc. So it needs a new Nightmare on Elm Street story to trap it. What we see when it is "killed" (actually trapped in the new Freddy story, which is the one we just watched) is either it's "true" face, or just one of many forms it can take. Point is, the Freddy Krueger in ''New Nightmare'' is not Freddy Krueger from the films, but the ''idea'' of Freddy.

[[folder: Confusion over "K. Krueger".]]
In ''Freddy's Dead'', the characters are misled into believing that one of the teens is Freddy's long-lost child, but it really turns out that it's their adult therapist. However, they'd seen newspaper clippings that documented when Freddy's arrest and lynch-mob demise took place, which ought to have given them a good idea of the age of his kid. So why didn't anyone notice that their initial candidate was a dozen-odd years too young to have been K. Krueger? Especially given that the film takes place "ten years from now" (i.e. from when the viewer watches the film), meaning that by now he's too young to have been ''conceived'' before Freddy's death.
* Not necessarily. Freddy is shown in a few movies to have a desire for rape. They could've just not ruled out the possibility he raped someone to conceive his child after his death.
* The dates in the classroom were all over the place (1493-Freddy sailed across the sea, 1869- Freddy kills Marie) he might just assume that the date (1966-Child taken) is wrong as well.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Why does no one ever just pull Freddy out of the dream world and imprison him?]]
* Freddy is ''far'' weaker in the real world than the dream world, and much less dangerous so why did no one ever think to pull Freddy out of the dream world, beat him into a pulp, and then lock him up? I'm not saying it'd work, just no one ever suggests pulling him into the real world and locking him up when its clear killing him doesn't stick. Or did I miss something? This isn't about it ''working'' its about why no one ever thought about doing it once its revealed you can pull him into the real world.
** Freddy's burns are so severe, it's unlikely he could survive for long if you did trap him in the material world and lock him up somewhere. That's assuming he couldn't just vanish into the dream world at will, which is what's always happened when he's been temporarily dragged into reality before.
*** The reason is that adults are useless. Pulling Freddy into the real world and locking him up is exactly what Nancy tries in the first movie. Her goal wasn't to kill him, it was for her father to arrest him which is part of why she was stalling so hard. It fails hard but that was the game plan. We don't know that killing him in the real world won't stick either. If Freddy's Dead is considered Canon (and I've never heard otherwise) and to a lesser extent Freddy vs Jason which even if you count his wink at the end as confirmation that he survived there is nothing about Freddy's real world incarnations that suggests his disembodied head is at all dangerous. To the above troper he's only been dragged into reality twice (three if you count FvJ) the first time he slipped back through the sleeping mother, the second and third times it worked like a charm. He'd probably survive as well, he doesn't seem to be in pain from his burns any of the times he comes into the real world.
*** Yes, Nancy specifically calls her father come over and "arrest the guy when I bring him out." But, because her mother barred all the windows and locked the door, he can't get in, so Nancy pretty much has to try and fight Freddy to the death. It doesn't really work, but it at least proves that Freddy is somewhat vulnerable in the real world. Of course, given that Freddy was burned to death already and it didn't take, it's likely that he just can't be killed, simply slipping back into the dream world whenever his physical body dies. Locking him up would seem a viable option, but you really logistically can't keep him contained for all time. Eventually, he'd get out, or get "dead," with pretty much the same result as defeating him at the end of a Nightmare on Elm Street movie: temporary peace until he gets his shit back together and starts all over again.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: In Nightmare on Elm Street 2, did the victims see Jesse or Freddy?]]
* Some people theorized that the coach, Ron, and the kids at the party were seeing Jesse terrorizing them, and not Freddy. It's possible what we see is not how people in the movie see things. For example, the terrified look on Ron's face could be that he is seeing his best friend attacking him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: How did Freddy get a new hat in part 2?]]
* In the original Nancy snatches the hat off his head and brings it into the real world as proof, and we never see him get it back. So how does he have a new one in part 2? Did he just sew a new one out of whole cloth in the dream world? (granted, that would be pretty funny)
** Freddy projects himself into people's dreams, everything you (and the charecters) see is a projection from Freddy's mind or spirit or whaterver. He can re-manifest another hat if he wants. In different movies he manifests all sorts of clothing, objects and even modifies his own body.
[[/folder]]

* IdiotPlot.