History YMMV / ANightmareOnElmStreet

* {{Narm}}: The NES game's insistance of adding a ™ whenever Freddy™ is mentioned.

Works with their own pages:

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: In Wes Craven's New Nightmare, has Freddy really escaped into the "real world" and is haunting actress Heather Langenkamp, or [[FridgeBrilliance has Nancy lapsed into psychosis]] due to mental trauma suffered in previous films, and is mercifully deluded that she is merely an actress who ''portrayed'' someone going through those horrible events? (Getting temporarily better just so she can fight him off one more time before returning to her delusional safe haven.)
** Or has Freddy finally managed to claw his way into [[spoiler: the "beautiful dream" Kristin sent her into at the end of the third film, where she's an actress and Freddy is just a hammy pop-culture icon?]]

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: In the fourth film, Freddy is resurrected when Kincaid's dog pisses fire on his grave. It might be considered a joke since the dog's name is [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]].

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: "Running From this Nightmare" by Tuesday Knight (who also plays Kristen) from Nightmare on Elm Street IV, if you like your 80's pop music DarkerAndEdgier.
** The ''Freddy's Nightmares'' opening theme.
** Kool Moe Dee's "Let's Go" which covers ''the entire credit sequence'' of ''Dream Child''.
** No love for I'm Awake Now by the Goo Goo Dolls?
** Dramarama's "Anything, Anything" in ''Dream Master''.

* HilariousInHindsight: In ''Freddy's Dead'', Freddy kills a gamer by controlling him with the Power Glove and forcing him into a pit. When WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd plays a ''Nightmare On Elm Street'' NES game, at the end of the video he gets in a fight with Freddy...and kills him using the Power Glove.
* HolyShitQuotient:
** ''The Dream Master:'' The zoom out revealing Kincaid isn't just in a junkyard, he's on an entire planet covered in a labyrinth composed of scrapped cars.
** ''Dream Child:'' Alice dreams of her womb and her baby. [[spoiler: She's happy at first, until she realizes Freddy is there too, and has been feeding the souls of his victims to make the baby evil like him.]]
** ''Freddy's Dead:'' The house Tracy, Carlos and Spencer go into exploding into an exact replica of 1428 Elm Street.
* ItGetsBetter: ''New Nightmare''.

* NightmareFuel: Even Robert Englund admitted he had nightmares with Freddy Krueger!
** The fifth movie can certainly qualify. Even if it's one of the more maligned sequels, it has a noticeable amount of content edited out of its subsequent VHS and DVD releases, particularly Dan and Greta's death scenes.

* {{Squick}}: Some of Freddy's methods wander into this territory, especially in ''Freddy vs. Jason''.
** The most disturbing example; disguising himself as a human-like nurse in ''The Dream Master''. A make up-free Robert Englund in drag is suprisingly more disgusting than any violent act Freddy could dish out.
*** Perhaps the Squickiest moment of the series had no gore and no violence: on a television talk show in ''New Nightmare'', Heather Langenkamp (as herself) is asked if she could trust her child around Robert Englund, simply because he plays Freddy.
** ''Dream Child'', so squick it's the only Nightmare movie to have an unrated version.
* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: The NES game published by LJN (but developed by {{Rare}}) was giving a scathing review by WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd, while the PC game published by Westwood, based on ''Dream Warriors'', isn't well known to the general public.
* TheScrappy: Dylan in "New Nightmare". How much peril do you have to get yourself into before you actually realise you should ''run'' from the undead serial killer? No... [[TooDumbToLive I didn't mean climb into a lit furnace...]].
** Technically, he didn't have anywhere else to run. It was either get away from Krueger in the only avoidable spot left to run to, or stay and get killed. The proverbial "rock and a hard place".
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: "New Nightmare" has Freddy Krueger escape into the ''real world'' and they didn't ever consider having Robert Englund fight him?
** They did, actually. Rumor has it, a scene was written wherein Freddy confronted Robert Englund, appearing as a spider or something similar, but obviously plans for it got scrapped. However, the movie hints at Freddy sort of replacing Robert Englund, with Robert sort of phasing out as Freddy shows up more, so while it is indeed a wasted opportunity, it was at least considered and rather justified in its removal.

** Though they were beat to it by Dokken in ''Dream Warriors'' with "Dream Warriors".

* ParanoiaFuel: In ''Dream Warriors'', one of the characters is having a dream where he is making out with a hot nurse...who turns out to be ''[[{{Squick}} Freddy in disguise]]''. Sweet dreams, everyone.
** It was going to be even worse originally: Freddy's head was going to be on the naked nurse's body.
** The ''premise alone'' qualifies, obviously. It's one thing when you fall off a cliff in your dreams and wake up safe at home seconds later. But it's [[AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent completely different]]'' when that can cross over into the ''real world''.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The whole "special powers in your dreams" thing never amounted to much. At best, characters just briefly delayed their deaths by bombarding Freddy with attacks that [[NoSell were just minor annoyances]], and in the end its not the powers or teamwork that beat him, its Neil shoving his corpse into a hole and attacking it with holy water and a crucifix.
** "New Nightmare" has Freddy Krueger escape into the ''real world'' and they didn't ever consider having Robert Englund fight him?

* BadassDecay: Freddy ''never'' joined the good guys(who would want him?), but as the series went on, he became quite the jokester, and became much more goofy and playful with people's dream sequences than he was in the first few films. This came to a head in ''Freddy's Dead'', where he turned someone's dream into a {{Nintendo}} game, where you can tell he's having a great time.
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment - In the fourth film, Freddy is resurrected when Kincaid's dog pisses fire on his grave. It might be considered a joke since the dog's name is [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]].
** The second movie is the BizarroEpisode of the series.

** ''Freddy's Revenge:'' The opening bus ride.

* HoYay: Pretty much the entirety of ''Freddy's Revenge''.
** [[http://www.glitterrock.org/ne0013.html TheGlitterDome can attest to that.]]
** Tim Dirk's Filmsite.org [[http://www.filmsite.org/series-nightmare2.html is more intellectual in its analysis]], but the homoerotic content is spelled out even further.
** In the documentary Never Sleep Again, it's actually revealed [[HomoeroticSubtext the writer did it on purpose]], but not even the producer realized it until it was too late.

* ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch: Samuel Bayer, the director of the remake, accused its detractors of doing this. Had he just been making a comment about how much of the criticism was coming from people who hadn't actually watched the film, then he would in all likelihood have been 100% correct -- unfortunately, the way he phrased his comments made it clear that he thought no-one who had anything bad to say about the remake, ''including professional critics'', could possibly have watched it. Naturally, this led to an InternetBackdraft, and even several critics commenting how silly his remarks were.

* HilariousInHindsight: Johnny Depp tagged along to auditions for the first film with a friend. Wes Craven asked Depp to read as well, and Depp was cast other than the friend he was supporting. But fret not about the friend. 26 years later, Jackie Earle Haley would go on to play Freddy in the remake.
** Speaking of the remake, there's an interesting parallel between Marcus Yeon's final vidlog and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toXMt1rzdrA this viral clip]].
** In ''Freddy's Dead'', Freddy kills a gamer by controlling him with the Power Glove and forcing him into a pit. When WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd plays a ''Nightmare On Elm Street'' NES game, at the end of the video he gets in a fight with Freddy...and kills him using the Power Glove.

** Damn near everything to do with him in the remake. Even before he was burned, his interactions with the children are unbelievably uncomfortable to watch, especially if you actually allow yourself to picture him hurting the kids.

** Original: Glen's death.

* NightmareRetardant: At the end of the first film, when [[spoiler:Freddy drags what is supposed to be Nancy's mother through the little window in her front door as a [[NotQuiteDead final scare]]. It's a [[{{Narm}} hilariously]] [[SpecialEffectsFailure obvious mannequin.]]]]
** The whole concept becomes significantly less scary when you remember that Freddy only kills in one suburb (a fictional one at that), though [[ItGotWorse it does get worse]] in ''Freddy's Dead'', in which he states that "every town has an Elm Street" and makes clear that he's planning to expand his reach to the whole world.

* RetroactiveRecognition: ''ANOES'' was the first movie JohnnyDepp played in.

** They did, actually. Rumor has it, a scene was written wherein Freddy confronted Robert Englund, appearing as a spider or something similar, but obviously )plans for) it got scrapped. However, the movie hints at Freddy sort of replacing Robert Englund, with Robert sort of phasing out as Freddy shows up more, so while it is indeed a wasted opportunity, it was at least considered and rather justified in its removal.

* VindicatedByVideo: The first movie did solid box-office business for a low budget 1984 movie, but it was the home video sales that really demonstrated what a money-maker Freddy could be.

** JerkassWoobie: Freddy might have a sympathetic backstory, but his monstrous actions outweigh {{the Woobie}} side, however.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment - In the fourth film, Freddy is resurrected when Kincaid's dog pisses fire on his grave. It might be considered a joke since the dog's name is [[Film/FridayThe13th Jason]].

* AndTheFandomRejoiced: Following his performance in ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'', JackieEarleHaley became pretty much the only person in the world people might actually accept as replacing Robert Englund as Freddy.

** The second movie is the BLAMEpisode of the series.

* TheScrappy: Dylan in "New Nightmare". How much peril do you have to get yourself into before you actually realise you should ''run'' from the undead serial killer? No... [[TooDumbToLive I didn't mean climb into a lit furnace...]].

* BadassDecay: YourMileageMayVary. Freddy ''never'' joined the good guys(who would want him?), but as the series went on, he became quite the jokester, and became much more goofy and playful with people's dream sequences than he was in the first few films. This came to a head in ''Freddy's Dead'', where he turned someone's dream into a {{Nintendo}} game, where you can tell he's having a great time.

* VillainDecay: Freddy got less and less scary/menacing in the sequels, resorting to outright gimmicky and comical methods of doing in his victims in the later movies. (''New Nightmare'' and ''Freddy vs. Jason'' [[YourMileageMayVary are generally regarded]] as exceptions.)

* NeutralEvil

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: Even Robert Englund admitted he had nightmares with Freddy Krueger!
** The fifth movie can certainly qualify. Even if it's one of the more maligned sequels, it has a noticeable amount of content edited out of its subsequent VHS and DVD releases, particularly Dan and Greta's death scenes.

** In ''Freddy's Dead'', Freddy kills a gamer by controlling him with the Power Glove and forcing him into a pit. When WebOriginal/TheAngryVideoGameNerd plays a ''Nightmare On Elm Street'' NES game, at the end of the video he gets in a fight with Freddy...and kills him using the Power Glove.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: The NES game published by LJN (but developed by {{Rare}}) was giving a scathing review by WebOriginal/TheAngryVideoGameNerd, while the PC game published by Westwood, based on ''Dream Warriors'', isn't well known to the general public.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: The NES game published by LJN (but developed by {{Rare}}) was giving a scathing review by the AngryVideoGameNerd, while the PC game published by Westwood, based on ''Dream Warriors'', isn't well known to the general public.

** In ''Freddy's Dead'', Freddy kills a gamer by controlling him with the Power Glove and forcing him into a pit. When TheAngryVideoGameNerd plays a ''Nightmare On Elm Street'' NES game, at the end of the video he gets in a fight with Freddy...and kills him using the Power Glove.

* {{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 ''Freddy vs. Jason'' 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".]]
* HiddenDepths: Alice Johnson, as well as her friends Debbie in ''Dream Master'' and Greta in ''Dream Child''. Alice's character in ''Dream Master'' is a meek daydreamer who fantasizes about telling her alcoholic father off and asking hunky jock Dan Jordan out. By the movie's end, Alice has grown as a character and no longer relies on simply fantasizing about what she wants to do.
** Debbie, a punk girl with her own weight equipment who does bad in school... and also likes to watch ''{{Dynasty}}'', is terrified of cockroaches, and is friends with brainy girl Sheila and sticks up for her. When Sheila dies, you can tell from Debbie's voice she's trying her best not to break down.
** Greta, a rich girl who hopes to be a model and is at odds with her domineering mother Racine. Following Dan Jordan's death, it cuts to a scene of Greta looking at his picture in the yearbook and crying over it. This gives her depth in the sense that she truly cared about Dan, and her friends, and was more than a total knockout.

** In the documentary Never Sleep Again, it's actually revealed the writer did it on purpose, but not even the producer realized it until it was too late.

* AndTheFandomRejoiced: Following his performance in ''{{Watchmen}}'', JackieEarleHaley became pretty much the only person in the world people might actually accept as replacing Robert Englund as Freddy.