Freddy Krueger

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A Nightmare on Elm Street Series Character
Freddy Krueger
Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger
Gender	Male
Race	White American
Location	The Dream World
Affiliation	Serial Killer
Portrayed by	Robert Englund

This article is about the fictional character. For the Reuben single of the same name, see Freddy Kreuger (single).

Freddy Krueger , full name Frederick Charles Krueger^{[citation needed]} — is the main fictional character from the Nightmare on Elm Street series of films. created by Wes Craven and portrayed by actor Robert Englund in every film of the series. He is an undead child serial killer and child killer ^[1] who can attack his victims supernaturally from within their own dreams when they are in a state of sleep. Freddy is commonly identified by his burnt disfigured face, red and green striped sweater, brown fedora hat, and trademark metal-clawed leather glove.

Contents 1 Character history 1.1 Origin 1.2 Film series events 1.3 Freddy's Death 1.4 Battle with Jason Voorhees 2 Powers and abilities 3 Alternate plot lines 4 Inspiration 5 New Line vs Wes Craven 6 Memorabilia 7 References 8 See also 9 External links

[edit] Character history

[edit] Origin

Krueger's backstory begins with an incident involving his mother in the early 1940s. During a Christmas holiday, a young nun named Sister Mary Helena (a.k.a. Amanda Krueger) was trapped inside the Westin Hills psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. There she was raped and tortured numerous times by the patients confined there. Later she was found, close to death and now pregnant. After a breech birth, Frederick Charles Krueger was born and given up for adoption.

Kruger was placed with an abusive alcoholic named Mr. Underwood (portrayed by Alice Cooper in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare) who abused him physically and emotionally. As a teenager, Freddy exhibited sociopathic behavior, which included killing small animals. He was often ridiculed by peers. In his late teens, Freddy would practice sadomasochism, and would also practice self-mutilation, he would later murder his father.

Later in adulthood, Krueger would go on to marry Loretta, with whom he would have his daughter Kathryn with. The Krueger family would reside in Freddy's childhood home at 1428 Elm Street.^[2] Kathryn was still a child when children from the neighborhood went missing and were later found dead. Soon after, Loretta learned that in the basement of the house, Freddy had a secret room where he would keep devices of torture, newspaper clippings of his crimes, and different versions of his clawed glove. Promising that "she won't tell" she was killed by Freddy in front of Kathryn, "for snooping in daddy's special work." Krueger worked in the local power plant, where he had murdered the 20 missing neighborhood children in the plant's boiler room. The police were unable to solve the cases and newspapers dubbed the mysterious killer the "Springwood Slasher".

In 1966, Freddy was arrested for the murders of the missing children. Young Kathryn was put into foster care, and was later adopted. Because the search warrant was not signed correctly, all evidence was considered inadmissible and Krueger was released in 1968. After Freddy's trial, Amanda Krueger hung herself in the tower where she was raped. The neighborhood parents of the children Freddy had murdered, found Krueger in his boiler room and threw Molotov cocktails at the building, trapping Freddy within. Just moments before his death, Freddy was approached by three Dream Demons. These demons search the mortal world for evil souls, and in turn, give that person the power to turn dreams into reality. Freddy accepted their offer to "be forever." Freddy's remains were taken to Penny Brothers Auto Salvage and locked in the trunk of an old red Cadillac. Presumably to help erase Krueger's existence, the Thompson family moved into the house on 1428 Elm Street. Adopted by the Burroughs family, young Kathryn was taken away from Springwood and her records were sealed.

[edit] Film series events

Thirteen years later, Krueger was shown to become something of a local urban legend. The Elm Street parents remained tight-lipped about the events of the decade before, and all of their children were now teenagers. In the closing months of 1981, the children of Springwood (specifically those teens whose parents had formed the mob that killed Krueger) began systematically dying again — this time in peculiar ways, as they slept. The parents were shown to often ignore and/or deny the pleas of their terrified children, who regaled tales of a mysterious burned man named Fred, who was terrorizing them in their dreams.

Krueger met three notable adversaries in the period before Freddy's Dead:

• Nancy Thompson, the daughter of the family that moved into his old house. Nancy was the first of the Elm Street children to learn about Krueger's past and the first to vanquish him. She returned in the third, only to be killed by Freddy, who had taken the physical form of her father as a disguise.
• Kristen Parker, a girl with the ability to bring people into her dreams. She was then killed by Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master by being burned to death.
• Alice Johnson (who became the Dream Master), gained Kristen's power and the dream powers of her friends. Out of all these girls, Alice is the only one (supposedly) who has remained alive. After removing the souls Krueger gained over the years he was left powerless. A year later, Alice became pregnant and Krueger started using the dreams of her unborn child to kill again. Alice vanquished him with the help of Krueger's mother, Amanda. After Krueger was contained, Alice supposedly moved away before he was released and caused the events of Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.

[edit] Freddy's Death

After a decade of systematically slaughtering all of the children of Springwood in their dreams, the town was shown to have now been under Freddy’s influence. By absorbing the souls of his victims , Freddy was now powerful enough to blur the lines between dreams and reality. The remaining adults were kept in a mass psychosis after their children had been murdered. When there was no one left to kill, Freddy sought to leave Springwood — hoping to continue his murder spree in another town full of more children. Only one person could arrange for this to happen, his daughter Kathryn.

Krueger used what was left of his supernatural powers to find his daughter, who was now an adult named Maggie Burroughs and was working as a counselor to troubled teenagers in another city. Since her mother's death, Maggie was raised by adoptive parents and had suppressed the disturbing memories of her early childhood. After catching up with Maggie, Krueger attempted to convince her to do his bidding. She proved, though, that a compulsion for murder was not hereditary and instead schemed with Doc, her coworker (and dream psychiatrist), to help destroy Krueger. After pulling him out of her dream, and into reality, first Maggie stabbed Krueger with his own glove in the abdomen and then shoved a pipe bomb into Krueger's chest, killing him and releasing the dream demons that had given him his power.

[edit] Battle with Jason Voorhees

In the aftermath of Maggie sending Krueger back to hell, Springwood sought to revitalize itself. Freddy returned briefly, killing at least a few people (as seen in Freddy vs Jason). Figuring out how Krueger operated, the authorities and town officials covered up any and all traces of his prior existence, which included blacking out obituaries and quarantining anyone who had ever dreamt about, or had any knowledge of Krueger. As a result, Springwood returned to obscurity and subsequently repopulated with no ill effects.

Meanwhile, Krueger was unable to escape the boundaries of hell, thanks to the complete ignorance of his existence to the people of Springwood. Due to the fact that no one so much as knew of him, much less feared him, Freddy was unable to gain enough power to escape from hell. Thus, Freddy hatched a plan to resurrect the undead, immortal killing machine Jason Voorhees. First, at the conclusion of Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday, Freddy pulled Jason's abandoned mask into the ground. Then, in the guise of Voorhees' mother, Pamela, Freddy manipulated Jason into rising up from the dead once more and to go to Elm Street to kill the teenagers in order to fool the residents of Springwood into thinking that he (Krueger) was back.

Jason committed a few murders, which (as planned) were then blamed on Krueger. As a result, Krueger began to get his equilibrium back. A small group of youths and a sheriff's deputy discovered that it was not Krueger who had committed the murders, but it was already too late. Enough fear fell over Springwood to make Krueger strong enough to haunt the town again. While this took place, Freddy encountered Lori, the virgin daughter of one of his past victims and began invading her dreams the most. The problem, which Krueger had not counted on, was that Jason would not stop killing. He became irate when Jason continued to slaughter "his kids." Thus, a bloody fight ensued between the two murderous icons that raged between the dream world to the waking world at Jason's old haunt, Camp Crystal Lake. One of the youths, Lori, entered the dream realm to lure Freddy into the real world, only to learn he killed her mother and was almost killed by him. The finality of this fight was deliberately left ambiguous by the writers of Freddy vs Jason. It ended with Jason walking out of the waters holding Krueger's decapitated head, which winked to the audience before the credits rolled, followed by Freddy's laughter heard after the screen fades to black, seemingly indicating that his reign of terror was not over.

[edit] Powers and abilities

As long as his victim was dreaming, Krueger could inhabit and control their dreams, twisting them to his own ends. Any physical harm done to a person in this dream world would carry over into the real world, allowing him to easily commit multiple murders. Krueger often toyed with his victims by changing his form and surroundings, usually resembling the boiler room where he was burned. His powers increased as more and more kids believed he existed. At the height of his powers, he could cause severe damage in the real world. This included possession of humans (as shown in the second Nightmare film and Freddy vs Jason) or his corpse (as shown in the third). If one of his victims wakes up while he's fighting them in the dream world, Freddy comes into the real world as well, where he is still superhumanly strong and durable, but can be wounded. This was used for extensive fight scenes in 'Freddy's Dead' and 'Freddy vs Jason'.

In a person's own dream, Krueger could also use their deepest fears and personality against them, which became a trademark in the films. A few victims managed to use their own imagination to consciously manipulate their dreams against him (a technique known as lucid dreaming), but this had little effect on Krueger, who was completely in control of their dreams already. These kids were known as "dream warriors". Another of Krueger's powers involved absorbing the souls of his victims into his own body after they had been killed, which served to make him more powerful. As he gained a victim, their face would appear on his chest. to show all he has killed. It is seen though that Krueger can have fear and lose some control at times even in the dream world if his victim is strong enough like the ghost of his mother in "dream child." Upon his discovery that Jason could not be killed in the dream world in "Freddy Vs. Jason", Jason was able to fight back at the frightened Krueger who could not control the world till he became more confident when Jason was halted at water rushing from a broken pipe.

[edit] Alternate plot lines

The summary above corresponds to what New Line Cinema considers the canonical account, based on the films [2]. But other elements of the franchise, such as comics, novels, and other licensed materials, present variant accounts, and the films themselves are sometimes inconsistent in what they present or imply about Freddy's past. And a Nightmare prequel is rumored which might offer a new view of the storyline.^[3]

Another portion of the tale says that Krueger had an illegitimate child named Al (he calls him "Alfredrick"). Al was adopted and always teased his 'brother' that he was Krueger's child, though Krueger revealed himself to be Al's father. In this story, Krueger was "defeated" when Al sacrificed himself and tackled him into a furnace. It is unclear if Al was really Freddy’s son or if Freddy was just manipulating him into killing for him.^[4]

In the Nightmares On Elm Street comic series by (defunct) Innovation Comics, Krueger attempts to escape Springwood (much like in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare) by using Jacob Johnson's psychic powers. This story is meant to bridge the gap between A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 and Freddy’s Dead.

Freddy's Nightmares, a syndicated TV show, No More Mr. Nice Guy presented a less gruesome interpretation of Krueger’s death. Due to budget constraints, many of the series' original actors did not appear. Most episodes do not interfere with the established timeline [3], though a few episodes do present dates that conflict with the film series' timeline of events. A compilation of the pilot episode (directed by Tobe Hooper) and the episode "Killer Instinct" was released as a direct-to-video feature called The Nightmare Begins Again in England in 1991 by the now-defunct Braveworld LTD. label.

[edit] Inspiration

Craven's inspiration for Krueger included a series of stories in the LA Times about a series of mysterious deaths: all the victims had reported recurring nightmares beforehand, and died in their sleep. Other inspirations included a homeless man who had frightened Craven as a youth, and a bully at his school. The 1970s pop song "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright sealed the story for Craven, giving him not only an artistic setting to "jump off" from, but the synthesizer riff from the Elm Street soundtrack. ^[5]

[edit] New Line vs Wes Craven

As the Nightmare on Elm Street series progressed, director Wes Craven's original vision of Krueger as a true personification of evil was altered several times. Due to the enormous popularity of the films, the succeeding writers/directors chose to develop Freddy into more of a sardonic, wisecracking and flamboyant anti-hero of the 1980s horror genre.

Initially, Craven did not intend any sequels and wanted the first film to be a stand-alone movie. When the original Nightmare became a mega hit, however, New Line insisted on following it up — in spite of both Craven, and original Nightmare heroine Heather Langenkamp ("Nancy") declining involvement. The second entry, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge was released to box office success — topping the profits of the original.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors gave the series a new lease on life. Craven wanted Dream Warriors to be the end of the series, but the studio refused. Craven and New Line's relationship ended for a number of years as a result of their conflicting visions for the Nightmare enterprise. Later, in the Craven's Scream a character would say that "the first movie was great but the rest sucked" — a jab at the other films.^[6]

As the series progressed, Craven revisited his creation a second time with Wes Craven's New Nightmare, a non-canon spinoff. This film departs from the other entries by taking place in the real world and removing Krueger's previous comedic undertones. It was the least profitable of the series, however. Once again, Craven and New Line parted ways. It is stated at the Internet Movie Database that Craven watched all of the previous movies before he filmed New Nightmare, and that he could not understand the plot line at all.

[edit] Memorabilia

The Nightmare on Elm Street series spawned a huge merchandising collecting cult. Even 20 years after the first film was released, the merchandising is still ongoing, with sites like eBay listing hundreds of pieces of A Nightmare on Elm Street memorabilia every day and new products rolling off the assembly line and in to toy stores around the world.

A private collector from New Zealand has established an online collection of Nightmare on Elm Street and Freddy Krueger memorabilia spanning more than 20 years and featuring items from all round the world.[4].

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Wes Craven's New Nightmare
• Freddy vs. Jason
• Friday the 13th
• Freddy's Greatest Hits

[edit] External links

• The Nightmare on Elm Street Companion

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