My Favorite Nightmare In The ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ Series

The surreal ’80s slasher franchise is actually relevant today

My second favorite deadly nightmare in Wes Craven’s classic fantasy-horror series A Nightmare on Elm Street is in the third movie, subtitled Dream Warriors. This is also my favorite sequel in the entire franchise, which blends action, horror, and dark humor.

I rented it last night on Amazon Prime. The last time I rented the movie was a few years after it premiered in 1987. I was too young to see it when it was in the theater.

The original is still a moody masterpiece that stirred a little Salvador Dali into the popular slasher movie stew. The follow-ups were mostly derivative but a few had some demented flourishes.

The nightmares in Dream Warriors are especially weird: there’s a gigantic worm with a human’s face, a violent late-night TV show parody starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, and hypodermic-needle puncture wounds on the arms of a former heroin addict that make sucking noises like their hungry little mouths.

And then there’s Freddy himself, the Ginsu-gloved demonic murder clown who enjoys sweaters like Mr. Rogers but punishing mortals like the Anti-Christ.

The dream sequence that thrilled me as a kid starts with a homemade puppet transforming into a tiny Freddy Krueger who then grows full-sized at the foot of the bed of one of his victims — a patient in a psychiatric institution. Freddy pulls the bloody veins from the boy’s arms and legs and transforms him into a living marionette. In reality, he looks like he’s sleepwalking. In the dream, he’s being walked by Freddy to his death.

The boy falls from a ledge in the waking world after Freddie cuts his puppet strings in his dream. The other patients are helpless as their friend teeters and then goes splat. They scream at him in an attempt to wake him up but it’s too late.

The titular fighters in Dream Warriors were the closest thing I got to a big-screen version of the comic book team the X-Men in the 80s, which was about a bunch of teens with superpowers. The characters included a woman who could drag people into her dreams Inception-style, a smartass with super-strength, and a disabled boy who, as a Dream Warrior, could transform into a Dungeons and Dragons-inspired wizard. The only difference is in the X-men, the character with knife-like claws is a good guy.

The movies lasting impression on me, however, is a moment in the very beginning where Patrica Arquette tries to stave off sleep by eating a spoonful of instant coffee and washing it down with a swig of Diet Coke. Years later, while pulling an all-nighter cramming for an exam, I would try the same thing.

In Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, we learn that Freddy Krueger was the “bastard son of 100 maniacs.” It’s a helluva lurid one-liner. Freddy’s contemporaries were silent killing machines who were nigh-invulnerable. But Freddy was already dead. And he was not silent — Freddy was a smirking chatterbox. He was the first pop-culture example of a villain who was funny, at least to me. Freddy is sarcastic and cruel and loves to use the word “bitch.” The character is 36 years old but he lives on social media. Those platforms are crawling with tiny Freddy puppets, sneering jokers who hate women.

At the time, though, he was just the cinema’s loudest creep. If Freddy had appeared in a dream of mine I would probably say something like “cool, man” before being gutted. I don’t even think I’d get a special ironic nightmare.

This movie was my first R-rated rental — the VHS box was still warm from the last person to snatch it from the shelves. I had seen other scary movies before, mostly behind my parent’s back. This was the first time they agreed to let me grab whatever video I wanted, even an inappropriate one that was clearly about young people getting sliced into ribbons.

The movie is primitive when it comes to mental health, and suicide. Like most of the horror movies of this era, it was only concerned with freaking out normal, well-adjusted adults with senses of decency.

I was a newly minted pubescent when I first saw the Nightmare movies, which means I was a maladjusted, hormonal wolf-boy who hated everyone, especially himself. My parents had zero interest in watching Dream Warriors with me. Which was why I loved the movie.

To my parents, a violent movie featuring exactly one (1) gratuitous moment of nudity was the perfect pacifier. A 96-minute break from hearing me complain. To me, it was mom repellent. Dad-be-gone.

They liked some horror movies but not ones about a homicidal maniac who shish-kabobs kiddies while delivering zingers. So that night everyone got what they wanted: mom and dad got some peace and quiet. I got some mayhem and gore (and one gratuitous moment of nudity.)

It can never be said enough, but being a teenager is just the worst.

But my number one favorite nightmare in the entire A Nightmare On Elm Street series isn’t a scene, per se. It’s actually the movie’s origin story: Razor-fingered child murderer Freddie Krueger is burned alive by a mob of parents who decide to take the law into their own hands.

The plan backfires, thanks to evil mojo. Freddy gets his revenge from beyond the grave by haunting the dreams of the sons and daughters of the vigilantes who set him on fire. The adults who wanted to protect their children end up cursing them instead.

This is the foundation the entire franchise is built on. The teens of Elm Street are afraid to go to sleep because when they do Freddy’s ready to make sure they never wake up. What did they ever do to deserve that? Well, nothing.

The underlying fear the Nightmare movies tap is that children pay for the mistakes of their parents. That adults don’t actually know what they’re doing. Mothers and fathers aren’t supposed to be emotional dumbasses. But they are. I am. So are you.

It is terrifying to consider that growing up is a meaningless process. You end up stupid anyway. That real-life is just constant mistakes. The parents of the children in the Nightmare movies thought they were doing the right thing but, wow, it was not the right thing.

I don’t think it’s irrational to fear authority, especially if you’re a minor. It’s grown-ups who have ruined the environment. Who start wars that require the sacrifices of young people. It’s kids who have to live with the decisions of their mothers and fathers.

Krueger gets his revenge from beyond the grave by stalking the dreams of the children of the vigilantes who murdered him. He punishes the sons and daughters of those who made the decision to execute him.

I was talking to a friend of mine who is a high school teacher about his experiences trying to teach teenagers remotely during the pandemic. I listened, mostly. He is exhausted but hopeful and praised his struggling students.

The kids are alright but they know the adults who run the world are spineless jellyfish at best, pompous imbeciles at worst. How else can they explain how the most powerful country in the world stepped on a rake and then on another rake, and another. For six months and counting.

These teens are living a reality I only worried about. I had circumstantial evidence that adults were incompetent — a teacher forgetting her lesson plan, my dad burning himself while trying to cook us dinner because mom had a migraine.

I use to fear nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The only nightmare I remember from my childhood is one where I’m racing home as a nuclear missile falls from the sky. In the dream, my only thought was getting home and hugging my mom. But I never make it. During those years my fear was that, in the night, the grown men who ran the world would fail to do their jobs. That they’d get angry and push buttons and destroy everything.

This didn’t happen, of course. I wouldn’t be writing this essay if it had, obviously.

But today’s teens are witnessing adult failure on a massive scale. The old people in charge have fucked up. Historically. The pandemic is a slow-motion disaster. The adults don’t have a plan for a dying planet. They don’t seem to be troubled by the rich getting richer while everyone else gets poorer. The pandemic’s spread could have been halted if the adults were alright. They’re not. Every generation is afraid their parents will unleash a Freddy Krueger and it finally happened.

Enjoy the new nightmare.