Since appearing in 1984, Freddy Krueger has become an iconic horror villain.
But how did he go from a child killer in a grimy Christmas sweater to Jason Voorhees'
puppeteer?
Here's the breakdown of the entire, original Nightmare on Elm Street story.
Our first real introduction to Freddy Krueger comes in the form of a dream that high schooler
Tina has one terrible night.
She later shares the experience with her friends, Nancy, Glen, and Rod, who have all been having
the same dreams about the same man.
It's soon revealed that the monster in their dreams was once a human child killer who became
the target of the town's parents after the legal system failed to bring him to justice.
"But he can't get you now.
He's dead, honey, because mommy killed him."
Somehow, Krueger figured out how to live on in the dream world, and now he wants to murder
the children of the parents who killed him.
Luckily, Nancy eventually defeats him after dragging him into the real world.
After their confrontation, Nancy walks outside her house, and all seems well.
Her friends are alive, and everything is sunshine and roses … until the car suddenly turns
into a Freddy-mobile and traps everyone inside.
Five years later, in Freddy's Revenge, a kid named Jesse and his family move into Nancy's
old house on Elm Street, and an entirely new cast of characters are tormented by Freddy.
Jesse's dreams of Freddy are a little different from Nancy's, in that Jesse never really finds
himself in any danger of being killed.
But when he and his friend, Lisa, find Nancy's old diary, he realizes exactly who he's up
against.
In order to stay awake, Jesse starts to wander around town at night.
He winds up in an S&M bar, where his leather-clad gym coach catches him drinking a beer and
takes him back to the school to punish him.
There, Jesse experiences his first Freddy possession, and he slashes his teacher to
death in the showers.
Things come to a head at Lisa's pool party, where Freddy actually bursts through Jesse's
stomach, kills his friend, and then goes after everyone at the pool.
Lisa tells Freddy that she loves Jesse and kisses him, which prompts Freddy to burst
into flames.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors brings Nancy back to the franchise, only now
she's an intern therapist at a psychiatric hospital.
Also at the hospital is Kristen, a teenager who has the ability to bring other people
into her own dreams, which comes in handy when fighting Freddy.
It's during this movie that a nun named Sister Mary Helena reveals that the only way to defeat
Freddy is to find his remains and bury them on hallowed ground.
Nancy becomes Freddy's final victim before his bones are able to finally be put to rest,
destroying his monstrous form in the real world.
And how's this for a plot twist?
That helpful nun was Freddy's mom all along.
A year later, in Nightmare on Elm Street 5 : The Dream Master, Dream Warrior Kristen
is convinced that Freddy Krueger is still out there and looking to take down her and
her friends, since that's kind of his thing.
As it turns out, he is.
After killing the other two Dream Warriors survivors, Freddy takes aim at Kristen's new
friends, including a girl named Alice who knows a powerful rhyme called "The Dream Master."
Freddy finally kills Kristen, but before she dies, she's able to pass her dream power on
to Alice.
Alice confronts Freddy, and remembering "The Dream Master" rhyme, she shows the monster
his reflection.
"And it shall die!"
Defeated, Freddy is torn apart by the very souls he'd trapped, releasing the ghost of
every trapped, murdered child.
In Nightmare on Elm Street 5 : The Dream Child, Alice discovers she's pregnant.
But this isn't your average pregnancy.
Freddy is somehow feeding her baby with the souls of his victims.
Through all of this, Alice keeps seeing a young boy named Jacob, who turns out to be
an older version of her unborn child.
Alice discovers that the body of Freddy's mother, Amanda, is still in the asylum, and
now, the only way to defeat Freddy is to release Amanda's soul.
After a little trickery by young Dream Child Jacob, Amanda and Jacob are able to trap Freddy's
soul...by turning him into an adorable baby.
In Freddy's Dead : The Final Nightmare, a decade has passed, and in Springwood, Ohio,
the entire population of minors has been mysteriously wiped out.
Only one remains, John Doe, who Freddy sends out into the world in order to retrieve more
souls for him.
Outside of the city, John comes across a youth shelter, where he meets Maggie and a new group
of future victims.
John and Maggie have dreams involving the same little girl, which drives them back to
Springwood.
John, Maggie, and the other teens take refuge at the old Elm Street house, where Freddy
attacks each one.
Maggie eventually realizes that Freddy is actually her father.
"I know who I am."
"You're my blood.
Only you could have brought me out."
With the help of another shelter employee named Doc, it's discovered that Freddy has
been kept alive by dream demons, and the only way to kill him once and for all is to drag
him into the real world.
Maggie brings him into the real world and throws a bunch of weapons at him in 3D, then
stabs him with his own glove... and blows him up.
In Freddy vs. Jason, it's become clear to Freddy that the only way to make a real comeback
is if the teenage residents of Springwood remember how terrifying he is.
Freddy decides to resurrect Jason Voorhees so the mask-wearing murderer can kill a bunch
of kids in Freddy's name.
Things go mostly as planned as Jason goes after local girl Lori and her friends.
At a party in a corn field, Jason goes all out, not only satiating his own relentless
desire to kill, but taking all the fun out of it for Freddy, as well.
While Lori and her friends try to figure out a way to kill both monsters, Freddy becomes
increasingly more annoyed with Jason's inability to be controlled.
Lori figures out how to pull Freddy into the real world, and Krueger and Voorhees face
off in the horror fight of the century.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare isn't exactly part of the continuity, but there are enough nods
to the original franchise that its presence in the timeline makes sense.
Essentially, it takes place in the real world, and Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund
play themselves, actors who've been offered roles in a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie.
However, the world of Nightmare starts creeping into Heather's real life.
Her sleepwalking son Dylan has dreams of Freddy.
After he kills Heather's husband, Demon Freddy goes after Dylan and the only person who can
stop him is Heather as Nancy.
Heather plays the part and goes to the Elm Street house, where Demon Freddy has Dylan
held captive.
With Dylan's help, Heather eventually manages to overpower Demon Freddy and locks him in
a furnace, where he burns to death.
Considering that the next Nightmare film was a full-on reboot, it looks like this death
finally took for old Freddy Krueger.
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