Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

Title Screen
Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
Screenshots

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

In Wes Craven's horrific and unpredictable film teen slasher film, about a demonic, sadistic dreamworld character with a burned face and metal clawed glove-hand who terrorized teens in the small town of Springwood, Ohio (on Elm Street) while they slept:

  • the character of burn-faced, striped sweater-wearing Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) with a fedora hat, bladed-clawed hands in this original film and all its sequels - a child murderer who attacked during dreams [Note: later in the film, it was revealed that Freddy was the victim of vigilante justice, when angry parents in the community (after the killer was released from custody because of a minor technicality) burned the child murderer to death in a boiler room. Years later, the children whose parents were responsible for Krueger's death were being terrorized.]
  • in the film's opening, 15 year-old Christina "Tina" Gray (Amanda Wyss), suffering from nightmares, was pursued into a dark boiler room; when she was grabbed from behind by the shadowy silhouette of Freddy, she awoke
  • in the next soft-focus segment, girls in white dresses were skipping rope and singing a haunting children's song: "One, two, Freddy's coming for you, Three, four, Better lock your door, Five, Six, Grab your crucifix..."
  • the next night while Tina slept, she was lured to a back alley, where she saw a figure with a disfigured face, laughing at her in his first startling silhouetted appearance, Freddy unnaturally spread his elongated arms wide to about 10 feet on both sides to scrape his right-hand fingernails -- razor-bladed -- on the alley wall, causing sparks
  • during Tina's nightmarish dream in her mother's bedroom, Tina's boyfriend Rod Lane (Nick Corn) watched as Tina flailed about against an invisible attacker under the bedcovers; he saw her bare torso bloodily slashed open with four long gashes - obviously the bladed glove; she was picked up into the air (levitated), thrown against the wall, and dragged up to the ceiling upside-down and feet-first - with blood smearing her path, as she was slashed further and blood splattered around the room; in the middle of the ceiling, her body was suddenly released, and she flopped onto the bloodied bed and floor below, dead
  • Tina's friend and policeman's daughter Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) was the next one to be terrorized - she also experienced a nightmarish confrontational appearance of Freddy, with a horribly burned-melted face, in her school's basement hot boiler room ("Come to Freddy")
  • in the film's most celebrated scene, Nancy was taking a luxurious hot bubble bath when she became drowsy and fell asleep - with her legs open; she was terrorized by the killer's clawed hand appearing and moving towards her crotch area; she was violently jerked, dragged and pulled under the water beneath the surface of the tub -- into a bottomless well or abyss below; in a panic, she flailed, gasped, choked and struggled back towards the surface, managing to break through with her hands by grasping the tub's edge; Nancy's mother Marge (Ronee Blakley) heard her screams and came to the rescue by picking the door lock, although Nancy claimed she had only slipped getting out of the tub
Freddy's Attack on Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) in Bathtub
  • Freddy's additional terrifying appearance in Nancy's own bedroom during another nightmare, with pillow feathers flying as he slashed at her
  • in a mini-dream scene, killer Freddy transformed Nancy's phone mouthpiece into his own mouth, with his long tongue darting out into the startled Nancy's mouth, as he triumphantly told her: "I'm your boyfriend, now!"- a premonition of her boyfriend Glen's death
  • the liquifying death scene of Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp in his debut movie role) when he drifted off to sleep at midnight with a blaring TV on his lap, while sprawled back fully-clothed on his bed; Freddy's clawed hand burst through a hole in the center of the bed under him, sucked, swallowed and pulled him through the bed cover down into the hole (along with the TV, stereo, bed covers, pillow, sheet, and headphones, etc.), and then reduced him to a bloody geyser or column of his shredded and drained remains that exploded (or was vomited) out of the hole and gushed toward the ceiling, drenching the room in his blood
Freddy's Bloody Murder of Nancy's Boyfriend Glen
- A Spectacular Geyser of Blood and Gore
  • in the ambiguous, tacked-on, twist-ending epilogue (it appeared that everything that had occurred earlier was a dream, now followed by another dream??), all of the teens were now alive; teenager Nancy exited her mother Marge's bedroom after vanquishing the demonic dream killer; she found herself outside her front door in the bright but diffuse morning fog; her mother saw her off and vowed to stop drinking; she was picked up for school by her friends, no longer deceased, in Glen's convertible in front of her house; as the car roof tightly clamped shut over their heads, it revealed itself as red/green striped (the colors of Freddy's sweater); uncontrollably, the windows rolled up and the car drove off, with the frightened and kidnapped kids trapped inside
  • oblivious to their entrapment, Marge waved goodbye, as the camera panned to the right where a group of white-dressed young girls were jumping rope and singing the Freddy rhyme; suddenly, Freddy's right arm smashed through the front door's small window and grabbed Marge - and pulled her entire body through the opening

Haunting Children's Song

Freddy with 10 Feet Long Arms

Boyfriend Rod Watching Tina's Demise During Dream


To Nancy: "Come to Freddy"


To Nancy: "I'm your boyfriend, now!"


Marge (Ronee Blakley) With Daughter Nancy

Nancy and Teens Trapped in Car

Freddy's Arm Grabbing Marge

Girls Jumping Rope

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