It’s no secret. The sixth installment of Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, is widely regarded as one of the worst NOES films in the franchise. It has a whopping 23% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it isn’t appearing in many horror fans’ favorite movies of all time.
I, a longtime Freddy fan, must inform you that everyone’s wrong for disregarding this film. From start to finish, it gave us the perfect send-off for Freddy.
The Unofficial Theme Song for A Nightmare on Elm Street
As the history of my pitches in the Horror Press Discord will attest, I am a sucker for music used well in horror movies and shows. (If I ever get my way, I’ll do an entire piece on the great songs featured in American Horror Story, but I digress.)
In the first 30 seconds of the movie, before the opening shot, we are played a clip from Goo Goo Dolls’ “I’m Awake Now,” which sings: “Don’t fall asleep to dream. I’m awake now. You can’t touch me. I won’t sleep no more.”
“I’m Awake Now” is one of my favorite songs because it delivered an anti-Freddy anthem that no one realizes is an anti-Freddy anthem unless they’re a Freddy fan. When you ask anyone, “What’s the Nightmare on Elm Street song?” Everyone will always sing the iconic “1, 2, Freddy’s coming for you…” But only a few know this one.
Listen and enjoy the gratuitous Freddy shots in the official music video here.
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is as Campy as It Has to Be
As the song clip plays, viewers are introduced to what kind of experience to expect. The film opens with the following quote by Friedrich Nietzsche:
“Do you know the terror of he who falls asleep? To the very toes, he is terrified, Because the ground gives way under him, And the dream begins….” Friedrich Nietzsche
Then immediately follows it with a quote from the man of the hour himself, Freddy Krueger:
“Welcome to Prime Time, bitch.”
This juxtaposition between straight-face horror and silly, campy comedy perfectly captures the film’s essence. Freddy’s Dead has all the elements of a horror movie. As a character suffers from nightmares, aided by a woman trying to help him remember his true identity, we are treated to deaths that make you wince (can you seriously forget about the kid who got a Q-Tip jammed straight through his ear?) a creepy little girl, a mystery, flashbacks… but at the of the day, this is still a Freddy movie. It would be sinful to deliver a Freddy movie that doesn’t make us laugh.
His comedic horror style is one of his redeeming qualities, so the filmmakers cranked that up to 11 for what was supposed to be Freddy’s final film.
Pulling Out All the Stops for the “Final” Freddy Movie
This film instituted the use of Freddy Vision, which was its attempt at providing viewers with a 3D experience. The filmmakers used it sparingly, so no one was left with the awkward cardboard frames on their faces for long (which is more than I can say for other horror movies.) At the very least, doing this created a fun little piece of memorabilia to go along with what was supposed to be Freddy’s final film.
Of course, this movie could be better. It’s not without flaws, and if you can’t enjoy the campiness, you’ll probably find this film unbearable.
There’s a scene where Freddy Krueger uses a video game controller to bounce someone around like a cartoon character for a solid five minutes, and I can understand why this movie got some of the hate it got. However, I love it because it gave us something different and much more.
Johnny Depp make’s a Return
Just before this scene, Johnny Depp is on screen on the TV, explaining, “This is your brain on drugs.” The fact that he made a re-appearance, this time as himself, in the franchise after he played a character who died in the first movie, all while our character was drifting into this drug-induced dream state, dipped the moment into enough surrealism, where I can appreciate the campy, cartoonish bouncing that shortly follows.
Freddy already had so many creative fatalities under his belt that the filmmakers had to use their imagination to give us something crazier than we’d ever seen. So, we get a gleeful Freddy Krueger driving a bus into one victim and him dragging his fingernails onto a chalkboard to explode someone’s head after their hearing was amplified by some weird living hearing aid to kill another. Freddy manipulates the traumas of everyone we are introduced to, all with the intent of finding someone from his past who will help let him out of Springwood.
Freddy Krueger’s Origin Story
The amount of information packed into this movie is astounding. We get to see Freddy Krueger teased as a child (mocked for being the “son of a hundred maniacs,” which, of course, was a callback to information from previous NOES movies where Freddy Krueger was the product of his mother being assaulted by a hundred maniacs in a mental institution). Then, we see the night Freddy was killed and why he has the power to invade dreams in the first place.
Like it or not, this film is canon, and any Freddy fan would be remiss not to recognize it for the background information it gave us. Maybe more people are satisfied not knowing the story behind the monster, but to me, it only made him more terrifying.
Freddy Krueger is a Monster
This film differed from many other NOES movies by showing us Freddy in his human form when he was just a sensible-slacks-wearing neighborhood monster behind closed doors. This, to me, is the scariest version of Freddy we’ve ever been introduced to; the Freddy who doesn’t look dangerous.
By humanizing Freddy, this movie helped re-solidify how much of a monster he is.
During this flashback, we see Fred Krueger’s interaction with his daughter. He callously murders her mother in front of her after she discovers his secret. As he told his daughter not to tell anyone, revealing the woman we have been following has been Freddy’s child all along, he looked much more terrifying in his ‘every-man green sweater’ than the iconic red and green one.
Freddy Krueger’s Daughter
After she learns of her connection to Fred Krueger as he kills the people close to her, Kathryn Krueger’s destiny is clear: she has to kill him. If anyone was going to be worthy enough to be the one to kill Freddy Krueger “for good,” I couldn’t think of a better person than his daughter. Even if you disagree with the rest of the film, they did Freddy justice with his send-off.
How Freddy Krueger died
“First, they tried burning me. Then they tried burying me. They even tried holy water, but I just keep on ticking.”
With access to a literal arsenal of weapons to attack Freddy, filmmakers ensured that Freddy’s coroner report would come back with the word “Yes” under Cause of Death. Freddy Krueger was hit with throwing stars, a hammer with nails, a crossbow, and more, all leading up to one of my favorite moments in the franchise.
After donning her father’s glove herself, his daughter flicks her hand back in a way that only Fred Krueger’s offspring could and shishkabobs him. To seal the deal, she jams a stick of dynamite in his chest, and Freddy quite literally goes out with a bang.
Credits roll with a montage of kills and other memorable Freddy moments from the franchise. With a RIP, Freddy Krueger was finally no more.
…Until three years later, at least.
Final Thoughts on Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
All in all, the film delivered an iconic send-off to Freddy. It put the inevitable destruction of the dream demon into the hands of someone who deserved to destroy him. They went over the top in every way they could, gave a memorable anthem for the real ones, and neatly answered many questions the franchise would otherwise have left unanswered. The campiness fit Freddy’s M.O.; at its worst, it can serve as a reminder of why it was time for the franchise to die in the first place. Once you’ve hit the ceiling as this movie did, there’d have been nowhere else to go but the floor (or through the fourth wall). Overall, and most importantly, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is fun to watch, and what more can we ask of any movie?
If you have yet to see this movie, or if it’s been too long since you have, I recommend you give it a rewatch with all of this in mind.
And remember: “Every town has an Elm street!” (This is the movie he said that in, by the way.)
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