With the ingenious premise of a monster that can enter your dreams and haunt you, originalNightmare on Elm Streetcreator Wes Craven dreamt up a character with no real limitations. With the medium of film (and the ever improving practical effects of the schlocky but mesmerizing 1980s),Freddy Kruegerwould quickly become many horror fans' favorite for his mischievous charisma coupled with increasingly outrageous kills.
Played by an electric Robert Englund, in full makeup to resemble a man who has been burnt alive, Freddy’s default mode was impressive and horrifying to look at, but it was the sinister scenarios that the series devised for him that kept us coming back for more. So put a fresh pot of coffee on as we highlight some of the Springwood Slasher’s more outlandish guises.
11Long Arms Freddy (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
The one that introduced dream machine Freddy Kruegerto the world. Chasing down Tina (Amanda Wyss) in her dreams, an elastic Freddy Krueger stretches his gloved hand to an impossible length. Scraping his clawed fingers against sheet metal, the sparks fly as Freddy moves closer. Laughably silly and absolutely shows the original’s age, but a sign of things to come for the villain. There would be a nod to this form in Freddy’s intro scene again inNightmare on Elm Street 5: Dream Child.
Related:These Are The Best Wes Craven Films, Ranked
10Camp Counselor Who Lets Jason Voorhees Drown (Freddy Vs Jason)
In the wildly underratedFreddy Vs. Jason, two of film’s biggest monsters went head-to-head in a battle to end them all. In a dream/flashback to his own origins, we see firsthand how the young and deformed Jason would be bullied by the other kids at Crystal Lake, and subsequently drown through the ignorance of the councilors. Lori (Monica Keena), now in the dream world, urges them to help the boy.
Too busy having sex to take notice, one councilor turns round and reveals it’s actually Krueger. Clownish, playful and menacing, this one is so simple and really pushes the point of Krueger hating Jason’s guts here enough to go back and take pleasure in his most traumatic moment.
In this amazing opening toFreddy’s Dead, a series of balmy dreams follow one after the other as John Doe (Shon Greenblatt) struggles to sleep. Jumping from bed and opening his window, John realizes that the whole house is plummeting to Earth and Freddy, dressed as a witch, can be seen briefly on a broomstick in anod toThe Wizard of Oz.
8Krueger Kar (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
Phew. It’s finally over. In the final scene ofWes Craven’s original film, Nancy and her mother leave the house dressed all in white. With Krueger sent to Hell, everything is bliss. All the characters we thought were dead are fine as they all meet up, laugh and get ready to go for a drive.
A straight-up alcoholic in the previous scenes, Nancy’s mother is now blind sober again. An eerie mist fills the air and an untrustworthy slowness holds the characters as they move. It’s almost… dreamlike. As Nancy joins her friends in the convertible, the roof pops up over the top of them - adorned in red and green striped. The car doors lock, and the teens are trapped inside as the Krueger-themed automobile drives off, hinting that the nightmare’s not over yet.
7Video Game Boss (Freddy’s Dead)
Brought into a video game world, Spencer (played by Breckin Meyer) moves along this 2D side-scroller, going up against video game versions of his own father and a graphic of a boss level Krueger. Whilst controlling young Spencer in the real world, this is one of Freddy’s funniest kills.
Throw in cartoon sound effects as the boy bounces impossibly up and down and through walls, and this is Krueger really toying with his victims. To kick off this trip, two minutes earlier Johnny Depp would show up inan amazing cameowhere he is hit by a frying pan. Donk!
6Gross Baby Freddy (The Dream Child)
As the son of 100 maniacs, a disgusting baby Freddy Krueger emerges in the fifth installment of the franchise. Shedding light on Freddy’s own background, we see a trippy birthing scene in a mental asylum as a nun gives birth to a monster. In a scene more reminiscent toa scene fromAlienthan your more conventional birth, on seeing the child the doctor can only muster: “Holy sh*t… what is it?” Despite a relatively weak storyline, the practical effects, puppetry and makeup make this Part V a gross treat to watch.
5Robert Englund (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare)
Promoting the ten-year anniversary of the release of theNightmare on Elm Streetfilm, actress Heather Langenkamp (who played final girl Nancy Thompson in the original) sits and answers questions on a talk show. Before she knows it, she is ambushed by the very same actor who played her villain.
Related:How Scream Perfected the Art of the Cold Open
From backstage, fully in makeup and costume, he springs on to set and plays up to the crowd. Englund appears as the actor who portrayed Freddy, dressed as his character, while the fictional version of Freddy (also played by Englund) attempts to kill the real life actress who played the fictional heroine off-screen. It’s all very trippy, but would predate Wes Craven’s likemindedScreamseries, where the meta-horror formula would be perfected.
In such a long and varied series, Englund/Krueger’s silhouette against the crowd of screaming Freddy fans in this scene is one of the best shots across the whole output.
4The Puppet/Puppet Master (Dream Warriors)
Appearing at night asa stop-motion puppet, Freddy slices open Phillip’s (Bradley Gregg) limbs, and exposes the arteries, using them as puppet strings. In complete control now, Freddy forces the boy to walk to the top of the school, balanced off a ledge. Finally cutting the strings, Phillip’s friends below cannot help but watch as the boy plummets to his death.
Perhaps one of the ickiest andunnerving Krueger killsin the whole series, all kicked off by a tremendously creepy doll. Freddy’s huge image plastered over the night sky as he cuts the strings is iconic.
3The Freddy Krueger Snake (Dream Warriors)
Kristen (Patricia Arquette) wanders alone. The walls and floor bulges, as something inside them circles the young blonde. Inside, a ten-foot-long blackened snake emerges, swallowing Kristen up and begins to swallow her whole. The main star of the first film, Nancy, comes to her rescue, and the scene is set for a showdown between our hero and villain. Meeting again for the very first time since she had bested him in the original movie, Krueger’s straight-to-the point “YOU!” is an excellent good vs evil moment in the series which respects its roots.
In an article focusing on how the snake monster came to beYahoowrites:
In order to shoot all of the effects in the two-minute scene, [Kevin] Yagher created four separate puppets: A six-foot long hollow snake to swallow Arquette on the ground; an even longer version designed for an overhead shot; a snake designed to spit out the actress from a height of a few feet; and a lifelike puppet with a radio-controlled face for the snake’s final close-up.
2Stop-Motion Skeleton (Dream Warriors)
In a bid to end Freddy Krueger for good, the Dream Warriors must lay Freddy’s bones to rest in the real world. In the spookiest of setups, they happen to be located in an old car dump. Threatened with his own finale, Krueger embodies his own skeleton and attacks Nancy’s father (John Saxon), killing him with a shard through the chest. In a throwback to stop-motion’s granddaddy Ray Harryhausen’s own skeletal creations, it just looks so damn good.
