A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Teenager Tina Gray dreams of a disfigured man with a bladed glove chasing her through a boiler room. Scared, she asks her best friend Nancy Thompson and Nancy's boyfriend Glen Lantz to stay the night. Tina's boyfriend Rod Lane turns up, and after the two sleep together, Tina dreams of the man again. Rod wakes to see her slashed by an invisible force and dragged across the walls and ceiling, then killed. Rod runs, and Nancy's father, police lieutenant Don Thompson, arrests him for the murder.

Nancy starts having the same nightmares. She falls asleep in class and sees Tina's body in a bag, then follows her to the boiler room, where she burns her arm on a pipe to wake up. The burn is real. She realises the killer can only reach her in her sleep, and that she must stay awake. Freddy nearly drowns her in the bath. In a dream, he kills Rod in his cell and makes it look like Rod hanged himself with his bedsheet.

Nancy's mother, Marge, who has started drinking, takes her to a sleep clinic. Nancy pulls a battered fedora out of her dream, with the name Fred Krueger written inside. Marge finally tells her the truth: Fred Krueger was a child killer who went free because of a legal mistake. The parents of Elm Street hunted him down and burned him alive in a boiler room. Marge kept his glove hidden in the basement furnace. Freddy is now taking revenge on their children.

Glen falls asleep while watching over Nancy, and Freddy pulls him into his bed, sending a huge geyser of blood up to the ceiling. Alone, Nancy sets traps around her house, asks her father to break in after twenty minutes, and goes to sleep to pull Freddy into the real world. She catches him, hurts him with her traps, sets him on fire and locks him in the basement. He escapes and kills Marge, whose body sinks into her bed. Nancy realises that Freddy only has the power she gives him with her fear. She turns her back on him and takes back her energy, and he disappears.

Nancy steps out into a bright, foggy morning. Her mother is alive and sober, and her friends are waiting in Glen's car. But the car's roof slams shut, in Freddy's red and green stripes, and the car drives off with the teens trapped inside, while Freddy's arm smashes through the front door window and pulls Marge inside.

Does Nancy beat Freddy? In the dream logic of the film, yes. Freddy feeds on fear. When Nancy turns her back and says she takes back all the energy she gave him, he loses his power and vanishes.

So what is the final scene? It is a twist added by the studio. Wes Craven wanted Nancy to defeat Freddy and wake up safely. New Line head Robert Shaye wanted a final scare that left the door open for sequels. Both versions were shot, and the twist was used: the happy morning turns out to be another nightmare, or proof that Freddy is still around. Craven later said he never liked it.

Is Nancy still dreaming? The film never says. Many fans believe the whole final act, from Nancy setting her traps onwards, is a dream. In the sequel Dream Warriors (1987), Nancy is alive and working as a dream researcher, so she survived.

Who is Freddy Krueger? Fred Krueger was a killer of children on Elm Street. He was set free because a search warrant was not signed. The angry parents burned him alive in a boiler room. Now he gets his revenge by killing their teenage children in their dreams.

Why does Freddy only kill the Elm Street kids? Because their parents were the ones who killed him. Tina, Rod, Glen and Nancy all have parents who took part.