“A Nightmare on Elm Street” awakens from a 16-year slumber with a brand new film. What a new film looks like in the 2020s is still up in the air, but we’ve already speculated about several actors who could take on the iconic role of Freddy Krueger. The exciting franchise news certainly whets fans’ appetites for what’s to come, whether that’s a legacy sequel or a complete reboot. It’s also as good a time as any to walk back through every previous Freddy film, discuss their strengths and weaknesses and decide where they land among one another.
Below is a ranking of every “A Nightmare on Elm Street” movie, including Freddy’s battle with Jason Voorhees and the much-maligned 2010 remake.
9. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Samuel Bayer’s remake contains some interesting parts. For example, the focus on micro-naps and the sadistic backstory of all of Freddy’s victims. But these pieces get lost in a sea of Easter eggs and rehashing what the original already achieved. Moments like the bathtub scene and Freddy popping out of the wall are drained of all suspense. The opening scene, starring Kellan Lutz (the “Twilight” saga) as Dean, remains the film’s best moment, a cool reinvention of how the 1984 original film began. It sets the stage for what could have been a very wicked reimagining.
Rooney Mara (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “A Ghost Story”) slips into the role of Nancy, and unfortunately, her performance is tepid and limp. Katie Cassidy (“Black Christmas,” “When a Stranger Calls”) plays Nancy’s friend Kris. Despite less screen time, Cassidy makes the most out of the role and delivers an incredibly memorable performance. It also helps that she has a killer scream. There’s a corner of the internet that believes Kris should have been the Final Girl, and they aren’t wrong.
As far as Freddy Krueger goes, Jackie Earle Haley does what he can. No one could do well stepping into Robert Englund’s shoes with such a lackluster script. Not only does Haley’s vocal performance fail to reach the level of Englund, but his physicality is anything but menacing. 2010’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street” had potential, but the pieces just didn’t come together.
“A Nightmare on Elm Street” (2010) is available to rent and purchase on Apple TV and all other major digital retailers.
8. Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
Rachel Talalay’s 1991 sequel “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare” barely inches out the 2010 remake on this list. As the sixth film, all fear has been drained out of the franchise. Freddy turned from a scary sleep demo with the occasional one-liner into a stand-up comedian who’s overstayed his welcome. Scriptwriter Michael De Luca litters the goofy story with jokes about then-modern video games, the Wicked Witch of the West and the popular “Roseanne” sitcom to mask the lack of real thought, identity and creativity. The script dishonors the original film and perhaps even the first several sequels.
The storyline around the Final Girl from the previous two films, Alice (Lisa Wilcox), has been discarded for a brand new one. This time, Freddy’s long-lost daughter (Lisa Zane) somehow exists and has gone this long without knowing who her father is. She cares for several troubled teenagers and eventually crosses Freddy’s path. Along the way, Freddy knocks them off one by one. That’s pretty much it.
The only compelling part of the story lies in the idea that Freddy Krueger can only kill kids in Springwood, Ill. When the last Elm Street teen leaves town, Freddy piggybacks in his dream and hitches a ride out into the world. It’s an idea that deserved a far better movie.
“Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare” is available to rent and purchase on Apple TV and all other major digital retailers.
7. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Alice (Wilcox) had become the franchise’s backbone once Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) and Kristen (Patricia Arquette, Tuesday Knight) bit the dust. She’d proven herself a worthy Final Girl in “A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master,” which saw her defeat Freddy in an epic hand-to-hand battle in the third act. It was left up to scriptwriter Leslie Bohem and director Stephen Hopkins to push the envelope in the inevitable sequel.
Well, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child” makes some risky choices, most of which don’t work on any level. It’s always great to see Lisa Wilcox, one of horror’s most underappreciated actors, and following Alice makes the most logical sense. Alice is much like Rachel (Ellie Cornell) in “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” and its sequel. Both characters injected life back into their franchises and ultimately suffered in their franchise’s sequels.
Wilcox does the best she can with the script, and Whit Hertford, who plays Alice’s son Jacob, demonstrates that child actors can be really good. But the mere idea of Freddy haunting Alice’s unborn child gives major icky vibes. While it’s never been confirmed, “The Dream Child” could be read as making a statement on a hot-button social issue.
Additionally, Alice’s friends are paper-thin, whose sole purpose is to pad the body count. There’s the girl with an eating disorder, the comic-obsessed sidekick, the hunky boyfriend and the athletic best friend. Their names don’t matter because they’re not given much to work with in the first place. Thankfully, the dream sequences are among the best the franchise has ever done (e.g., the dinner party and super Freddy) and carry this entire film on their backs.
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child” is available to rent and purchase on Apple TV and all other major digital retailers.
6. Freddy vs. Jason
For horror fans who grew up in the ‘80s and witnessed the Freddy versus Jason debate in real time, it must have been glorious to watch Ronny Yu’s “Freddy vs. Jason” in theaters. While it messes with the canon of both franchises, it delivers the wrestling match of the 21st Century. It reads as straight fan fiction (how can both villains be alive and kicking after their last sequels?!), but it’s perfect popcorn fluff that’s just as tasty and fun as it was upon release.
Lori (Monica Keena) and her friends, who include Kia (Kelly Rowland), find themselves the target of Freddy’s sick plan. He manages to resurrect Jason from his grave by pretending to be his mother and sends him ahead to Elm Street. Freddy hopes that Jason’s rampage will make the town of Springwood say his name again. Only if people are truly scared of him can he come back. And it works!
“Freddy vs. Jason” weaves its sickly sweet story about rekindled young love with a wonderfully bloody romp between two king slashers. The fight sequences are killer, quite literally, and both Jason and Freddy get the upper hand in various moments. The ending leaves it open for a sequel, which we’ll likely never get, but the ultimate face-to-face battle was worth it. We also got a pretty awesome Final Girl with Lori, so there’s that.
“Freddy vs. Jason” is available to rent and purchase on Apple TV and all other major digital retailers.
5. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Chuck Russell’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” introduced fans to several dream warriors, including franchise favorites Kristen (Arquette), Kincaid (Ken Sagoes) and Joey (Rodney Eastman). They each have qualities or powers in their dreams. As the last of the original Elm Street children, they were quarantined in a psych ward so as not to infect more kids with Freddy nightmares.
Heather Langenkamp makes a surprising return as Nancy Thompson, now an intern therapist assigned to help Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson) with the Elm Street patients. She hopes her own experiences can be used to assist the final generation defeat Freddy once and for all. While it’s great to see Nancy again, she’s completely mishandled when Freddy tricks her into believing she’s hugging her father (John Saxon). It’s a buffoon move that you just shouldn’t see in one of horror’s best Final Girls.
“Dream Warriors” also sees Freddy Krueger make the switch from dark Freddy to funny Freddy. In previous films, he’d only made a couple of jokes. Here, he’s essentially a late-night talk show host. Russell balances this wacky new version of Freddy with some of the most terrifying and brutal kill scenes, particularly Philip’s (Bradley Gregg) sleepwalking “accident.” Such gnarly moments are worth sitting through Freddy’s countless zingers – “Welcome to primetime, bitch!” still hits, though.
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” is available to rent and purchase on Apple TV and all other major digital retailers.
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master” was cursed with the task of following up on what many fans consider the best sequel. The story doesn’t focus on survivors Joey, Kincaid and Kristen (now played by Tuesday Knight), though. Instead, scriptwriters Brian Helgeland and Scott Pierce discard these characters within the film’s first 15-20 minutes as quickly as they can.
But what they do next is a genius move. Their new heroine, Alice, absorbs her friend’s personality traits. She starts smoking after her friend Sheila (Toy Newkirk) dies from suffocation, for example. It directly feeds into Alice’s story arc from mousy, bookworm to total warrior. When her brother Rick (Andras Jones) loses to an invisible ninja Freddy, she also becomes equipped with his skills.
“The Dream Master” is the sequel for the MTV generation. Dream scenes are much more elaborate and inventive than ever before. Some of the film’s best moments include Alice being sucked into the movie theater screen, Debbie’s (Brooke Theiss) super gross cockroach workout death and the baby heads emerging from Freddy’s body. It all comes together to make the series’ most underrated sequel.
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master” is available to rent and purchase on Apple TV and all other major digital retailers.
3. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
Wes Craven did “Scream” before “Scream” did. And it also did the whole horror retcon/legacy sequel/reboot thing that “Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later” did just four years later. “New Nightmare” captures the simplicity and groundedness of the original. It was way ahead of its time. General moviegoers were simply not prepared for this meta slasher. Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund return to play fictionalized versions of themselves, and it’s like seeing old friends again.
The story comes alive as Wes Craven writes a new script. While Heather receives horrifying prank calls, her son Dylan (Miko Hughes) starts sleepwalking and mentions a weird man coming up from the end of his bed at night. Heather’s husband dies horribly in a car crash, making Heather fully believe that Freddy is still alive. Well, he is, and he isn’t. Craven expands the mythos of Freddy by stating that a real demon has been trapped inside the “Nightmare” movies in the form of Freddy Krueger. Only Heather can defeat the real one.
“Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” is a genius reinvention of a franchise that’d long lost its way. The only downside is that the kills retread those that we’ve already seen, namely the young woman being dragged across the ceiling. The others are pretty lackluster, as well. All in all, though, the film more than earns its high ranking here.
“Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” is available to rent and purchase on Apple TV and all other major digital retailers.
2. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
Scriptwriter David Chaskin and director Jack Sholder are the only ones other than Wes Craven to understand the darkness of Freddy Krueger. Set five years after the first film, “Freddy’s Revenge” turns its attention to a young male teen (a rarity in slasher films) who has moved into Nancy’s old house. Jesse (Mark Patton) also happens to be struggling with his sexuality. That’s what the surface-level text says, at least.
He carpools to school every day with his classmate Lisa (Kim Myers) and gets into fights with his friend Grady (Robert Rusler). By all accounts, Jesse’s living the idyllic high school life. But Freddy has other plans for him. “Freddy’s Revenge” upends Freddy’s mythology set in place by the original film. Freddy can enter the real world by possessing Jesse and making him do his dirty work. The pool party scene makes this murky; it’s unclear whether the other partygoers are seeing Jesse as Freddy or just Freddy. “You’re all my children now” will go down as one of the franchise’s best lines.
The film takes cues from the 1984 film in one big way. Where Nancy turned her back on Freddy and drained him of power, Jesse fights through the burnt Freddy flesh to find himself again. Also, like the original, “Freddy’s Revenge” ends on a weird, mysterious, dream-like sequence. It could all have been a dream, or it’s simply a gag to get you coming back for more. Either way, it sticks the landing. Plus, the practical effects, such as Freddy slipping out of Jesse’s skin, are god-tier.
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge” is available to rent and purchase on Apple TV and all other major digital retailers.
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Wes Craven changed the game with 1984’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” While slashers were on their way out, he gave the subgenre a little boost for a few more years. The Craven classic followed two other franchise beginnings, John Carpenter’s “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th,” but what “Nightmare” does is it puts genre conventions in a blender and turns it on high. What results is a truly innovative film that made horror scary again.
Craven based the idea of teenagers dying from their dreams on a real story about several young Asian men who suddenly died in their sleep. The phenomenon would later become known as Sudden Unexplained Death Syndrome. Ripping the story from newspapers makes it all the more terrifying. The premise is well known: a young teen and her friends are haunted by a nightmare demon and are slowly killed one by one.
Through Langenkamp’s strong lead performance, Nancy quickly entered the horror hall of fame, as did Freddy Krueger, courtesy of Robert Englund’s terrifying breakout performance. “A Nightmare on Elm Street” changed how we think about horror movies, and the genre owes a huge debt to Wes Craven’s work.
“A Nightmare on Elm Street” is available to rent and purchase on Apple TV and all other major digital retailers.
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