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Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger
Background information
Feature films A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (cameo)
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
Freddy vs. Jason
Television programs Freddy's Nightmares
Video games A Nightmare on Elm Street (NES)
Mortal Kombat (2011)
Mortal Kombat X (mobile version)
Park attractions
Actor Robert Englund
Kane Hodder (in Jason Goes to Hell)
Chason Schirmer (child)
Actress
Animators
Voice Patrick Seitz
Performance model
Designer Wes Craven
Inspiration Nosferatu
Awards 14th place in Wizard Magazine's Top 100 Villains Of All Time
8th place in Sky2's Greatest Villains of All Time
40th place in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
Character information
Other names Freddy Krueger, Freddy, Fred Krueger, Springwood Slasher, Son of 100 Maniacs
Personality Cruel, sadistic, vicious, manipulative, sociopathic, wicked, violent, twisted, callous, bloodthirsty, egotistical, ruthless, merciless, vengeful, treacherous, sneaky, frightening, malicious, bad-tempered, arrogant, humorous, depraved, foul-mouthed, wrathful, narcissistic, vicious, cunning, dark, vindictive, murderous, brutal, sinister, diabolical, homicidal, masochistic
Appearance Slender burned man with a brown fedora hat, red and green sweater, a brown glove with four knives attached to it, and dark pants.
Occupation Undead serial killer
Affiliations Chaotic Evil
Goal Kill the children of all the parents of Springwood as revenge for the parents burning him alive, to keep killing people within dreams
Home Springwood, Ohio, U.S.A.
Friends Loretta Krueger (formerly), Maggie Burroughs (formerly), Dream Demons
Enemies Mr. Underwood, Maggie Burroughs, Nancy Thompson, Loretta Krueger, Tina Grey, Rod Lane, Glen Lantz, Marge Thompson, Jesse Walsh, Lisa Webb Ron Grady, Coach Schneider, Kerry, Jennifer Caulfield, Phillips Anderson, Taryn White, Will Stanton, Donald Thompson, Neil Gordon, Alice Thompson, Roland Kincaid, Joey Crusel, Kristen Parker, Sheila Kopecky, Rick Johnson, Debbie Stevens, Dan Jordan, Greta Gibson, Mark Grey, Lt. Blocker, Merit Blocker, Spencer, Carlos, John Doe, Bobby Davis, Mrs. Campbell, Jason Voorhees (rival), Lori Campbell, Will Rollins, Kia Waterson, Gibb Smith, Mark Davis
Minions Dream Demons
Likes killing people, Killing and torturing children
Dislikes Fire, being abused
Powers and abilities superhuman strength, control over people's nightmares, able to warp between the real world and the dream world, ability to start fires with his mind, possession, regeneration, invulnerability, immortality, trickery, cunning
Weapons Razor sharp glove, Jason's machete
Fate Gets destroyed by Nancy by taking away his power (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
Gets burned to death by Jesse Walsh, who was using his power (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge)
Gets destroyed when Dr. Neil Gordon buries the bones and throws holy water and a cross on them (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors)
Gets destroyed, and torn apart by the souls of his victims (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master)
Gets revert back into an infant by Jacob (A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child)
Gets killed in an explosion, which was caused by his own daughter Maggie Burroughs
(Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare)
Grabs Jason Voorhees's hockey mask and drags it into hell (Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday)
Winks at the audience and laughs offscreen while Jason Voorhees carries his decapitated head (Freddy vs. Jason)
Quote "Welcome to my nightmare.
My children. From the very beginning, it was the children who gave me my power. The Springwood Slasher, that's what they called me. My reign of terror was legendary. Dozens of children would fall by my blades. Then the parents of Springwood came for me. Taking justice into their own hands. When I was alive, I might have been a little naughty, but after they killed me, I became something much, much worse. The stuff nightmare are made of. The children still feared me and their fear gave me the power to invade their dreams. And that's when the fun REALLY began."
~ Freddy narrating his own backstory in the opening to Freddy vs. Jason

Frederick Charle "Freddy"/Fred Krueger, is a legendary serial killer and the main antagonist of every film in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise as well as the entire series. He was a sadistic child murderer in his life, and when vengeful parents found out, they burned him alive in his boiler room hideout. Unbeknownst to them, Freddy made a deal with three "Dream Demons" and was resurrected as a malevolent spirit, seeking revenge on the parents of Springwood, Ohio by killing their children in the one place where they could never protect them; in their dreams, usually with his signature clawed glove.

Wizard Magazine rated him the 14th greatest villain of all time, and ranked 8th on British channel Sky2's Greatest Villains of All Time and ranked 40th on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains. He likes killing and torturing children. It is thought that his murderous ways were a result of an abused and neglected childhood.

He was portrayed by legendary actor Robert Englund while as a child and a teenager, he was portrayed by Chason Schirmer and Tobe Sexton.

History[]

Early Life[]

Freddy kills hamster

Freddy killing a hamster with a mallet as a kid.

His biological mother, Amanda Krueger was a nun, who gave birth to Freddy, after she was raped hundreds of times after being accidentaly locked in a cell of psychotic men in the 1940s. Throughout his childhood, he was sent from orphanage to orphanage, where he constantly endured humiliation by the other children, who thought him a freak for the way he was born.

He was eventually adopted by an abusive alcoholic man named Edward Underwood, who constantly neglected and physically abused him, until Freddy finally retaliated for all those tormenting years by killing him with a razor blade when he was a teenager.

Freddy then moved to Springwood, Ohio, where he secretly became a child murderer, killing dozens of children on Elm Street. His action eventually earned him the alias "Sprinwood Slasher", where he killed several kids inside a boiler room within an old power plant where he used to work. When his wife, Loretta, discovered his secret, he strangled her in front of his daughter, Kathryn, who also found out about the murders, but promised she would never tell. A little while later, Freddy got caught trying to kill the Blocker twins, 2 sisters who happened to be the daughters of Lieutenant Blocker, a cop. Freddy was arrested and put on trial, but was released on a technicality preventing the court from convicting him. So, the furious parents of Springwood formed a lynch mob and tracked Freddy to his boiler room hideout where he was preparing to skip town, and lit the building on fire with torches and Molotov cocktails, burning him to death. However, 3 dream demons approached him before his death, where they made a deal so that he could come back as a demon and continue his killing spree from beyond the grave on the children where they cannot protect themselves; in their dreams. Freddy was made immortal because of this and began a new killing spree, making the murders look like accidents or suicide.

A Nightmare on Elm Street[]

From here, Freddy invaded people's dreams, where he would kill them using his clawed glove, or else manipulating the dream world in a way to reflect the victim's fears and personality. Whatever he did to them in the dream world would affect them in the real world.

Freddy's first victim in the film was Tina Gray, whom he killed by slashing her across the chest with his clawed glove. He then stalked Nancy Thompson in her dreams and killed Rod Lane, Tina's boyfriend who was accused for killing her, by hanging him with his blanket. Nancy pulled his hat out of the dream so she devised a plan with her boyfriend Glen to catch him, but Glen fell asleep, and Freddy pulled him into his bed and shot him upward in a fountain of blood, killing him. Nancy eventually pulled Freddy out of the dream world and set him on fire. However, he killed her mother Marge by smothering her with his flaming body, vanishing her into the bed. Nancy's father, Donald, witnessed this. Afterwards, Nancy destroyed Freddy by turning her back on him and taking away his power, however he was still able to temporarily trap her in a dream world where she was trapped in a red and green car with Glen, Tina, and Rod to end the film.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge[]

Five years later, Freddy was unable to return so easily, until he invaded the dreams of Jesse Walsh, who moved into Nancy's house sometime after she left. He possessed Jesse on several occasions, at one point killing his coach, Schneider (whom Jesse disliked) by slashing his back in the shower.

Soon, Jesse went to a sleepover at his friend's house, Ron Grady. But when they fell asleep, Jesse awakened and started screaming and crying in a pain as Krueger gruesomely came out of him. Ron tries to escape but the door is jammed, leaving Ron to get strangled and then stabbed in the torso as Krueger laughed and waves at him. Freddy then took full possession of Jesse at Jesse's girlfriend, Lisa Webber's house during a party, killing several of the guests. In the end, Lisa was able to get through to Jesse, who fought Freddy from within and burned him to death using his power, releasing Jesse unharmed. However, the ending of the movie implies that Freddy returns; he is seen stabbing Kerry from behind (or from the inside) while she is on the bus with Jesse and Lisa. Whether this is a dream (and by who), or if he was possessing her, and whether or not Jesse or Lisa survived, is unclear.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors[]

Freddy soon returned to his old ways of killing people in their dreams. Soon, all surviving teenagers of Springwood - Kristen Parker, Roland Kincaid, Phillip Anderson, Taryn White, Joey Crusel, Will Stanton, and Jennifer Caulfield - were committed to Westin Hills Asylum, as they were trying to avoid falling asleep. Nancy Thompson began working there, and Dr. Neil Gordon, another worker, was seeing the spirit of Freddy's mother, Amanda Krueger under her alias "Sister Mary Helena". Freddy soon began killing everyone one by one. First he used Phillip's veins to control him like a puppet to make him fall out of the window to his death, making it appears as a suicide inside a nighmare Phillip was having. Then he smashed Jennifer's head against the TV yelling one of his most famous lines: "This is it, Jennifer, your big break in TV!". When Kristen, Neil, and the others entered the dream world to use their powers and fight Freddy, Joey was attacked and trapped by Freddy, putting him into a coma.

The Dream Warriors (Kristen, Taryn, Will, and Kincaid) fought Freddy alongside Nancy while Neil and Donald went to the Penny Bros. Auto Savage junkyard to bury Freddy's bones on "hallowed" ground using holy water, a cross, and prayers to laid his unquiet spirit to rest.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master[]

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child[]

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare[]

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday[]

After the infamous Jason Voorhees is destroyed and dragged to Hell by unseen demons, his hockey mask is still in the dirt until Freddy Krueger's glove emerges and drags Jason's mask to Hell while laughing.

Freddy vs. Jason[]

Wes Craven's New Nightmare[]

2010 Remake[]

Main article: Freddy Krueger (2010 remake)

Other appearances[]

  • In August 9, 2011, Freddy was announced to be a downloadable character in the 2011 Mortal Kombat game.

In popular culture[]

  • In the direct-to-video animated film, Monster Mash, a spaghetti monster named Freddie DeSpaghetti is a parody of both Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees.
  • Freddy has appeared in some Robot Chicken episodes:
    • In "Big Horror Movie Brother", he is in the Big Brother show alongside Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Pinhead and Ghostface.
  • Freddy has appeared in the episode "A Nightmare on Elm Street", the thirteenth episode of the first season of the popular web series The Angry Video Game Nerd created by James Rolfe. In the episode, the Nerd reviews the A Nightmare on Elm Street game for NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), developed by Rare and published by LJN.
  • Freddy was parodied in the 2009 spoof film Stan Helsing as "Fweddy".

Victims[]

Before the films[]

  • A Hamster
  • Mr. Underwood
  • 20 children in Springwood
  • Loretta Krueger

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)[]

  • Tina Gray
  • Rod Lane
  • Glen Lantz
  • Marge Thompson

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)[]

Gallery[]

External Links[]

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