Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Freddy Krueger: An Unauthorized Biography or "Why is Freddy so messed up?"


Freddy Krueger has had one ass backwards messed up life! It’s not much of a surprise that he’s ended up being such a nut case. Each Nightmare on Elm Street  film has given us little bit of Freddy’s back story through a series of brief flashbacks, but they have never given us the whole story in what we might call a linear fashion . Since every writer/director that's worked on this franchise wants to add a little more to the story, and a more messed up angle to spice up their film, the amalgamation of all those additions has resulted in what we now know as Freddy Krueger's messed up life story! Since The Film Connoisseur doesn’t want to get left out on the whole Freddy Krueger craze, I decided to do a blog post on Freddy Krueger's life story. Chronologically! In seven chapters! And with pictures!


CHAPTER 1
“SON OF A THOUSAND MANIACS!”
Freddy’s conception

One of the most disturbing parts of Freddy Krueger’s background is his conception. That moment when a males sperm reaches a female egg and voila! Life begins! In Freddy’s case, his mom (Amanda Krueger) was a nun, who renamed herself Sister Mary Helena when she gave herself to the church. If that isn’t fucked up enough, she works in an insane asylum. One fine day, while she is working in the tower of the insane asylum, where the most dangerous crazies are kept, the asylum personnel forgets that she is working inside, and she gets locked up with a healthy group of homicidal maniacs! Now, these guys might be complete whack jobs, but their libidos are still working over time! Which is why they collectively decide to rape Amanda Krueger. And so, Freddy Krueger was conceived! This is the reason why his own mother calls Freddy “bastard son of a thousand maniacs!”. It gets worse. Amanda Krueger actually ends up rasing Freddy but is later horrified at the fact that he turns out to be a child killer/rapist! When Freddy is sent to court and prosecuted by the Elm Street parents, she hangs herself when he is let go on a technicality! Bummer huh?


CHAPTER 2
“YOU’VE BEEN A WASTE SINCE THE DAY I TOOK YOU IN!”
Freddy’s childhood upbringing.

So, Freddy is left without a family. His mother hung herself, and his father, well, who the hell knows who he was. It could have been any of the maniacs in the insane asylum. Actually, you can get a glimpse of the maniac who’s lucky sperm impregnated Amanda Krueger’s during a dream sequence on Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child.


So anyhows, Freddy is adopted by a man who looks like Alice Cooper. Oh wait, it is Alice Cooper! I always thought it was hilarious how Freddy Krueger’s step dad was played by the legendary rock singer.


But anyhow, Freddy’s legal guardian enjoys saying nice things to Freddy like “You’ve been a waste since they day I took you in! Now its time to take your medicine!” after saying those wonderfully inspiring words to Freddy, he begins to whip him mercilessly with a belt! Freddy cant cope with his disturbing family life, so he begins to act rather strangely in school. For example, at one point, he takes the class pet hamster and begins to smash it to death with a sledge hammer! His school mates see his strange behavior and begin to call him “son of a hundred maniacs, son of a hundred maniacs!” I guess, word spreads around town rather easily when you are the offspring of a nun and a looney from the insane asylum.

CHAPTER 3
“THANK YOU SIR! MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?”
Freddy as a teenager

After a while, Freddy gets used to the constant abuse from his step father. So much so that when his father whips him with a belt, he doesn’t feel it any more! Actually, he begins to like it! As his step father whips him over and over again, he says “Thank You Sir! May I have another?” His step father continues to whip him and then he says “You want to know the secret of pain? If you stop feeling it, you can start using it!” And then he proceeds to kill his own step father with a razorblade. Touching. And in 3-D no less! Poor Alice Cooper!


CHAPTER 4
“THIS IS WHERE THEY TOOK AWAY HIS CHILD. TAKEN AWAY, PUT IN A TOWN ORPHANAGE”
Freddy as a husband and a dad

So, somehow, in spite of the shit storm of a childhood that Freddy Krueger endured, he ends up getting married and becoming a dad! He has a little daughter by the name of Maggie. It looks like Freddy has finally found happiness in family life. He has a wife, a child, and a home with a white picket fence. But wait, apparently Freddy’s pent up anger wont stay hidden for long! He secretly abuses and murders children in his own home town! He has a dungeon beneath his home where he burns the bodies of the little kids that he kills! Soon, his wife finds out and to keep his secret safe, he ends up strangling his wife to death right in front of Maggie's 6 year old eyes! Freddy makes Maggie promise to keep the secret to herself, but Maggie can't keep this secret for too long! She ends up telling on her dad and so Freddy is taken away by the autorities for trial. Freddy's daughter, Maggie ends up raised in an orphanage for sometime, just like her daddy. I guess it’s true what they say “history repeats itself!”


CHAPTER 5
“WELL, THE LAWYERS GOT FAT, AND THE JUDGE GOT FAMOUS, BUT SOMEBODY FORGOT TO SIGN THE SEARCH WARRANT IN THE RIGHT PLACE AND KRUEGER WAS FREE, JUST LIKE THAT”
Freddy goes to court

Freddy's murder of the Elm Street kids got him taken to jail and sent to trial. It was at this time that he was known as 'The Springwood Slasher', because the children he killed all lived in the town of Springwood, where he too resided. Reports say that he killed at least 20 kids in the neighborhood. Sadly, Freddy was actually set free because he was not read his Miranda Rights by the cops who brought him in! So The Springwood Slasher was set free again on a technicality! When he's mother, Amanda Krueger learned this, she hung herself in shame. 


CHAPTER 6
“IT DROVE US CRAZY WHEN WE DIDN’T KNOW WHO IT WAS, BUT IT WAS WORSE AFTER THEY CAUGHT HIM!”
Freddy gets burned alive

So, the parents of the children who had died (basically Freddy’s neighbors) decide to take justice into their own hands and decide to burn him alive! Which they do by tossing Molotov cocktails through the windows of his home. That is, if we are talking about that flashback sequence in Freddy's Dead. If we look at this moment in Freddy's life on the short lived Freddy's Nightmares T.V. show, Freddy actually gets caught by the parents and some cops in his boiler room. He taunts a cop, telling him that he likes his little daughter, and that he is going to finish what he started with her. Thats when they decide to pour gasoline all over Freddy and light him up! Freddy burns and screams: "Ill be baaaack! Im freee! Freeee!" 


CHAPTER 7
“I WANT IT ALL!”
Freddy gets visited by the dream demons

As Freddy begins to burn alive, mere moments before his death, three dream demons appear before him and offer him the power to control the dreams of humans. Just what the hell is a dream demon? I don’t know, but they exist in the Nightmare on Elm Street universe, and they are the ones who give Freddy his power. “We know what you want Freddy!” and Freddy’s like “I want it all!” and they go “Of course you do, then open up, and you shall be foreveeeer!” Why did these dream demons choose Freddy? Because that’s what dream demons do, they “look for the most evil, twisted human imaginable. Then they give him the power to cross the line and turn our nightmares into reality.”


After receiving the power from the dream demons, its Freddy’s chance for revenge. And so, the first film begins, with Freddy in complete control of his reality/dream altering powers. He goes after the children of the parents who tried to kill him. Why not go for the parents themselves? The ones who burned him alive? I don’t know, I guess it’s more fun to get their children instead, cause that’s what Freddy does best!

So that’s it ladies and gents, the full history of Freddy Kruger. This time line adheres itself to the logic set by the first batch of Freddy movies. These include:

Nightmare on Elm Street
Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors
Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
Freddy's Nightmares (TV Series)  

The upcoming remake might change a thing or two about Freddy’s back story, but as far as I know, this is what those brilliant writers and directors from the 80s and 90s came up with to entertain teens across the world with. Gotta say, this isn’t a bad bunch of movies. The first three pretty much treated Freddy as a scary character…until the Dream Master came along and turned Freddy into a one-liner spewing, one man comedy show. I mean, from Dream Master onwards, we’ve had the pleasure of seeing all sorts of comedic variations on Freddy Kruger. We had Beach going Freddy, Meatball eating Freddy, Super Freddy, Kung Fu Freddy, Chef Freddy, Nurse Freddy...but whatever. I love these movies exactly for what they are. Fun, entertaining horror movies from the 80’s. Gotta love ‘em!

  

18 comments:

  1. Great great great post on Freddy! You really did your homework, and I am glad you joined the Freddy bandwagon. I am ready for Freddy. I hope you see the movie and review it like me!!!

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  2. Glad you liked it HorrO! I will be checking the new Nightmare on Elm Street tomorrow, because here in Puerto Rico, sometimes movies begin one day earlier than in the states, so I will be watching it tomorrow and reviewing it as soon as possible. Im pumped for this new Freddy movie, I hope it doesnt dissapoint!

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  3. Great post! So good to see it all written down in a linear fashion! Cool stuff indeed!

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  4. Thanks Wings! Just getting any newbies out there ready for the new film, also, its kind of cool to look back at Freddys fucked up beginnings.

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  5. Wow, this IS great. Now, I don't have to go see the new film (aka the origins story where we spell everything out). You just save med $10. Thanks! ; )

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  6. No problem J.D! Glad I could be of help!

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  7. Great post, thanks for linear(izing) it.

    As for the remake, as all remakes do, they take the fun stuff out of cheesy movies and make it so self-serious it's impossible to watch.

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  8. Yeah, thats what it looks like. They want to make Freddy all scary again. Lets see if they can accomplish it.

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  9. Great recap! Brings back a lot of memories (watching these films growing up.) I am looking forward to the remake--I just want to see what they do with it.

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  10. Im kind of pissed, I just found out this movie will be starting in Puerto Rico on May the 13th! Aaarrggh! Dont know why they delayed it like that, but it suuucks assss!

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  11. Great Scott -- I can't believe you went into all this detail! But I'm thankful because I'm jazzed about Jackie Earle Haley's turn as the He of the Knife Fingers and Striped Sweaters and I haven't seen many of the films. All this background info will prove most useful!

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  12. Thanks M.Carter, Ive been seeing the Nightmare on Elm Street movies since I was about 12 or 13, so I kind of know these by heart.

    But while writing up this post it suddenly dawned upon me what a messed up tale it really is.

    Im looking forward to the remaking...crossing my fingers, hoping it wont suck.

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  13. Awesome post good sir!

    I believe the reason why you see the dream demons tempt Freddy comes from the Hindu influence that inspired Craven when making the film. As I understand it, dream demons are kind of like minions of the devil and Hindus believed that you could control people through your dreams. So in a way, Freddy was an instrument of the devil.

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  14. Excellent work as always Franco, I am very interested in seeing how they redefine the original story (or completely fail to produce anything new) with the remake this weekend!

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  15. @POT: Oh yeah, I mean, I know that according to bible myth, demons are minions of Satan and all that, but I haven't heard of dream demons. At least not in christian mythology, so your explanation of indian mythology being involved in all that makes sense.

    @Carl: I read a couple of reviews already, some say that the movie is too similar to the original, bringing very little new elements to the table, which kind of sucks. But lets see what happens Ill have to see it for myself to make up my own mind about it.

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  16. Let me be the 90th person to say... "AWESOME WORK!" This was good shit, duder. Very cool.

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  17. Now this is information! Awesome write-up, our dear Connoisseur! Definitely felt the respect, curiosity and love of the franchise's monster in this one!

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