The ending of Nightmare on Elm Street

[Guest JMA]

These are some questions for you big horror buffs. Judging by the title, I assume those who haven't seen the movie (yeah right) will simply avoid this thread. Thus I feel no need to put in the spoiler code. Anyway...

 

Robert Englund himself has said that Nancy experienced a prophetic dream throughout the movie. He explains this as the reason Nancy's friends are still alive at the end. Does this mean the entire movie was just a dream? Does that mean that the ending happened in the "real" world? We know Nancy survived, but what about her friends?

 

The ending has always just confused me in general. Can someone please help?

[LaParkaYourCar 0]

I've always been baffled by the ending of this movie too.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

I think the ending was a dream, honestly. This is judging by both the direction (if you notice, the scene has this overly-shiny look to it, which is often used to represent dreams) and the fact that Freddy had powers. Nancy's mother was killed once Nancy brought Freddy back into the real world, so the end was just a dream to show Nancy that Freddy will never truly be gone.

[Guest JMA]

That raises more questions. During the climax, Nancy says that "this is just a dream." Freddy also had some of his powers (surviving being on fire for that long, disappearing after being wrapped in a blanket, ect). Did Nancy never wake up when she intentionally went to sleep?

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

She says "this is just a dream" before waking up. At one part she does wake up, I believe, and finds out that Freddy is in her room, so then she goes downstairs to let the booby traps take over.

[Nighthawk 0]

Maybe Nancy didn't survive and they did a retcon for the sequel.

[eiker_ir 0]

i always took that ending as a symbolic type of thing, you know...so people know that Freddy isn't dead. I don't know... i've never really undertud it either

[Guest JMA]

She says "this is just a dream" before waking up.

I believe she also says "this is just a dream" during her final face-off with Freddy.

[Damaramu 0]

You know for such a badass Freddy sure does get beaten up by little girls a lot. She kicked his ass a bunch....how does he expect to beat Jason?

[Anakin Flair 0]

You know, I haven't seen this movie since...2nd grade. And I'm 22 now. Damn.

[Nighthawk 0]

You know for such a badass Freddy sure does get beaten up by little girls a lot. She kicked his ass a bunch....how does he expect to beat Jason?

Jason got his ass kicked by little girls plenty of times too.

[eiker_ir 0]

Little Girls > Freddy and Jason

 

it's a fact, what?

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

It's because they're innocent or something. I read some rant about how slasher films were really just moral lessons since it seems all the victims are underage drinkers, engaging in premarital sex, and smoking marijuana (or doing harder drugs). Hell, that one scene in Jason X in the hologram room sums up slasher films altogether, pretty much.

[Guest JMA]

Anyway, Englund said in an interview that Nancy had a prophetic dream of things to come. That's why, he says, her friends are alive at the end.

[Guest JMA]

It's because they're innocent or something. I read some rant about how slasher films were really just moral lessons since it seems all the victims are underage drinkers, engaging in premarital sex, and smoking marijuana (or doing harder drugs). Hell, that one scene in Jason X in the hologram room sums up slasher films altogether, pretty much.

That's mostly a Friday the 13th thing. John Carpenter has said that the original Halloween was not about teens getting killed for having sex/smoking pot/ect. He said it was because they were distracted that they got killed.

[Angle-plex 0]

I thought it was because Freddy gets his power from his victim's fear or something. Depp's character says something along the lines of "turn your back on the monster, and he'll go away" in the film. I figured Krueger killed all her friends, her mom, ect., that she just wasn't afraid of what he could do to her anymore. You know, sort of like Frankenstein.

 

The last minute was just a setup for a sequal.

[Guest The Grand Pubah of 1620]

I thought it was because Freddy gets his power from his victim's fear or something. Depp's character says something along the lines of "turn your back on the monster, and he'll go away" in the film. I figured Krueger killed all her friends, her mom, ect., that she just wasn't afraid of what he could do to her anymore. You know, sort of like Frankenstein.

 

The last minute was just a setup for a sequal.

You are right about the whole "fear" thing AP. Or at least that's what I got from it too.

 

Now I thought that the ending of NOES was showing that the dream had never ended. Nancy was still asleep and, well, shit out of luck. But I have heard them all and I kind of still take mine to be the best explanation from seeing all of the others. But I could be wrong.

[JasonX 0]

These are some questions for you big horror buffs. Judging by the title, I assume those who haven't seen the movie (yeah right) will simply avoid this thread. Thus I feel no need to put in the spoiler code. Anyway...

 

Robert Englund himself has said that Nancy experienced a prophetic dream throughout the movie. He explains this as the reason Nancy's friends are still alive at the end. Does this mean the entire movie was just a dream? Does that mean that the ending happened in the "real" world? We know Nancy survived, but what about her friends?

 

The ending has always just confused me in general. Can someone please help?

The ending, where everyone is alive and Nancy's drunk mom gets killed by Freddy, was Nancy's mom's nightmare scenerio crafted by Freddy when he took her into the dreaming.

[Guest Goodear]

Yup, the ending was a dream. Check out the top of the convertable that the kids get into at the end all you'll see its got the whole Freddy Sweater pattern thing going on...

[Damaramu 0]

Well I just watched the 3rd one for the first time. That movie should've been the second one. I mean Nightmare on Elm Street 2 just sucked and it didn't even feel like a sequel....while #3 did feel like a sequel.

[Guest JMA]

I still can't make sense of the ending. I do know that Wes Craven wanted to do the ending differently.

[eiker_ir 0]

inthe Nightmare Encyclopedia DVD, there are i think 3 different endings.

 

one were the kids leave normally and the mom lives.

 

one were they leave normally and the mom dies

 

and one were the mom lives but the car turns into Freddy.

[Guest JMA]

inthe Nightmare Encyclopedia DVD, there are i think 3 different endings.

 

one were the kids leave normally and the mom lives.

 

one were they leave normally and the mom dies

 

and one were the mom lives but the car turns into Freddy.

That is correct.

[NoCalMike 0]

I think the ending was just a "good dream gone bad" scenario that is typical in the NOES. After someone kills Freddy the following movie usuallly opens up with them in a good dream scenario that ends up with Freddy coming back to life. So in the original they did that at the end instead of waiting for the sequel.

[Guest JMA]

What are eveyone's thoughts on Englund thinking the whole movie was a dream?

[Anakin Flair 0]

Well I just watched the 3rd one for the first time. That movie should've been the second one. I mean Nightmare on Elm Street 2 just sucked and it didn't even feel like a sequel....while #3 did feel like a sequel.

It's kind of like Halloween, in that aspect. Halloween 3 had nothing to do with the series, mind you, but it shouldn't have been a sequal to the first two. Same goes with NOES2.

 

Interestingly enough, I just saw the ending last night, and the only thin I can guess is that she just didn't wake up.

[Guest Black Tiger]

The ending was deffinatly a dream. You'll notice that when Freddy turns into the wave of light and vanishes Nancy is standing in her Mom's bedroom, she opens the door and is on the front porch.

 

I don't think she ever woke up from her dream to "catch" Freddy, when the clock "woke her up" you could see part of the fence thing from her front yard in the bed with her then disapear. Since she'd brought Freddy's hat out from her previous dream and it didn't vanish. She obviously didn't really bring it back with her.

[NoCalMike 0]

Actually, Part 2 could have been switched with part 3 and it would have helped. Cause the way Freddy Died in part 3 would make sense that he needed to come back through someone else. Plus Nancy returned and died.

[cabbageboy 0]

That's one thing you can say for Michael Myers...at least it was mostly Dr. Loomis who took him out in the Halloween movies. Jamie Lee Curtis ran around scared to death (H20 aside).

 

Ah hell, Predator would whoop both of them. He considers it beneath him to even bother with teenage chicks....he goes after people like Arnold.