Horror Icons: Freddy Krueger

“One, two, Freddy's coming for you

Three, four, better lock your door

Five, six, grab your crucifix

Seven, eight, better stay up late

Nine, ten, never sleep again”.

That nursery rhyme has sent shivers down the spine of a generation. That’s because its theme belongs to the Springwood Slasher aka Fred “Freddy” Krueger, the central figure of the A Nightmare on Elm Street slasher series.

Created by horror master, Wes Craven, Fred “Freddy” Krueger was a mentally abused loner born to Amanda Krueger, a nun who eventually changed her name to Mary Helena after being raped countless times in a mental asylum known as Westin Hills in the fictional town of Springwood, Ohio. While growing up in the foster system Freddy endured a great deal of abuse. Due to his unstable personality his peers coined him the nickname the “son of a hundred maniacs”. Eventually he was able to find some measure of a stabile livelihood and met his future wife, Loretta. Together Freddy and Loretta conceived a daughter named Katherine.

Freddy had a relatively healthy family life, especially with his daughter Katherine, but eventually the mature of his mental instability was made apparent to Loretta and he murdered her in view of his young daughter. After disposing of his wife’s corpse, the state and social services determined that Freddy was unfit to be a parent and took Katherine away from him. Angered and heartbroken from having lost his daughter, Freddy went on a killing spree murdering over 20 children throughout the town as revenge. When he was discovered he was brought up on murder charges, but was unfortunately set free due to a technicality of the warrant for his arrest not being signed in the right place.

Enraged at his liberation many of the town’s parents, including those of the murdered children, tracked him down to a boiler room where he would take his victims and burned his quarters to the ground with him inside. While staring death in the face, Freddy was approached by three ancient dream demons who offered to grant him the power to return in the dreams of his victims and exact revenge, to which he accepted, thus the Freddy we all know was born.

As shown throughout the film series, Freddy cut a bloody path through the 80’s by murdering the children of the parents who killed him. He invaded their dreams and used their fears and weaknesses against them with illusionary power, causing mental torture before eventually killing them altogether. The young teens who stood against him included Nancy Thompson, Jesse Walsh, Kristen Parker and Alice Johnson among many others. Most lost their lives in the long run, but a select few managed to beat Freddy and come out on top, including his own daughter, Katherine.

The journey of Freddy Krueger made the A Nightmare On Elm Street series one of the biggest slasher franchises of the 80’s. After the 6th entry in the franchise in 1991, Freddy was crafted into a critically acclaimed meta-film in 1994 and a crossover film with Friday the 13th antagonist Jason Voorhees in 2003, further solidifying his legacy.

Freddy was always so appealing to us as fans because of his sense of humor, and witty one liners added to his horrifying demeanor. We all have the Legendary Robert Englund, who portrayed Freddy to thank for these qualities. Freddy’s personality made him terrifying yet relatable. It’s like though you might’ve been scared of him in a movie sense, realistically you knew he’d be the most entertaining friend to bring to a party. You’d never have a dull moment with him around. His personality also built bridges for him to be explored in extended media beyond the big screen. He had a successful tv series titled Freddy’s Nightmares and he appears in a lot of the music videos for music artist who appears on the soundtracks to the Nightmare series.

Freddy is definitely one of my top favorite icons of horror. I’ll never forget the first time I ever saw his films in the late 90’s and how he scared the crap out of me when I saw Freddy vs. Jason in theaters in 2003. He was always a fun part of my childhood. When I watched his movies with my loved ones we always marveled at how cool he was. Freddy isn’t just an icon of horror, but of pop culture overall. Always the fear, yet fun of the party, I think it’s safe to say we all appreciate the late great Wes Craven for gifting us with the Springwood Slasher.