Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
File:Nightmare6.jpg Movie poster
Directed by	Rachel Talalay
Written by	Characters Wes Craven Story Rachel Talalay Screenplay Michael De Luca
Produced by	Michael De Luca Michael N. Knue Robert Shaye Aron Warner
Starring	Robert Englund Lisa Zane Shon Greenblatt Lezlie Deane Ricky Dean Logan Breckin Meyer Yaphet Kotto
Cinematography	Declan Quinn
Edited by	Janice Hampton
Music by	Brian May
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	September 13, 1991
Running time	89 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$5,000,000 (estimated)
Box office	$34,800,000 (domestically)

"Freddy's Dead" redirects here. For the song by Curtis Mayfield, see Freddie's Dead.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (also known as A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy's Dead) is a 1991 American slasher film. It is the sixth–and as the title suggests, intended to be the last–film in the series of films featuring Freddy Krueger. However, the success of the film prevented the series from ending (much like Friday The 13th parts four and nine). Another film, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, was produced following this film. The character of Freddy Krueger then returned in 2003's Freddy vs. Jason.

Robert Englund reprises his role as Freddy Krueger; Lisa Zane, Yaphet Kotto, Breckin Meyer, Shon Greenblatt, Ricky Dean Logan, Lezlie Deane and Tobe Sexton also star. Additionally, several well-known actors make cameo appearances in the film, including Johnny Depp (whose screen debut was in the original Nightmare On Elm Street), Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold and Alice Cooper. Iggy Pop sings the movie's title song, which plays over a montage of scenes from the previous Nightmare movies and the end credits.

Plot summary

An unknown amount of time has passed since the previous sequel, and Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) has returned and succeeded in killing nearly all of the children in the town of Springwood, Ohio. The only surviving teenager, known only as "John Doe" (Shon Greenblatt) throughout the film, finds himself confronted by Freddy in a dream and is knocked past the town of Springwood's city limits by Freddy. The city limits serve as a barrier that Freddy cannot cross, and the hole John makes when he goes through the barrier closes as soon as Freddy touches it. However, when John goes through the barrier, he hits his head on a rock and does not remember who he is or why he is outside of Springwood.

Meanwhile, at a shelter for troubled youth, Spencer (Breckin Meyer), Carlos (Ricky Dean Logan) and Tracy (Lezlie Deane) plot to run away from the shelter. Carlos was physically abused by his parents, Tracy was sexually abused by her father, and Spencer simply does not want to conform to his father's overbearing lifestyle. John, after being picked up by the police, becomes a resident of the shelter and a patient of Dr. Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane). Maggie notices a newspaper clipping in John's pocket from Springwood. In an effort to cure John's amnesia, she decides it would be best to go on a road trip to Springwood to jog his memory. Tracy, Carlos, and Spencer stow away in the van in their effort to escape the shelter, but are discovered when John has a hallucination and almost wrecks the van just outside Springwood.

After encountering the adult inhabitants of Springwood, Maggie and John find out that Freddy Krueger had a child that was taken away from him, and this was the reason he went on his murderous rampage. John begins to suspect that he is Freddy's child, which to him, would explain why he has not been hurt. Meanwhile, Tracy, Spencer, and Carlos, after unsuccessfully trying to leave Springwood, decide to rest at a nearby abandoned house, which transforms into 1428 Elm Street (Nancy Thompson's former home). Carlos and Spencer fall asleep and become prey to Freddy. Tracy is awakened by Maggie, but John, who went into the dream world with Tracy to try to help Spencer, is still asleep. Maggie and Tracy decide to take him back to the shelter. Freddy reveals to John that he was using him to get to his daughter, and then impales John on a bed of spikes. Before he dies, John tells Maggie that Freddy's child was not a boy. Freddy possesses Maggie as she and Tracy flee the town, and when Maggie and Tracy cross the Springwood town limit, the supernatural barrier shatters.

Tracy and Maggie return to the shelter, but they discover that no one remembers John, Spencer, or Carlos except for Doc (Yaphet Kotto), who has learned to control his dreams. Maggie remembers what John told her and discovers her own adoption papers. That night, she falls asleep and encounters Freddy. He tells her that she is really Katherine Krueger, Freddy's daughter. He explains to her that he used her to escape Springwood and now wants to start his killing spree in a new town.

Doc discovers Freddy's power comes from the "dream demons" who continually revive him, and that Freddy can be killed if he's pulled into the real world. Maggie decides that she will be the one to enter Freddy's mind and pull him into the real world. Once in the dream world, she puts on a pair of 3-D glasses–the theatrical version of the film was in 3D during the climax–and goes into Freddy's mind. There, she finds out that Freddy was teased as a child, abused by his foster father (Alice Cooper), inflicted self-abuse as a teenager (Tobe Sexton), and murdered his wife, Loretta Krueger (Lindsey Fields), in front of his own daughter. While being burned from Molotov cocktails thrown upon him by angry parents, Freddy was given the power to become immortal from fiery demons. After some struggling, Maggie manages to pull Freddy into the real world.

Both Maggie and Freddy end up in hand-to-hand combat against one another after Freddy tries to earn Maggie's sympathy. While Maggie continues to battle Freddy she uses several weapons retrieved from patients at the shelter. Enraged by the knowledge of what he has done, she disarms him of his clawed glove to which he responds "Go on put it on, it's in your blood!" Eventually, Maggie stabs Freddy in the stomach with his own glove while she is close to him. Doc then throws Maggie a pipe bomb. After she impales Freddy to a steel support beam she throws the bomb in his chest. Just prior to Freddy's death Maggie plants a quick kiss on him, saying "Happy Father's Day." As she runs away from the impending explosion, Freddy looks into the camera and says "Kids," after which he explodes. The three dream demons are then seen flying out of Freddy after the pipe bomb kills him, unable to revive him in the real world.

Maggie manages to evade the blast and delivers the final line of the film: "Freddy's dead."

Production

The last ten minutes of the film are in 3-D. The effect was eliminated for the VHS and television releases - with the notable exception of the UK rental version and the US Laserdisc version. The DVD box set, released in 1999, includes 2 pairs of 3-D glasses to use with the reinstated effect.

Deleted Scenes

There were a number of scenes cut out for timing, which included an introduction to Lisa Zane's character, Freddy absorbing Carlos' soul and more of John Doe's dream at the center, as well as a few other things. Some of these scenes can be viewed during the television airings.

Casting

The film marked the silver screen debut of Breckin Meyer.

Reception

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare made $12,966,525 in the opening weekend, which was the highest opening weekend for the series until the release of Freddy vs. Jason. A final box office total tallied $34,872,033 in the US (making it the fourth highest grosser in the series).

Comic spin-off

Innovation Comics published a three issue comic adaptation of the film. An alternate version of the third issue was published in 3-D in order to recreate the effect also used in the film. The series was also published in the trade paperback format. Innovation followed the adaptation with A Nightmare On Elm Street: The Beginning. The three issue mini-series served as a direct sequel to Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, as Maggie Burroughs continues to have nightmares of her father, Freddy Krueger, following the events of the film. Traveling back to Springwood with Tracy, another survivor from the film, Maggie researches Freddy's life leading up to his death at the hands at of the Springwood parents. Only the first two issues of the series were released before Innovation Comics declared bankruptcy, leaving the third issue still unpublished and the story incomplete. Series writer, Andy Mangels, has since made the original script for issue number three available on his website.

Trivia

• This is the first movie in the Nightmare series to end without hinting that Freddy may still be alive.
• In the movie, the border sign that says Welcome to Springwood, says that the population of it is 15,265 people. Though, in the dream world, they show you the sign again and you can see several numbers that Freddy has written down. The numbers are how many people are left. After Freddy kills John, Freddy crosses off a number and writes down 7,741, meaning that Freddy has killed 7,523 people between the gap of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and this one.
• While killing Spencer via a video game, Freddy says "Now I'm playing with power." This is a reference to Nintendo commercials from the 1980's; with the slogan "Now You're Playing with Power!" and variations of it.

External links

• Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare at IMDb
• Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare at AllMovie
• Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare at Rotten Tomatoes
• Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare at Box Office Mojo
• Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare at The Nightmare on Elm Street Companion
• A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Beginning original script, courtesy of Andy Mangels's website.