Once again my mind has wandered down the shadowy sidewalks of Elm St.
What if Freddy Krueger was a known world epidemic?
Beyond Springwood.No longer just a small town serial killer with a revenge fantasy.The entire world was aware and afraid of Freddy. The entire world now struggles to get a good nights rest and not die. Freddy's power has expanded beyond the Elm Street children...and now....
No One Sleeps.
A recent post online about Robert Englund's ideas for a Freddy sequel caught my eye and got me to thinking again about an idea of my own that has been simmering in the boiler of the back of my mind.
A Nightmare on Elm Street story that is more epic in scale. Rather than focus on a small group of kids terrorized by the gloved one, tell a story where the whole world already knows and fears Freddy Krueger.
The original A Nightmare on Elm Street had a more intimate connection between the children he stalked in their dreams and Freddy himself.The original script even contained a line of dialogue delivered by Nancy's mother wherein she reveals that each of Nancy's friends and even she had a brother or sister that was taken to the boiler room by Krueger.
Krueger sought to not only continue his murderous child killing activities but also to punish the parents who burned him alive those many years ago.End their line.By still taking their precious little children away from them despite their best efforts to stop him.There was nothing they could do to stop him this time ,as it wasn't their nightmares he came to.
Kruger comes to these children in their dreams,driven by what I believe to be the unrelenting hatred that burned inside him even before he was set ablaze.He simply refused to die and found a way to return in the nightmares of the children of the parents who murdered him. No giant floating wiggly spermy Dream Demons granting him wishes. Just pure fire of hatred that refused to be extinguished.
If he could find a way to rise from the ashes once before,it stands to reason he could find a way to go beyond Elm Street.There can only be so many Elm Street Children that can live.....for as long as they can stay awake. The street was only so long,there could be only so many parents who burned Freddy and then had another child of their own.Even in the original sequels Freddy slashed his way through the last of the Elm Street children by the beginning of the fourth sequel. Having to resort to using others to bring him fresh meat.
By moving beyond the revenge fantasy and returning Freddy to his straightforward murderous roots, the story could eliminate the need to have to connect to the beginning though thin means.No lost child of Krueger.No distant relative of an original Nightmare character.No need to introduce any father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate
Simply, the world now knows of Freddy.And with knowledge comes fear.And fear opens the door for Kruger to slip inside.If you are thinking about him, it's already to late,he's inside waiting for you to fall asleep.
Play on the concept that the audience already knows everything about Freddy before they even sit down in the theater.Reduce the need to create that story element that gives Freddy special access to just a select few children and open him up globally to being able to get to any one ,anywhere in the world, regardless of their parental past.Eliminate the need to have that expository scene where we learn... yet again... that Freddy was a son of hundred maniacs who killed kids and then was burned alive and then is now haunting dreams.Blah blah blah.Like Santa Claus we know this story already.
However, eliminating the suffering for the sins of ones parents story element is an emotional loss.It created conflict between the child and the persons they have trusted their entire lives.When they need someone to trust to protect them in this dire situation, they discover that they have lost that foundation.
Krueger just killing for the sake of killing runs the risk of reducing him to the very slasher he set himself apart from in the 80's. I think there should need to be some form of goal for Freddy other than just soul collecting.Is he just going to keep on killing until there are no more children? Does he power up after a certain quantity? Or is he selecting certain specific children to kill to create a outcome in the waking world?Dominoes falling with each death.Like say,killing the children of world leaders to cause them to lose hope and fill them with anger that they then take out on the world with wars and violence. Violence that then fuels the nightmares of other children and even adults that Freddy can use to his advantage.Kill one or more to start a chain reaction of fear.Make their deaths appear to implicate others.Force a child to sleep walk to a specific location so Freddy can then leave their body or bodies in the woke world to create havoc.For example, what if Freddy sleepwalked multiple children to the basement of a church and then left their massacred bodies to be found, implicating a preacher who works at the church.Churchgoers would be turned away from their church.How might this effect their faith?
If the reach of Krueger's glove could now spread beyond the suburb of Springwood. Beyond the children of Elm Street. Parents of the world would be desperate.Their children are going through something that they have no control over and do not understand.They cannot live in denial of what their kids are suffering by blaming it on drugs,music,or whatever.It's too widespread and direct to ignore.Kids are traumatized from the terror and dying by great numbers.A world in crisis.
Kids could be falling asleep in a moments notice due to exhaustion.And as Freddy's power grows....just falling asleep at random at his whim.Krueger could be taking unborn children while they dream.Child birth rates could drop to a alarming rate. Entire cities could be barren.What we saw in Springwood in Freddy's Dead could now be widespread.We could hear stories of people losing multiple children before birth and then finally one makes it to the day only for Freddy to take that child when it falls asleep in its mothers arms for the first time.
Parents are willing to do anything to protect their kids. Over prescribing drugs whose side effects are worse than the symptom.But not every Parent can afford the drugs in question,so there could be a developing class struggle to save ones own children. Parents could take a variety of efforts,such as waking their children throughout the night before they can slip into REM sleep.Keeping them home and away from friends and the outside world,not letting them out of sight for a moment.Homeschooling from hell.
News programs would broadcast daily children death tolls.Significant deaths of public figures.Reporters sign off with a "We hope you will be with us tomorrow" with ominous tones.
Maybe one of our star pupils of the story notices a pattern.Each night as the deaths are announced she or he places markers on a map.The prominent names or even concentrated locations of kills seems to indicate a intentional directional moving of Kruegers nightly activities.Pointing towards a specific significant location.Perhaps a small town that has not reported any child deaths?Why could this be?Whose protecting them? ( Nancy?! ) .Or maybe the pattern shows a direct line to say the known location of the Presidents children, implying that is the goal. Kill the world leaders children.Maybe he has already worked his way through other lands.But then maybe there is just one singular death that occurs in this pattern that's just off the beaten path that stands out and leads out heroes to explore something that might save their lives.Give an opportunity to discover a piece of the past ,perhaps?
Known information about Freddy would be often discussed.Like old "say no to drugs" PSAs, there are Nightmare propaganda(guides to surviving a dream:how to identify you are in a dream,means to wake ones self from a deep sleep).Freddy's face is everywhere even when awake.Everyone sees and depicts him differently, but with distinct Freddy-esque features
Government agencies would try to develop means to stop this new form of terror. Schools have class time devoted to "Surviving your dream". They even try to train children on how to control their dreams,to fight back like soldiers.Warriors.But even they are no match for this new Freddy.
Now, who would the kids of this story be? Would they have a connection to each other? A possible direct connection to Freddy,even? Perhaps they could be a small group of "volunteers" to the government program.Some by choice,Some by court order.Some by Parents who feared the worst and thought this was the best way to help their children survive.Strangers from different circles brought together by their common terror.What if there was a Nightmare draft,and these children were required to join in on this fight.The world is at war with their dreams
However.....
How do you solve the problem of a story,a sequel,if you start big?Where do you go from there ? If the problem is all encompassing, and you manage to defeat the evil,how would that effect the threat of Freddy in a follow up movie? If you beat the big bad at his biggest where is the future threat?
Freddy has been burned,buried and blown apart.They have tried bringing him into the real world, but he always seems to fool them.Controlling the dream to make the dreamer think they are awake.How might the story pause him so that he could return in a sequel and still be perceived as a threat?
What will be the secret to defeating Freddy this time?How could they defeat something that has become so powerful to overcome death itself not once but many times?Could the secret be in the moments before the dream? Where is Freddy when we are awake? Or does he survive by jumping from dream to dream because someone ,somewhere is always asleep.Is he asleep during our waking moments? How would they get to him before he got to them?Could they find a way to enter his "dreams"?
What if......while Freddy was inside a dreamer, there was a way to lock him in that dream? If Nancy could be dreamed into a beautiful dream, what if Freddy could be dreamed into a prison of their own making by a powerful dreamer?
Or....
What if something were to happen to the dreamer while Freddy was inside? This would take some exploration and better understanding of what happens after Freddy kills someone in the Nightmare.Does he have to escape the dream of his victim in those last moments of brain activity? Go back to that place or void wherever he waits between Nightmares? We know he can slip in , but how does he slip out?
So what if something was intentionally done to lock Freddy in the dream. If he cant get out from one dream he would not be a threat to others.But how to do this? Could they induce a coma of a potential Freddy victim? Joey in Dream Warriors slipped into a coma and Freddy was able to continued to terrorize others.But maybe that had to do with Kristins gift of pulling everyone into the same dream with her
Or maybe, this was a plan of Freddy's making. At that point of the story, Nancy had prescribed Hypnocil,a dream suppressant, to the Dream Warriors.Though its never clear if they were able to actually obtain the drug and distribute it to the kids in time.Its implied that the kids had been taking it as its used as a excuse for causing Joey's coma.
So with the suppressant,Freddy had no access to them at this point.By keeping Joey in a perpetual dream state he could continue to torture him, while powering up on Joey's fear. Until Kristin was forced to sleep and she pulled everyone in ,overpowering the drug.
So what if the powers that be forced one of our surviving characters into a Hypnocil drug induced coma when they knew Freddy was inside.Sacrificing one child for the worlds children. Could this freeze Freddy in a dream until he could be unlocked in the follow up movie?
We would be left with the image that Freddy is still torturing the chosen child all the while he wait. Cuts happening all over the body.Medical devices registering the levels of increased heart rate and stress.
Then......
Part 2 would introduce that Patient Zero has been asleep for years.Decades even.Kept alive in a state of silence.Patient Zeros body would be covered in scars.From face to foot.Slash marks.Words could be read on his body that had been carved over time.His body is a mass of scar tissue from countless nights of torture.
The world outside would go on, finally able to get a safe nights sleep.
The Survivors of the first film would have time to grow up.Start their own families.Eager to have children as a form of celebration.Maybe they were rewarded for their efforts for helping cease the threat of Freddy.
The world would watch them as if their lives were now a reality program.All the while, the world would try to forget.Even make it so much as to be illegal to discuss Freddy in any form.Never speak his name.Children never learning or hearing the name of the forgotten boogeyman of their dreams.
Until one misguided journalist of a tabloid televison show seeks out the children of our original survivors.Approaching them on the playground at their school and asking them if they ever have really bad dreams.If they have ever dreamt of a man called Freddy Krueger. And at the mention of his name.....the entire playground of children around them turn to face the survivors children and point....and they begin in a trancelike unison to sing the jumprope song.
One....two....Freddy's coming for you.....
........................................
Nine ...ten....never sleep ....again
The children on the playground giggle and laugh and run off
And it is at this moment that Patient Zero wakes up.
Patient Zero tells stories of how he has been trapped inside a Nightmare with Freddy all this time.Fighting.Dreaming of means of escape.He claims he can not recall what he dreamt last before he woke up.How he escaped or what Freddy might have done to assist in his waking up.
What if Freddy had been not only slicing on his flesh but at the victims brain.Damaging and cutting out the goodness.Corrupting his soul.Crafting a partner.An awake partner.
In this sequel, we would now have the threat of Freddy in your sleep and this new killer,molded by the original, to attack you while you are awake.Or even while you are asleep. Your body at the mercy of being double teamed murdered from both realities.Just when you think you have the upper hand on Freddy in the dream world, your body is attacked by the new killer from the outside.Who will claim your soul first?
The new killer stalks the adults.Seeking revenge for leaving him trapped in the Nightmare. Maybe Freddy convinced this victim that some of the others were complicit in choosing who would be put into a coma.And maybe they actually really were.A secret revealed.The past once again coming back to punish them.
Despite their efforts to suppress dreams, the awake killer could even collectively drug the survivors to send them into the Nightmare.Feed them to Freddy.
This awake killer could take multiple children in Springwood.Choosing to select kids who live on or near that towns Elm St.Invoking the memory of Freddy with his choice of weapon and the discovery of the slashed bodies.Building the fear again.
And maybe,once again, a whole new vigilante group comes to burn this new killer alive.
If handled in such a way,the events of the awake killer could play like what might have occurred back in the day when Freddy himself was alive.
But what of Freddy, what is he up to during all of this ? That is a thought for another night.
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