Frederick Charles Krueger, or simply Fred or Freddy, is
a fictional character
from the Nightmare
on Elm Street series of horror films. He was created by Wes Craven & has been portrayed by actor Robert Englund in every film. He is an undead serial killer and child killer who can attack his victims supernaturally from within their own dreams and nightmares. Freddy's most well known attributes include his burned face, his clawed glove, his red and green sweater, a fedora hat, and an eerie chant in the tune of buckle my shoe, that usually accompanies his appearance:
One, two, Freddy's coming for you.
Three, four, better lock your door.
Five, six, grab your crucifix.
Seven, eight, gonna stay up late.
Nine, ten, never sleep again.
Character History
Origin
Amanda Krueger
The characters backstory actually begins with a tragic incident involving his mother. During a Christmas holiday in the early 1940s, a young nun named Sister Mary Helena (Amanda Krueger) was trapped inside the Westin Hills psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. For days, she was raped and tortured numerous times by the one hundred patients confined there. When she was found, she was barely clinging to life, and now pregnant. Months later, after a breech birth, Frederick Charles Krueger was born and given up for adoption.
Fred was placed with an abusive alcoholic named Mr. Underwood (portrayed by Alice Cooper in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare) who abused him physically and emotionally. As time went by, Freddy began to exhibit sociopathic behavior, killing small animals. He was often ridiculed by classmates, which made him a clear outsider in social circles. In his late teens, Freddy was shown to enjoy the beatings and associated pain with pleasure. He also learned the "secret of pain" from self-mutilation and killed his adoptive father.
Freddy kills Loretta in front of young
Kathryn.
Later in adulthood, Fred Krueger married a woman named Loretta and soon had a daughter named Kathryn. The Krueger family was shown to reside in Freddy's childhood home at 1428 Elm Street. Kathryn was still a little girl when children from the neighborhood went missing and were found dead. Soon after, Loretta learned that down in the basement of the house, Freddy had a secret room where he kept many different tools of torture, newspaper clippings, versions of his famous glove, and more. Promising that "she won't tell," she was killed by Freddy in front of very young Kathryn, "for snooping in his special work." Freddy worked at the local power plant, and in its boiler room, he had taken the 20 missing neighborhood children and killed them. The police were unable to solve the cases and newspapers dubbed the mysterious killer the 'Springwood Slasher'.
Freddy accepts the Dream Demons' offer.
In 1966, Freddy was arrested for the murders of the missing children. Young Kathryn was put into foster care, and was later adopted. Because the search warrant was not signed correctly, all evidence was considered inadmissible and Krueger was released in 1968. After Freddy's trial, Amanda Krueger hung herself in the tower where she was raped. Later that same night, the neighborhood parents took the law into their own hands, finding Krueger in his boiler room and burning him to death. While the flames engulfed the boiler room, we are shown Freddy was approached by three Dream Demons. These Demons search the land of the living to find the most evil soul, and in turn, give them the power to turn dreams into reality. Freddy accepted their offer to "be forever." Freddy's remains were taken to 'Penny Brothers Auto Salvage' and locked in the trunk of an old red Cadillac. Presumably to help erase Krueger's existence, the Thompson family moved into the house on 1428 Elm Street. Adopted by the Burroughs family, young Kathryn was taken away from Springwood and her records were sealed.
Film series events
Thirteen years later, Krueger was shown to become something of a local urban legend. The Elm Street parents remained tight-lipped about the events of the decade before, and all of their children were now teenagers. In the closing months of 1981, the children of Springwood (specifically those teens whose parents had formed the mob that killed Krueger) began systematically dying again, this time in peculiar ways, as they slept. The parents were shown to often ignore and/or deny the pleas of their mortified kids, who regaled tales of a mysterious burned man named Fred, who was terrorizing them in their dreams..
Freddy haunts the children of Springwood.
As long as his victim was dreaming, Krueger could inhabit and control their
dreams, twisting them to his own ends. Any physical harm done to a person in
this dream world would carry over into the real world, allowing him to easily
commit multiple murders. Krueger often toyed with his victims by changing his
form and surroundings, usually resembling the factory where he was burned. His
powers increased as more and more kids believed he existed. At the height of his
powers, he could cause severe damage in the real world. This included possession
of humans (as shown in the second Nightmare film and Freddy vs Jason) or
his corpse (as shown in the third).
In a person's own dream, Krueger could also use their deepest fears and
personality against them, which became a trademark in the films. A few victims
managed to use their own imagination to consciously manipulate their dreams
against him (a technique known as lucid dreaming), but this
had little effect on Krueger, who was completely in control of their dreams
already. These kids were known as "dream warriors". Another of Krueger's powers
involved absorbing the souls of his victims into his own
body after they had been killed, which served to make him all the more powerful.
As he gained a victim, their face would appear on his chest.
Krueger met three notable adversaries in the period before Freddy's
Dead:
- Nancy
Thompson, the daughter of the family that moved into his old house. Nancy
was the first of the Elm Street children to learn about Krueger's past and the
first to vanquish him. She returned in the third only to be killed by her
father, which was actually Freddy in her father's form.
- Kristen Parker, a girl
with the ability to bring people into her dreams.
- Alice
Johnson (who became the Dream Master), gained Kristen's power and the
dream powers of her friends. Out of all these girls, Alice is the only one
(supposedly) who has remained alive. After removing the souls Krueger gained
over the years he was left powerless. A year later, Alice became pregnant and
Krueger started using the dreams of her unborn child to kill again. Alice
vanquished him with the help of Krueger's mother, Amanda. After Krueger was
contained, Alice supposedly moved away before he was released and caused the
events of Freddy's
Dead: The Final Nightmare.
Freddy's dead
Freddy and Maggie (Kathryn) face off.
After a decade of systematically slaughtering all of the children of
Springwood in their dreams, the town was shown to have now been under Freddy's
influence. By absorbing his victim's souls, Freddy was now powerful enough to
blur the lines between dreams and reality. The remaining adults were kept in a
mass psychosis after their children
had been murdered. When there was no one left to kill, Freddy sought to leave
Springwood, hoping to continue his murder spree in another town full of more
children. Only one person could arrange for this to happen: his long lost
daughter, Kathryn.
Krueger used what was left of his supernatural resources to track down his
daughter, who was now an adult named Maggie Burroughs and was working as a
counselor to troubled teens in another city. Since her mother's death, Maggie
was raised by adoptive parents and had suppressed the horrible memories of her
early childhood. After catching up with Maggie, Freddy attempted to sway her to
help him do his bidding. She proved, though, that a thirst for murder was not
hereditary and instead schemed with Doc, her coworker (and dream psychiatrist),
to help destroy Krueger once and for all. After pulling him out of her dream,
and into reality, Maggie shoved a pipe bomb into Krueger's chest, killing him
and releasing the dream demons that had given him his power.
Freddy vs Jason
Freddy vs. Jason.
In the aftermath of Maggie sending Krueger back to hell, we're told
Springwood sought to revitalize itself. Freddy returned briefly, killing at
least one woman (as seen in Freddy vs. Jason). Figuring out how Krueger
operated, we're shown the authorities and town officials covered up any and all
traces of his prior existence, which included blacking out obituaries and
quarantining anyone who had ever dreamt about, or had any knowledge of Krueger.
As a result, Springwood began to come back from obscurity and subsequently
repopulated with no ill effects.
Krueger, meanwhile, remained in limbo, completely unable to escape
the boundaries of hell, thanks to the complete ignorance of his existence to the
people of Springwood. Due to no one so much as knew of him, much less feared
him, Freddy was unable to gain enough power to escape from hell. Thus, Freddy
hatched a plan to resurrect the immortal killing machine Jason
Voorhees. In the guise of Voorhees' mother, Pamela, Freddy
manipulated Jason into rising up from the dead once more and to go to Elm Street
to kill the teenagers in order to fool the residents of Springwood into thinking
that he (Krueger) was back.
Voorhees committed a few murders, which (as planned) were then blamed on
Krueger. As a result, Krueger began to get his equilibrium back. A small group
of youths and a sheriff's deputy discovered that it was not Krueger who had
committed the murders, but it was already too late. Enough fear fell over
Springwood to make Krueger strong enough to haunt the town again. The problem,
which Krueger had not counted on, was that Jason would not stop killing. He
became irate when Jason continued to slaughter "his kids." Thus, a bloody fight
ensued between the two murderous icons that raged between the dream world to the
waking world at Jason's old haunt, Camp Crystal Lake. The finality of this fight
was deliberately left ambiguous by the writers of Freddy vs. Jason. It
ended with Jason walking out of the waters holding Krueger's decapitated head,
which winked to the audience before the credits rolled, seemingly indicating
that his reign of terror was not over.
