A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 2014 American horror film which is a remake of the 1984 film of the same name. This reboot was directed by Alexander Aja and stars Anna Kendrick as Nancy Holbrook and Ron Perlman as Freddy Krueger. Aja would later direct the sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2.
Plot[]
Kris Fowles, a high school student, has a disturbing nightmare in which she sees a badly burned man, wearing a red and green-striped jumper and a fedora, chasing her through a boiler room. He slashes at her with a razor glove just as she wakes up to find her nightgown has been tore in the same way. The next day, she goes to the Springwood Diner to meet her friend, waitress Nancy Holbrook. Kris' ex-boyfriend Dean Russell also shows up and they both listen as Kris describes her dream. Nancy says that she also had a nightmare, but dismisses it.
That night, Nancy and her close friend Quentin Smith go around to Kris' house as her mother is out of town and she is worried about sleeping alone, so they agree to stay the night. Dean shows up once again, and he and Kris go into Kris' room to have sex. Nacy and Quentin then go home. During the night, Kris begins to have another nightmare in which the burned man is once again chasing her. He eventually catches up to her and stabs her. In reality, Kris begins to scream and thrash about violently, waking Dean up. Dean tries desperately to wake her, but her body suddenly levitates and he is knocked across the room. A screaming Kris is dragged up the wall and has her throat slashed. As her body falls back to the floor, Dean flees from the room and runs over to Nancy's house. She opens the door to find him covered in blood and weeping.
The following day, Dean is arrested on suspicion of Kris' murder. In school, Nancy begins to doze off and sees a terrifying vision of Kris in a bloody body bag. Nancy wakes up screaming and then goes home. She heads over to the police station to speak to Dean, who pleads his innocence to her. Nancy tells him that she doesn't think he killed Kris.
Later that night, Nancy invites Quentin over to watch over her while she goes to sleep so that he can wake her up if she is in danger. Nancy has a dream where she sees the burned man entering Dean's jail cell. Realising he is in danger, Nancy wakes up and she and Quentin race over to the police station. Just as they arrive, Dean is found dead, hanged by his own bedsheets. Nancy's father, police lieutenant Alan Holbrook, rules the death a suicide, but Nancy and Quentin aren't convinced.
At Dean's funeral, Nancy and Quentin both realise that they can remember neither each other or their friends before high school and wonder what their connection was. They learn that they all attended the same preschool together and question Nancy's alcoholic mother Gwen, who explains some history to them. There was once a gardener who worked at the preschool named Freddy Kruger, who the kids claimed was molesting them. Gwen claims that before he could be arrested, Freddy skipped down and disappeared.
Nancy tries to track down the other kids from the preschool, but learns that they all died in their sleep. Quentin thinks that his dreams must be repressed memories and tries to move on, but when he falls asleep, he has a vision of what really happened to Freddy. He was trying to flee from Springwood when the angry parents, led by Nancy's father, arrived in the form of a mob and torched Freddy's hideout, trapping him inside and burning him to death. Quentin informs Nancy and she deduces that Freddy is now coming back for revenge from beyond the grave.
Nancy and Quentin do some further research and decide that the only way to defeat Freddy is to stop being afraid of him so that he'll lose his power. During another nightmare, Nancy pulls Freddy's hat back into the real world with her when she wakes up, and the two hatch a plan to pull Freddy out and defeat him in the real word.
However, they plan is foiled by their parents, who have become concerned with how much they know and lock them in their respective houses to keep them apart. Nancy sets an alarm and goes to sleep to try and find Freddy. At his house, Quentin falls asleep and he and Nancy meet each other in the dream. Freddy shows up and chases them, but Quentin is awoken by his mother. He then runs past her and out of his house, heading towards Nancy's.
In the dream, Nancy tells Freddy that she knows who he is and why is doing what he is. Freddy explains that the children lied and set up, and he was murdered in spite of his innocence. Nancy tries to apologize, but Freddy tells her that it is now his mission to kill all of the children of Springwood. He attacks her and she grabs hold of him just as Quentin bursts into her room and wakes her up. She is angry at him, thinking that she failed to pull Freddy out, until he appears behind Quentin and impales him through the chest. He then chases Nancy through the house.
Meanwhile, Quentin's parents call Lieutenant Holbrook and he races home to try and stop them. He arrives just as Freddy corners Nancy in the kitchen after a long chase. Holbrook retrieves his rifle and shoots Freddy in the chest. Nancy then stabs Freddy in the head with a knife, and her and her father share an embrace. As the authorities arrive, Freddy's body vanishes.
Nancy is sitting in her mother's room and her father apologizes for not believing her before leaving to deal with Quentin's parents. Freddy then appears in the room and reminds Nancy that he made a promise to kill her. Nancy calmly gets up and starts to walk away. Freddy lunges at her, but his glove passes through her and he falls to his knees. Nancy tells Freddy that she isn't afraid of him anymore and leaves the room, closing the door on Freddy.
In the hallway, Nancy is met by her mother and they hug. Freddy suddenly bursts through an adjacent mirror and pulls Gwen inside while Nancy screams.
Cast[]
- Anna Kendrick - Nancy Holbrook
- Lucas Till - Quentin Smith
- Lily Collins - Kris Fowles
- Max Irons - Dean Russell
- Bruce Greenwood - Alan Holbrook
- Ron Perlman - Freddy Krueger