So, I felt bad for the sin of not having an Elm Street film this year and decided to split the difference by hopping into a well I haven't touched with Mr. Krueger since...err... last year.
That is, the saga of "What If...?" stories that somehow remain the pages on my blog I get the most hits for and now throwing Freddy into another one. Namely, we'll be looking back into the original film's ending and answer a question:
What if Nancy Thompson did not survive (beyond the first movie)?
In case you don't know, the original A Nightmare on Elm Street ends with Final Girl Nancy Thompson (played by Heather Langenkamp) turning her back on serial killer Freddy Krueger (played by Robert Englund) and seemingly draining him of all his power. She walks out into a bright, sunny morning and waves goodbye to her mother before going off with her friends to school in a convertible car. When the top comes down, the color pattern resembles Freddy's iconic red and green sweater. The doors lock and Nancy and her friends are driven off... into hell.
As we later found from Dream Warriors, Nancy escaped the incident with no explanation given but with a streak of white in her hair.
But let's tip the scales a bit. Let's look into a world where Nancy Thompson's ride off into that car was the last ride of her life. Join me, and ponder the question... "What If...?"
Following on from the original film, Freddy's Revenge will likely play out much the same as it did as originally presented to the public. It really doesn't matter, honestly, because of how disconnected the second film (sadly) is from the rest of the franchise. A line change about Nancy being driven crazy and dying in her sleep or something to that degree
No, the real big changes come in this universe's version of Dream Warriors. Without Nancy coming to Westin Hills, Neil Gordon remains the attending physician of the "last" of the Elm Street children, trying to convince them that their nightmares of the burned Mr. Krueger are not real. Without Nancy, the introduction of young Kristen Parker is a little more turbulent and she ends up in solitary a few times for her trouble. Without the influence of Nancy, however, things go from bad to worse quickly.
Phillip's death is a little more brutal in this reality and the response to it from the Elm Street children committed to Westin Hills even more so. When Jennifer dies just as she did in the prime timeline, Neil - being from outside of the Springwood area - decides to look into the history of this Boogeyman the kids see in their dreams. As he researches, he is met by Sister Mary Helena, who tells him of the story behind Freddy Krueger's conception and the only way that he can truly be defeated.
Digging into things, Neil basically gets the same exposition we received in Freddy's Dead about the life of Krueger and his eventual death at the hands of the Elm Street parents. Meanwhile, Freddy is making it a point to play with his food before he eats it, terrorizing Kristen in her dreams for weeks before finally deciding to kill her in a way that no one at Westin Hills can deny his involvement in - her body spread eagle and impaled to the wall of the activity room for the patients. A room that, at night, is locked up and the only key kept with the director of the ward. The powers that be try to cover it up, of course, but the damage is done and Freddy's fear spreads like a wildfire.
Neil's path eventually takes him to Donald Thompson aka John Motherfucking Saxon (look it up, it is his legal name) and by now Neil has worked out that he was one of the parents that set Freddy ablaze and started this whole mess. Don is an alcoholic mess after the deaths of his wife and his daughter at Freddy's hands, knowledge that Neil uses to egg him on to get revenge. As in the original Dream Warriors, the two head out to the junkyard where Freddy's bones were squirreled away after he was burned alive.
Freddy, meanwhile, has managed to enter not only the dreams of the child but the staff at Westin Hills as well. Dr. Simms finds herself menaced by the knife glove-wielding killer as well as Max Daniels. Daniels manages to avoid a terrible death, though his leg is horrifically maimed in the process and it's likely he'll never walk again. Taryn, Will, Dr. Simms, and Kincaid are all killed by Freddy. How is this possible? Well, in this version of events, Joey doesn't get kidnapped by Freddy but instead Freddy decides to take the traumatized mute boy and pull a Freddy's Revenge on him. With Freddy taking over his body while he sleeps, Joey spiked Dr. Simms' and Max's coffee with sleeping pills that put them down and out.
As in the prime timeline, Neil and Don find the car that Freddy's bones were stowed away in. As in the prime timeline, the bones animate and they have to fight a pissed off skeleton. This just before Joey would have been killed following his discovery of the bodies of Taryn and Kincaid. Don is killed and Neil manages to just barely perform the final rites on Freddy, seemingly putting him to rest once and for all. Neil meets Sister Mary Helena again and sees her gravestone, realizing their connection.
At the end of it all, the film ends much like the actual Dream Warriors did. Neil returns home with Kristen's wooden replica of 1428 Elm Street and settles into bed. Only this time, Neil sees the lights come on within it. In the hospital following his ordeal, Joey is sleeping peacefully for the first time in years... but Freddy's laughter cackles somewhere in a distant corner of his mind...
...and that's where we're going to leave off with this one. Yep, we're starting a new series in the What If? family! Without Nancy's influence, there were no Dream Warriors and the body count was not only much higher and the kills more brutal. Will that continue into the next films? You'll have to wait for the answer to that one.
Next time, we'll be heading back into the world where Sam Winchester shot and killed John during the events of Devil's Trap. Both Heaven and Hell are scrambling to get the apocalypse up and running, but keep running into some serious roadblocks. Can Sam and Dean possibly stop them?
Be there!
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