Sins of the Father: Looking Back At The Parents Of Wes Craven’s ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ Series
Slasher films often follow a simple formula: a group of teenagers is brutally murdered by a lone killer who seeks revenge for some past trauma, usually over the course of a night or two. By confining the action to a limited location (like a lakeside summer camp) and a short time frame, the focus remains on the protagonists. Peripheral characters are few and far between, save for the occasional policeman or the self-appointed town soothsayer warning of doom. The parents of the victims, the ones most affected by the slaughter, are typically absent or sidelined.
In Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (and the series of films that followed), parents are often present but powerless to save their children from the undead dream demon Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). Craven alters the slasher template by inserting the parental figures into the narrative, but also makes them culpable for the death of their children: Freddy has returned to exact his revenge on the offspring of the vigilante parents who burned him alive. By taking extreme measures to protect their kids, they ultimately doom them.
A New Outlook On A Nightmare on Elm Street
Like many who grew up with the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, I’ve always watched them from the teens’ point of view. But at a recent all-night A Nightmare on Elm Street marathon, I was surprised to find myself sharing the parents’ outlook for the first time. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, as I’m now the age John Saxon was in the original film and have kids approaching their teenage years. Much like re-reading Stephen King’s The Shining or Pet Sematary after becoming a parent, the Nightmare on Elm Street films hit differently now. I found myself in the parents’ shoes, wondering how I’d react if my own kids came to me with an outlandish tale of a killer stalking them in their dreams?
The parents of Elm Street aren’t privy to Freddy’s machinations and are dismissive of their kids’ wild claims. So they resort to that generation’s parental coping methods: psychiatrists and sleeping pills for the kids, booze and denial for themselves. While the films focus squarely on the teens, the shadow of their parents looms across the series.
From Humble, Terrifying Beginnings
In the first film, main character Nancy Thompson’s (Heather Langenkamp) parents are front and center. Marge (Ronee Blakely) and Donald Thompson (John Saxon), also a police lieutenant, are understandably concerned for their daughter’s safety following the murder of her friend Tina (Amanda Wyss), believed to have been at the hands of her boyfriend Rod (Jsu Garcia). Ever the cop, Donald uses his daughter as bait, following her to school in the hopes that Rod will seek her out. Meanwhile, Marge hits the bottle and has iron bars installed on the windows of the house.
Donald and Marge’s disbelief at Nancy’s insistence that Freddy has returned from the grave is a logical response. Her story sounds absurd, and there is no evidence (at first). Marge constantly tries to get her exhausted daughter to rest, a recurring motif in the series, whereby the parent recommends the very thing that could end their lives. Although Marge and Donald finally accept the truth about Freddy’s return, it is Nancy who defeats Freddy, but not before he kills Marge, the only instance of him taking direct revenge on an Elm Street parent.
Less Focus On The Parents In Freddy’s Revenge
In Freddy’s Revenge, Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) and his family move into the old Thompson house, which has sat on the market for five years following the events of the first film. When Freddy uses Jesse to regain a foothold in our world, his parents react with concern, skepticism, and, in the case of Jesse’s father, accusations of drug use.
Their desperation comes to a head when Ken (Clu Gulager) and Cheryl Walsh (Hope Lange) argue over what to do with their son after the police find him wandering naked in the rain. Cheryl suggests taking Jesse to a psychiatrist, whereas Ken says Jesse needs a good kick up the backside, a holdover from previous generations’ tough-love approach. Ken also admits that he knew about the sordid history of the house, telling Cheryl that’s why they got such a good deal, casting him in a similar light to The Amityville Horror’s George Lutz, unwittingly putting his family in danger.
Freddy’s Revenge isn’t overly concerned with the parents’ story as much as it is with Jesse’s transformation. Still, their helplessness and inability to both understand and save Jesse are again palpable; their actions only deepen the gap between them and their son.
Surrogate Parents In A Nightmare On Elm Street: Dream Warriors
Dream Warriors only features one parent of the new cast of teens, Elaine Parker (Brooke Bundy), the mother of Kristen (Patricia Arquette). She’s painted in fairly broad brush strokes as a socialite more concerned with her suitors than listening to her daughter’s problems. When Freddy slashes Kristen’s wrist and makes it look like a suicide attempt, she is quickly hustled off to the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital and placed under the care of Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson) and the returning Nancy Thompson.
Nancy and Neil take on the role of surrogate parents here, fighting desperately to save the troubled teens, while orderly Max (Laurence Fishburne) acts as a big brother, tough but caring. Every time they lose a teen to Freddy, it’s a gut-punch, with the losses taking their toll on them and the other teens in the hospital. Unlike the actual parents in the franchise (up until this point), Neil and Nancy actively try to save the Elm Street kids, with Neil having to suspend his disbelief and accept Nancy’s story to do so.
Two other parental figures feature in Dream Warriors. Nancy’s father, Donald, has transitioned from his police career to become a despondent, hard-drinking security guard, his history with Krueger having taken its toll. He is initially reluctant to help his daughter take on Freddy one more time, seemingly locked into the holding pattern of a disbelieving parent, despite what he has seen. But with some persuasion, he takes Neil to the wrecking yard where he helped bury Freddy’s remains years before. Donald succeeds in this task but loses his life in the process.
To add injury to insult, Freddy appears to Nancy as Donald and kills her, too. The movie ends with a double funeral for Nancy and her father. In a brutal full-circle moment, the whole family has now been claimed by the demon Donald and Marge helped unleash. The other parental figure is Amanda Krueger (Nan Martin), the nun who gave birth to Freddy and appears to Neil throughout the film, revealing both Freddy’s origins as the ‘bastard son of a hundred maniacs’ and how to defeat him by laying his bones to rest.
The Dream Master And Revisiting Past Relationships
Renny Harlin’s The Dream Master brings back the survivors from the previous film, including a recast Kristen (Tuesday Knight), only to quickly off them so that Freddy can target a new group of teens. Kristen’s mother, Elaine, returns, and their relationship seems to have improved in the interim. That is, until Freddy comes calling again, and Elaine slips sleeping pills into Kristen’s drink, unwittingly sentencing her daughter to death. Kristen’s last words to her mother before facing off against Freddy for the final time are, ‘You just murdered me.’
The Dream Master also introduces Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox), a shy teen who receives Kristen’s ‘dream powers’ and her brother Rick (Andras Jones), a karate-loving cool kid. Their father, Denis (Nicholas Mele), is a stressed-out worker drone, prone to berating his kids in the absence of their deceased mother. After Freddy kills Rick, a distraught Denis implores Alice to stay home, saying, “I know very much what’s going on with you and your friends,” as if they are part of a suicidal death pact. He goes on to say, “I lost Rick because I didn’t watch him. I don’t want to lose you.”
Parenthood Casts A Big Shadow Over The Dream Child
Parenthood looms large in the fifth film, The Dream Child, with Alice now pregnant with her boyfriend Dan (Danny Hassel), and Freddy’s using the dreams of her unborn son to claim his victims. Denis Johnson also returns as a changed man, having given up the booze and become much more supportive of Lisa, but like all the Elm Street parents, still unable to protect her from Freddy. When Dan is killed, his grieving parents offer to take custody of Alice’s child, arguing that, due to their loss, they deserve to care for the child, rather than the still-teenaged Alice, perpetuating an outdated view that a solo teenage mother is ill-equipped to care for a baby. Alice steadfastly refuses to give up her baby, supported by Denis, further evidence of his evolution from the previous film.
Freddy’s parentage is once again explored with the return of his mother, Amanda Krueger, whom Freddy uses to re-birth him in the dream world. Amanda then joins the battle against her son, offering guidance to Alice. Alice is also visited by Jacob, a small boy who is a projection of her unborn son, a literal personification of inherited trauma. Though often considered a lesser entry, The Dream Child feels like a culmination of the franchise’s exploration of parenthood: one of the Elm Street teens becomes a mother and joins forces with Freddy’s own mother to end his cycle of violence.
Lost Parents In Freddy’s Dead
Although it is my least favourite Elm Street film (excluding the 2010 remake), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare presents an interesting scenario in which there are no children or teenagers left in Springwood, as Freddy has killed them all. This has created a semi-apocalyptic madhouse of a town full of adults deeply troubled by the loss of their kids. The adults of Springwood attend a strange, childless fairground, interact with imaginary children, and hungrily latch onto the teens who come back under the care of counsellor Maggie (Lisa Zane).
Freddy’s Dead also brings back the ‘home for troubled teens’, itself a testament to parents’ inability to help or save their kids. One of the teens, Spencer (Breckin Meyer), was put into the home by his father, who seems unwilling to offer any emotional support and expresses dismay that the home hasn’t ‘fixed him.’
Having seen Freddy’s birth in the previous film, Freddy’s Dead sheds some light on his role as a parent, revealing that Maggie is his daughter, Katherine Krueger. Through flashbacks, we see Freddy’s troubled childhood, where he was abused by his foster father and teased by classmates. It is also revealed that Maggie witnessed Freddy murder her mother, and her subsequent promise that she would never tell anyone. Freddy is ultimately defeated, not by the teens he seeks to kill, but by his own daughter.
It All Comes Full Circle In Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is renowned for its meta approach, featuring Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, John Saxon, and Craven as themselves. But this time, there is no buffet of teens to be picked off one by one. Heather assumes the role of parent, but instead of being out of tune with a misunderstood teenager, she fights to protect her young son Dylan (Miko Hughes). Freddy (or the demon who has assumed his guise) kills Heather’s husband, Chase (David Newsom), traumatising her and Dylan, whose strange behaviour has been hinting at Freddy’s involvement.
By the end of the film, the lines between Heather and Nancy have become blurred as she goes to battle Freddy in the dream world, becoming the active parent rarely seen in the previous films, and breaking the cycle of parental failure.
Craven’s return to A Nightmare on Elm Street at the end of the series’ initial run feels fitting, as it not only deals with the legacy of his creation but also ends with the parental figure succeeding in protecting their child, inverting the tragic pattern of the previous installments.
Categorized: Editorials
