Nightmare on Elm Street series

Supernatural horror film series spun off of the original movie by Wes Craven, about a child murderer named Freddy Krueger who returns after his death to kill teenagers in their dreams.

The Nightmare on Elm Street movies are more imaginative than typical slasher films. The use of a monster whose victims die for real when he kills them in their dreams sets this film series into the fantasy as well as the horror genre, and the dream sequences where characters confront Freddy Krueger can be quite elaborate and sometimes even poetic, as well as gory and violent. Because of the fantasy element and of Freddy Krueger's supernatural nature, the villain is never quite dead, and it's easy it justify his return in the many sequels.

The series is notable for its use of the final girl motif: all but one of the films in this series have female leads, and most of these lead female characters also have female friends, so that the movies often passes the DTWOF test.

Only one of these film was directed by a woman: Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, dir.: Rachel Talalay.

Titles

• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
• Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
• Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
• Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Other spin-offs

• Freddy's Nightmares (TV series, 1988-1990)
• Comic books, video games, etc.