Is A Nightmare on Elm Street Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Yes, 6 out of 10. It's the kind of fear that waits until you fall asleep.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
6 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Medium
You may put off sleeping for a night, then you'll be fine.
DOG
Dog: fine
none, because there is no dog.
Ruling: Watch it in daylight with coffee nearby, because the plot treats sleeping as a bad idea.
A Nightmare on Elm Street runs ninety-one minutes, and the most dangerous thing in it is falling asleep. A man in a bladed glove shows up in teenagers' dreams, and Nancy's safety plan is a lot of coffee.
The premise, briefly
Teenagers on Elm Street keep dreaming about a disfigured man in a bladed glove, and what happens to them in the dream keeps happening to them when they wake up.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Nancy realizes Krueger runs on fear, turns her back on him, and he evaporates. The next morning her friends and mother are alive, then Krueger pulls her mother through the front door window anyway.
The scene you're dreading
Tina's death, early on: she dreams the glove is after her, and Rod, awake beside her, watches her get slashed by something he can't see. Nancy and Glen then find her bloodied body.
The dog
There is no dog in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
It is a dream slasher where the fear comes from watching someone nod off, and Nancy wins by refusing to be afraid.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
Slumber party with a gate crasher
Teenager Tina Gray wakes from a nightmare in which a disfigured man with a bladed glove corners her in a boiler room, and her mother notices that her nightgown really has been cut. Her friend Nancy Thompson admits to the same dream, and so does Nancy's boyfriend, Glen Lantz. The three of them spend the night at Tina's house, and Tina's boyfriend Rod Lane turns up too. When Tina falls asleep she dreams the man is after her. Rod, awake beside her, sees her fatally slashed by something he can't see, and he runs. This is the scene people dread most, and it comes early in the movie. Nancy and Glen find Tina's bloodied body.
Nancy's father, Don Thompson, is a police officer, and he arrests Rod even though Rod insists he didn't do it. At school Nancy dozes off in class and dreams the man is chasing her through the boiler room, so she presses her arm against a pipe on purpose and wakes up with the burn still on her skin. Rod tells her about Tina's death and says he has been dreaming of the man too. Later Nancy dozes off in the bathtub and the man almost drowns her. After that she drinks caffeine to stay awake and asks Glen to watch over her while she sleeps. In the dream she sees the man closing in on Rod's cell, until he notices her and turns on her instead, and her alarm clock saves her. Rod is killed anyway, and it is staged to look like a suicide. After his funeral, her mother Marge takes her to a sleep clinic, where Nancy pulls a fedora out of her dream, and the name inside it says Fred Krueger. She pulls the hat into the real world.
The furnace has a secret
Nancy and Marge barricade the house, and Marge finally explains who Krueger was: a man who murdered twenty children, went free on a technicality, and was then burned alive by their parents and other Elm Street residents who wanted justice they could not get from a court. She also shows Nancy his bladed glove, which she has been hiding in the furnace. Nancy works out why Krueger has been picking off her and her friends. Their parents were part of the group that killed him.
Twenty minutes and a lot of hardware
That night Glen falls asleep and Krueger kills him. Nancy tells her father, who is across the street investigating Glen's death, to break into her house in twenty minutes. In the meantime she sets booby traps, then drags Krueger from her dream into the waking world, where the traps let her light him up and shut him in the basement. When the police arrive, he has escaped. Nancy and Don find him burning in her mother's bedroom with Marge in his grip. Don puts out the fire, and Krueger and Marge disappear into the bed. Krueger then rises up behind Nancy, and she works out that he is powered by the fear of the people he hunts. She calmly turns her back on him, and he evaporates.
The ending, explained
Nancy steps out into a foggy morning where her friends and her mother are all alive. She climbs into Glen's convertible for the ride to school, and the top comes down by itself, striped green and red, locking everyone inside as the car drives off down the street. Marge waves from the doorstep. Three girls in white dresses jump rope and chant Krueger's nursery rhyme, and Krueger grabs Marge through the window of the front door.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: none, because there is no dog.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is A Nightmare on Elm Street scary?
Yes, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 6 out of 10. It has jump scares and some gore, but most of the fear is waiting for someone to fall asleep, and the dread fades after about a night.
How does A Nightmare on Elm Street end?
Nancy turns her back on Krueger once she realizes he feeds on fear, and he evaporates. The next morning everyone seems fine until Krueger grabs her mother through the front door window.
Does the dog die in A Nightmare on Elm Street?
There is no dog in A Nightmare on Elm Street, so no dog dies.
Is there a post-credits scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street?
No. A Nightmare on Elm Street has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Who is Fred Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street?
Fred Krueger murdered twenty children, went free on a technicality, and was burned alive by their parents. In A Nightmare on Elm Street he comes after those parents' teenagers in their dreams.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of A Nightmare on Elm Street is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You can skip the sleepless night and still know how A Nightmare on Elm Street goes. Install Scaredy Cat and it blurs horror before you see it.
