While the current influx of horror reboots from franchises like power to haunt dreams, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), and his adversary, the strong-willed teenage girl, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp). After managing to outsmart Freddy at the conclusion of the film, Nancy would return in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors to help a new generation of teenagers fight Freddy but would ultimately die protecting them.
Alongside the Halloween and Scream movies, the Nightmare on Elm Street films are considered to be an essential part of horror history, helping to create and amplify many of the tropes associated with the slasher genre. Despite the hit-or-miss nature of the sequels, audiences and filmmakers have spent years discussing if and when Freddy Krueger should make his return to the big screen. However, with the exception of a Nightmare On Elm Street, attempts to revive the franchise have been largely unsuccessful, even while other slashers born in the same era continue to thrive. As surprising as this is, bringing back Elm Street would be a lot harder than bringing back other famous franchises.
The greatest strength of the original Elm Street was the casting of its villain and its final girl, both of whom would have a huge impact on pop culture. Unlike the stoic masked figures of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, or the ever-revolving door of Ghostface killers, Freddy Krueger used his uncovered face to terrify his victims and serve as a grim reminder of what their parents did. His scarred appearance and taunting jokes are what made the character so popular, and it would be challenging for any actor to rival Englund’s performance. Similarly, the final girl in any fresh remake would be compared to Langenkamp’s Nancy, a feat already proven difficult by the original’s sequels. Over the course of eight films, Freddy fought numerous Elm street children who were formidable opponents, but none of them left the same legacy that Nancy did.
A successful Elm Street reboot would require the return of Englund as Freddy and Langenkamp as Nancy, pitting them against each other for the first time since 1994’s New Nightmare. Unfortunately, Nancy’s death in Dream Warriors makes this difficult, and her final moments would have to be drastically changed to explain how she managed to survive another cycle of Freddy’s attacks. A full retcon of the film would be dangerous, as Dream Warriors is considered the best Elm Street sequel, and lays the groundwork for later movies. Halloween was only able to bring its final girl, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) back to life by erasing a majority of the movies from the franchise’s canon, and it’s unlikely that the Nightmare on Elm Street films would go down the same path. The endurance of the final girl is often paramount to a slasher film’s success, and it can be hard to continue the story without her.
The continued popularity of the Halloween and Scream films are enough to make audiences wonder if A Nightmare on Elm Street will one day receive a successful reboot of its own. Unfortunately, the elements that helped cement the original as a pop culture landmark are the same things that make a sequel seem unlikely. Nancy Thompson was an essential part of some of the most popular franchise films, and although Heather Langenkamp’s return could make a franchise reboot a reality, it’s a slim possibility. Reviving Nancy while maintaining the series' legacy is a difficult task, and so it’s doubtful that the franchise will be making a return any time soon.
