10 Horror Movie Franchises That Wasted Their Perfect Ending

2. Nancy Makes The Ultimate Sacrifice - A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors Ending
New Line Cinema

The Elm Street franchise is one which started life full of sinister chills, then ultimately devolved into a slapstick affair before Wes Craven managed to bring some semblance of scares back to the table with supposed series-ender New Nightmare in 1994. Even then, though, there was a crossover with Jason Voorhees and later a damn awful remake.

As to when the property had the perfect chance to call it a day, that's at the end of 1987's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

This threequel came at a time when the series still had some slither of dread to it, brought back original protagonist Nancy Thompson to sacrifice herself for the greater good, seemingly killed off Freddy Krueger, and established a new group of Springwood youngsters who would make sure that Krueger was permanently kept at bay.

The ending of Nancy paying the ultimate price to save future generations from Freddy should've been a poignant, powerful point to end the Elm Street series on. Instead, a fourth entry in the franchise arrived just one year later; an entry which had Krueger brought back to life by a dog taking a flaming, fiery piss which somehow resurrected the rogue. Added to that, Elm Street 4: Dream Master kills off all of the surviving superpowered kids of the previous picture... before the franchise plummeted to even further lows with A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.