10 Horror Villains Who Were Just Misunderstood
6. Freddy Krueger – The Nightmare On Elm Street Franchise
A child killer who graduated on to killing teens in their dreams, Freddy Krueger has virtually no redeeming attributes at first glance bar perhaps that hipster-friendly fedora and striped sweater ensemble he’s always sporting. But delve a little deeper into Freddy’s background and it’s plain to see why he turned out the way he did.
In Dream Warriors we learn his mother was a nun who volunteered at a mental asylum and was accidentally locked in the facility over a holiday weekend leading to her brutal gang rape at the hands of its most dangerous and deranged patients and the conception of Freddy which earned him the nickname ‘the bastard son of a hundred maniacs’. Not the greatest start to life.
It didn’t get any easier for Freddy during his childhood either. In Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare we see he was adopted by an abusive alcoholic who instilled in Freddy his murderous, sociopathic ways.
Freddy may have gone on to kill his wife and a handful of neighbourhood kids, but it’s clear to see he was a product of both terrible nature and terrible nurture. With the right kind of adoptive parents and a good few years of therapy, he maybe could’ve been a stand-up guy. Maybe.