20 Things You Didn’t Know About The Nightmare On Elm Street Franchise
16. The Original Ending Revealed It Was All A Dream
Most slasher films end by suggesting the killer is still out there and will probably come back for many more sequels. That’s what happens at the end of Halloween, Friday the 13th, and yes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, but Craven’s film almost had a much less traditional ending.
In the original draft, the film had an unambiguously happy ending with no hint of a sequel. Nancy kills Freddy and then wakes up to discover the entire movie has been one long nightmare. She says goodbye to her mom, drives to school with her friends, and that’s it.
How nice.
The studio wanted to set up a franchise, though, and so producer Robert Shaye suggested fooling the audience into thinking Freddy was defeated only for him to come back at the last moment. Craven hated that, but ultimately he and Shaye were forced to compromise.
In the final version, the ending is somewhere in the middle of Craven’s happy ending and Shaye’s bleak one. Nancy’s mother is grabbed by Freddy and the kids drive away in a car seemingly controlled by Freddy, but it’s a bit ambiguous what exactly is happening. Is this reality? Another dream? Luckily for Shaye, though, it was open ended enough to inspire many, many sequels.
Craven always maintained that he preferred his own ending.