8 More Horror Movie Fan Theories That Make The Films Even Creepier

5. Freddy Is Nancy's Dad - A Nightmare On Elm Street

Though a lot of horror series get lost in their own mythology, A Nightmare on Elm Street kept it relatively simple. Sure, it introduced dream wizards and eventually revealed the whole thing to be a movie inside a movie, but Freddy's origin remained pretty consistent throughout. The idea was that he was a child murderer (and suggested molester) who was burned alive by the town when escaping formal criminal punishment, returning later to kill his own murderers' children by way of invading their dreams.

His first big foil is Nancy, who goes through untold punishment in the original movie, watching her friends get taken out one by one while trying to make sense of what's happening. Much of the exposition comes courtesy of her alcoholic mother, who struggles to live with her murderous actions years prior. However Nancy's mom seems to have a more intimate connection to Freddy than most, even having some of his possessions in the furnace below.

One theory suggests this is because Freddy is actually Nancy's real father. Whether he knows that or not is unclear, but it would explain how personal Freddy's taunts get as the movie goes on, where he's quite content to cleanly kill off everyone else. He seems to be concerned with punishing her the most, potentially in order to get back at her mother for keeping the real parentage a secret.

Yeah, it kind of taps into the trope of every hero and villain needed to be intimately related somehow (blame Star Wars and Halloween for that), but it certainly would add an even more sinister angle to the entire series.