Elm Street’s Best: Top Ten Kills of Freddy Krueger

A lot must be said for the art of the kill in movies; do it perfectly and it can be the most memorable part of the project, but do it badly and you'll quickly have an army of disgruntled fans on your hands. This is particularly true for horror films, and franchises even more so: it is no coincidence that some of the 'Halloween' films werent exactly golden yet the deaths, even in the worst, shine as brightly as those in the best.

And the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' franchise has enjoyed a similar fate. There are at least two really terrible additions to Freddy Krueger's career, yet the sparkle of ingenuity is still as gleeming as in the better offerings. And if you still need convincing, here's my take on the very best of Krueger's dispatches. Some may be cartoonish and ludicrous, but there is still a great deal of pleasure in watching Freddy at work, even in his campy old embodiment, before he gets all serious and brooding in the new addition to the franchise.

10. Kiss of Death Victim: Sheila Kopecky (Toy Newkirk) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

Quip: €œYou flunked!€

Forget child killing, Freddy's worst crime is his meanness. Sheila isnt exactly your run of the mill slasher victim: rather than the busty sex-bomb, the brain-dead jock or any sexually promiscuous character she is a bookworm, and she is asthmatic on top of it. But, credit to Freddy, he doesnt distinguish who he kills on any basis other than his insatiable desire for spilt blood, and he swiftly does away with Sheila in a wonderfully grotesque manner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt4r44Lhec0

As she slumbers, and beavers away at a test, Freddy arrives and decides to give Sheila a pop quiz in face sucking- quite literally in fact- sucking on her face like crazy, leaving her resembling a surprised prune. Way to kick the underdog.

9. Faster than a Bastard-Maniac Victim: Mark Gray (Joe Seely) A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

One of the funniest kills on Freddy's CV. Mark is a typical comic-book loving Dork, who is ultimately undone by his greatest love (in a recurring theme from the whole franchise). He is enticed into opening a new "Nightmare" comic that has mysteriously appeared in his collection, and is promptly sucked into it, where he meets a goading Freddy, who teases him with his old girlfriend Greta (who had recently been killed- see #5 below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw9hGQUknpc

Incensed by this behavious, Mark channels his dream powers to become a gun-toting superhero and starts shooting Freddy up (the addition of confetti in the place of blood is a particularly nic touch). Sadly his victory is short-lived and Freddy reappears as Super-Freddy and makes light work of slicing up the gun-slinger, with ink replacing blood for the final happy little pay-off.

8. Wet Dreams Victim: Joey Crusel (Rodney Eastman) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master Quip: "How's this for a wet dream?!"

Dude, don€™t look now, but there€™s a naked chick in your bed!

Some people deserve to be killed by their nightmares, and Joey the perv is pretty much top of that list. Joey the perv in a ludicrously moronic move, is seduced by the naked girl swimming in his water bed- as you do- and, mesmorised by her lovely funbags- ends up all drowned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4Y5JEi4ZVQ

And thus the gene pool uttered a sigh of relief. Probably.

7. La Cucaracha Victim: Debbie Stevens (Brooke Theiss) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master Quip: €œYou can check in, but you can€™t check out!€

An impressively complex set-up, Debbie's death involves three separate phases, each as disturbing as the last.

First Freddy sneaks up on weight-lifting Debbie, and pushes down on the weights machine, breaking her arms, which for a sometime gym user like me is reason enough to continue dodging the place, monthly fee or no monthly fee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5_ojsXFbV8

In the second stage, large bug like arms spring from the wounds, starting a Kafka-esque transformation from big-haired 80s sexpot to human-sized cockroach, in another fine example of surprisingly impressive special effects. The third spectacular pay-off phase is the realisation that the Debbie-bug is actually in a Roach Motel in Freddy's hands, and he crushes it, with a typically cheesy quip to celebrate the kill.

6. Video Games Are Bad For Your Health Victim: Spencer (Breckin Meyer) Freddy€™s Dead: The Final Nightmare Quip: €œNow I€™m playing with power!€

Another morality tale of a kill. Spencer, played by professional pretend-stoner Breckin Meyer, is the teenage dream personified: he loves drugs, and basically doing all he can to swerve emulating his father, but it is his love of getting high that spells the end for the waster.

While chasing rainbows, Spencer is sucked into his TV, into a pretty authentic looking video game, where he is pitted against his father (who knew the Krueger franchise would offer an Oedipal commentary) and also the stripey jumpered maniac himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCAzjYnn9M

Having powered-up and destroyed his father, Spencer is undone by a powered-up Freddy, who also manages to beat his high score in the process.

5. The other other White Meat Victim: Greta (Erika Anderson) A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child Quip: "You are what you eat!"

The pick of the gross-out deaths, just pipping Rick's meatball-head pizza death, Erika's forced self-cannibalism is a wonder of the twisted potential of the human imagination. Watch with awe and disgust as she is force-fed food made from her own body parts until she chokes and dies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OesexOzuUsM

One of the deaths that bets typifies the fact that Krueger is a dealer of nightmares, and as such shouldnt be constrained by the traditional boundaries- the only limit to his kills is his own capacity for inventiveness and malignance, which going on this death, is an unquantifiable behemoth of a thing.

4. Freddy TV Victim: Jennifer Rubin (Taryn White) A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream WarriorsQuip: €œWelcome to prime time, bitch!€

A morality tale of the harmful influence of too much television, Jennifer€™s death should be heeded as a warning by couch potatoes everywhere- one way or another, television will lead to your untimely death. Poor Jennifer, the aspirational actress, fails to keep herself awake despite burning herself with cigarettes (say no to self-harm kids) and finds herself meeting the television (which cunningly hides Freddy within) face on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9MuBVyB34A

Extra points go to Freddy for the fairly obvious irony, and for the added unintentional irony that she is rather prophetically discovered by future-CSI main man Laurence Fishburne.

3. Like A Puppet on a string Victim: Phillip (Bradley Gregg) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

Undoubtedly the most gruesome Freddy death of all, Phillip's death is an atypical special effects high for the series as well. The puppet maker is killed when one of his hand-made puppets turns into Freddy (in a particularly impressive special effects feat) and makes him into a puppet, slicing his wrists and feet to use the tendons as his strings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW1BeiRaN8Y

The stop motion work is startingly refined for a franchise that would go on to be criticised for its lack of finesse, and this is pretty much the first example of a complex set-up for a death. And it is still very affecting to watch and imagine the unspeakable pain.

2. First Blood Victim: Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) A Nightmare On Elm Street

Like the moment your first-born kiddy takes his first teetering steps, there is always a touching sense of swelling pride the first time a movie serial killer like Freddy takes his first on screen life. Of course it helps more if the director and writer have conspired to make the killer a compelling character, with a recognisable likeability factor (hence the decision to change Freddy from paedophile to child killer), but even before Freddy was a caricature of himself, and there was genuine fear when he made murder, it was jarringly good to see him kill poor Tina Gray.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UP1vv0wWp4

The other impressive things are the braveness and the consquent shock of killing off a fairly established character- one of the stone-clad rules of horror cinema up to this point was that lots of screen time usually translated as invulnerability; but that, quite brilliantly, wasnt the case, as Tina meets her end in one of the most brutal kills Krueger ever chalked up. The only reason it missed out on top-spot is the frankly terrible acting of Tina's boyfriend as he watches his beloved writhe unnervingly across the ceiling in one of the most memorable scenes of this or any horror franchise.

1. Drop Dead Depp Victim: Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) A Nightmare On Elm Street

My favourite of all the Freddy deaths primarily because of the frankly ludicrous amount of blood involved- this is probably also the most famous of all Krueger despatches. And for good reason.

Taking on the usual assumption that bed is a safe haven, Wes Craven robs Johnny Depp€™s slumbering Glen (and millions of audience members around the world) of that sanctity and has his bed swallow him up, and do something unspeakably horrible offscreen that results in a raging torrent of blood appearing where once was Depp and beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee13oq72JB0

The effect is ridiculous of course, because of the shear amount of blood that gushes out of the bed following Glen's disappearance, but it is an impressive example of special effects innovation: the set-up was achieved using a rotating room, to create the illusion that the blood was falling upwards towards the ceiling. The one question the scene leaves every time is why does Glen have the TV on his lap, and why is he simultaneously listening to his stereo- has he no concern for his carbon footprint?

Now you've seen the top ten, you can watch all of Freddy's kills below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8jgPWiX7M

So numbers 1 and 2 come from the original movie, naturally. With the remake on the horizon, how will the kills compare, and will any of them sneak into the top 10?

"Nightmare on Elm Street"opens April 30th in the U.S. and May 7th in the U.K.

Also be sure to check out the Top Ten Jason kills from the Friday The 13th series.