Question about the ending of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984)

Obviously there will be SPOILERS in this thread, so if you haven't seen A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), STOP READING NOW!!!


Can someone please explain the ending of this movie?

When I saw her mother and her friends at the end of the movie, I thought the whole movie was a nightmare, but then when the car seemed to try to kill them, I thought maybe she was still sleeping. But I'm not really sure what it meant when Freddy attacked her mother again, except that he wasn't "killed" at the end so there could be a sequel. .

I actually kind of liked the movie, until I got to the confusing ending.

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Because Nancy wasn't afraid of Freddy, He couldn't attack her. But her mother was still very vulnerable. She displayed a great fear for Nancy's sanity throughout the movie, and eventually for her life. Freddy was out for revenge, and in a way he got it.

Well that's my guess. I'm into dreams and crap so I theorized it pretty quickly. And out of the select few slasher films I've seen, this is the only one where I began heavily considering watching some of the sequels.

I realized that she wasn't afraid of him, and that's how she ultimately survived, but then it seemed like he did attack her when she got into the car, which seems to have negated her survival.


I only watched one sequel for the horror list, but most of the horror movies didn't make want to see any other movies in their series.

He wasn't able to kill Nancy but he could still keep her away from her mother.

My assumption was that everyone that was locked in the car at the end died shortly after the end credits rolled.

Except nancy, those characters already died. She was in a dream.

That's what I'm trying to understand. Was the whole movie a dream, and her friends didn't really die, or was this a new dream that she's having at the end of the movie after she realized that Freddy can't hurt her because he's not real, or was the end supposed to be reality? (I had a hard time figuring out some of the dream sequences during the main part of the movie too, until something bad happened.)

The last scene was a dream. His power comes from the dream world.

I guess that's what's confusing me. If she survived by realizing that Freddy isn't real, and he's only in her dreams, then why is she still in a dream world with Freddy? Didn't she already figure out that he can't hurt her?

No, Freddy IS real, but he can't attack anyone who's not afraid of him. Nancy's dream world was connected with her mother's, likely because Freddy wanted her to know he's attacking her mother.

I thought Nancy's mother said that Freddy is dead, so is he basically like a demon who attacks people in their nightmares? That was what I thought until the end, when Nancy said something about him not being real so he can't hurt her. Then when she went outside and her friends were alive again, I thought she woke up out of her nightmare, and it was over, until the car locked them in, and that's when I got confused.

I don't think I'm ever going to understand this, but thanks for the help. (I kind of feel like Norman in the Star Trek episode "I, Mudd". "Everything Harry says is a lie.", "Norman, I am lying.", "You say you are lying, but if everything you say is a lie, then you are telling the truth, but you cannot tell the truth because everything you say is a lie, but you lie... ")

"Not real" was her way of telling Freddie to back off.

Well, it might make sense that Wes Craven didn't want this ending. He originally envisioned a happy ending and it was the producer, Robert Shaye, who wanted the nightmare ending. It ends more or less the same, with the exception of the mother getting pulled through the window and the kids being trapped in the car. It's shot like a 'dream' either way.

Producer saw $$$$ and wanted to leave room open for a sequel. (Nancy shows up in Dream Warriors, watch that if you haven't yet)so we have the gotcha ending, which in horror movies never make any sense.

If you want to get into it. Nancy never brought Freddy out of the dream world. There is evidence to support this as he still has supernatural powers in the 'real world'. So when Nancy sets her alarm clock and goes to bed, that's the last time we see her awake. She only dreams about bringing him out. This would make more sense since Freddy can use his powers in this world.

BUT......some would argue that even this makes no sense since when Freddy kills Rod, the bed sheet wraps around his neck in the real world. So maybe she did bring Freddy out and the events played the way they did. Maybe she falls in and out of sleep during that final fight. I'm not sure.

So...in my opinion. It's a simple jump scare dream sequence that doesn't add up with the rules set forth in the film.

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Suspect's Reviews

I think the ending fight scene DID happen in the real world, but when Nancy opened her mother's bedroom door, the scene skipped to her dream which she was now confident in having.

I've always viewed the ending as ambiguous, "was it a dream or not," which is very much in the film's character. It's designed to be in the grey area. Then it's also what Suspect said, this was not the ending director Wes Craven wanted, but what producer Bob Shaye got to setup sequels and suggest to the audience that Fred Krueger's haunting of Elm Street has not ended. From what I've watched behind-the-scenes, director Craven and producer Shaye had a tenuous relationship after that in the 1980s, and Craven didn't direct another Elm Street film until 1994, ten years later, with New Nightmare. If you get interested and watch the sequels @gbgoodies , there's a cool big documentary you can get about the making of all the films. It's called Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.

To be honest, I tink the movie could have done without that end and it would still be perfect, but that ending did make it better for me.

It's the classic "gotcha" ending that Scream made fun of years later, which is funny because Craven directed both.

Funnily enough, I watched it for the first time the other day and had the same question. The more you think about it the less sense it makes. Half the people in the scene are already dead. I think they were just trying for a surprise ending like Carrie.

Thanks to everyone for the explanations. At least it sounds like I'm not the only one who was confused by that ending. The only reason that I could figure out why it was there was to set it up for a sequel, but unfortunately, I think it hurt the movie, (at least for me).