Freddy's Top Five

The last time it was desperately vital to me that a movie not suck was when The Dark Knight came out. The time before that, it was the Dawn of the Dead remake. So I'm 2-for-2 in this regard. And even though reviews haven't been kind, I'm cautiously optimistic about The Nightmare on Elm Street remake/reboot/whatever, which I'm seeing tonight. The trailer looks great and Jackie Earle Haley seems like he gets the role.

Of course, I thought the Friday the 13th remake/reboot/whatever trailer looked good, too. And...well.

The death scenes in the Friday the 13th films have always provided a more base, visceral thrill than those in the Elm Street films. There's nothing especially clever about Jason decapitating someone with a machete or shooting a camp counselor through the eye with a spear gun. But it's damn fun to watch. On the other hand, the Elm Street films often go for a healthy combination of violence and wit, which results in either a great death scene or an eye-roll inducing bomb.

So as we say goodbye to the Robert Englund era and welcome in the Jackie Earle Haley era, I thought I'd list my five favorite Freddy Krueger kills.

5) Kincaid - A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

Why it's great: I always love it when a character who survives a horror film gets killed off in the sequel. It adds a bit of unpredictability to an otherwise predictable endeavor. (My favorite non-horror example of this is the Kickboxer movies, where the hero from Kickboxer 2, 3 and 4, gets unceremoniously killed in the opening credits of Kickboxer 5. In silhouette form, no less.) Kincaid's death isn't especially sexy, but it is a nice "Holy shit!" moment, as you realize one of the better characters from the series ain't getting out of this one.

4) Tina - A Nightmare on Elm Street

Why it's great: This, Freddy's very first on-screen kill, obviously lacks the comedic panache of his later work. But it's creepy as hell, I love the stretched out arms, and the bizarre running style Englund uses as he chases after Tina is great.

3) Taryn - A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors

Why it's great: This is the film where Freddy starts to develop a sense of humor, something that a lot of Elm Street purists bemoan, but I always dug. Freddy's needle fingers make this a great scene. The suckling track marks on Taryn's arms make it art.

2) Mark - A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

Why it's great: Elm Street 5 is kind of a blah film in general, but visually, it's arguably the best in the series, and this scene was the high point of the film. It's always nice when Freddy's victims (temporarily) turn the tables on him, and I've always wondered whether he's just fucking with them or if it's possible to, if not kill him, at least hold him off until they wake up. Additionally, as a comic book reader, this scene obviously resonated with me, because it's probably how I'd die if I were a character in an Elm Street film.

1) Debbie - A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

Why it's great: This scene scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. This was before I got into horror films and it freaked me out when I saw it on TV one day. There's no part of this that isn't fantastic, as the writers combine Debbie's two defining personality traits--her love of fitness and her fear of insects--into this grotesque sequence. As disturbing as it is to see Debbie transform into a cockroach, the most chilling part is her screams just before Freddy crushes her.

It's such a great scene, it's been immortalized in action figure form. You don't get much higher a compliment than that.