A Nightmare on Elm Street: 5 biggest mistakes of the fright franchise

Exposing The Exposition

— Courtesy of New Line Cinema

After keeping most of Freddy Krueger’s backstory out of the franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street began revealing more of Mr. Krueger in Dream Warriors. First teasing his mother, Amanda, the series eventually shows us Krueger’s 100 fathers, his daughter and how he came to have powers — this is the beginning of the end of any series.

Ultimately, villain backstory is completely unnecessary. Instead of building strong protagonists, like Nancy and Alice, focusing on villains takes away from plot and bloats a film. Is Rob Zombie’s Halloween better than John Carpenter’s because it attempts to explain his evil?…It’s not. Villains are in service of heroes, not the other way around.