“One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again.” This isn’t just the nursery rhyme that bookends Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s the swan song for the Golden Age of the slasher film. A Nightmare on Elm Street arrived in the fall of 1984, the final year in what is considered the subgenre’s peak, and the picture hasn’t left since, helping solidify a new subset of slasher—those of the supernatural variety—and establishing a franchise that includes a television show, five traditional sequels, a meta follow-up, a crossover with another beloved slasher icon and a 2010 remake. Not only that, the film’s iconic killer also managed to break into the world of video games, novels and comic books. Freddy Krueger has been a busy boy for the past 40 years!

Making its grand entrance seven months after Jason Voorhees’ rampage came to a (temporary) conclusion in New Line Cinema, as a successful studio. As BLCAgnew reminds us, “There’s a reason they call New Line ‘The house that Freddy built’.”

The natural question to ask is why a film like A Nightmare on Elm Street survived and flourished at a time when the subgenre was caught in a downtrend. While a few different answers come to mind, the most likely seems to lie with the film’s murderous jester himself, a figure whose image transcends even the tale it originates from.

Take a closer look at features like Evil Dead II, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and Bride of Chucky and you might spot Freddy’s trademark glove placed in a shot. Set in 1989, the 2014 film It Follows includes a poster and a movie theater that’s showing A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Child. During an interview with ScreenCrush, writer-director David Robert Mitchell shared, “I grew up loving those [A Nightmare on Elm Street] movies. I definitely see pieces of those films within here. Certainly, even on a subconscious level, it seeps in there.” A sentiment that rings especially true considering that Mitchell’s “basic idea came from a recurring nightmare that I had when I was a kid.” A concept that the Nightmare franchise knows all too well.

Our very first introduction to Krueger, a child murderer burned to death by the parents of suburban Springwood, Ohio, is in the opening of the original film where he gleefully plays a round of Project Runway, creating a glove with knife-fingers before beginning his hunt for vengeance. The burned face, red and green sweater, homemade knife-glove, and beloved brown fedora make for a distinct character, one that immediately ed the ranks of fellow iconic slasher villains like Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees and Halloween’s Michael Myers.

What helps set Kruger aside is that while Voorhees and Myers are explicitly human for most or all of their franchise runs, Krueger is a character who we have always known as a supernatural villain. His death comes long before the events of the film begin, and he haunts the dreams of his victims, eventually crossing between the world of the slumbering back into reality with an ease that seems almost unfair. A ghost who can cut and burn and kill his teenage targets is similar to a demonic presence found in other supernatural horror films, but free from the religious framing that often binds those types of antagonists. Krueger operates by his own rules, a monster delighted to play with his food, especially because his access to the high schoolers he haunts is inevitable. They can fight to stay awake, but, as Zach points out, “that’s why Freddy has to be one of the coolest designs for a slasher villain, because eventually you are going to have to fall asleep.”

Freddy is unavoidable and he loves to make that known. His taunting croons, reminiscent of the vulgarity of the killer from 1974’s Black Christmas, are another significant change from the silent, looming villains found in other big slasher franchises and have a way of making him stick out for Letterboxd . Gladsau, Em, Ckennison17, and Kieran all echo a similar sentiment: Freddy is a funny guy. He calls his victims, he waves and winks, he plays hide-and-seek, and that humor has a way of hiding his most gruesome traits. Audiences today are far more likely to walk away from the film ing his silly accordion arms rather than his atrocities. Stephen helps illustrate the nuance of having a killer who’s so chatty:

“I keep finding this to be a very silly movie, in that the horror seems horrific if you were in the film but does not translate outside of it. I believe that the characters are being tormented in their dreams, and that they are in states of perpetual fear, but that does not map to the audience. It sells a narrative state but it does not sell the atmosphere and no dread creeps out of the screen. If I was in Nightmare, I'd be terrified. Watching it? Not so much.”

Her police officer father (John Saxon) and suburbanite mother (Ronee Blakley) are more consumed with their own needs and disbelief over what Nancy is experiencing. Her friends’ parents are often absent or equally dismissive. Teachers send Nancy home instead of addressing her situation directly. The world Craven has crafted is one where adults are willing to get literal blood on their hands rather than actually check on their kids. The adults of Nightmare, despite their previous vigilante actions, have grown complacent in the world they have created. In an attempt to protect their children, they have instead boxed them in, sometimes with literal bars on the windows, serving them up to the man eager to steal their futures.

In that sense, what Fear Not! author Josh Larsen writes (“The real world and dream world are as closely linked as turning your head.”) is true not only within the film itself but within the greater context of where Nightmare comes from. Its 1984 release came right in the middle of the Reagan presidency, a time when younger generations were beginning to experience less prosperity than their parents thanks to policies like Reaganomics. Their futures were shackled by the choices of those that came before them, generations of adults who believed that they were creating a safer and better world.

In of the film’s narrative, that environment leads to Nancy having to go to extreme measures on her own. She fights back for herself, not only against the threat in front of her but the metaphorical threat of apathy that has plagued her as she fruitlessly seeks help. Setting traps and facing her fears head-on, she cements herself as an essential part of the Final Girl Canon, all while the rest of the world still doesn’t believe her. The adults’ neglect comes to a head in what Matt declares “some of the dumbest behavior I’ve ever seen,” the arrival of help for Nancy coming so late that they really don’t have much to contribute beyond shaky apologies. Nancy’s vindication only truly surfaces when she is once again alone in the room with Freddy, declaring that her fear of his specific style of torture is long gone.

Englund himself describes it for Letterboxd quite succinctly: “People could relate to Nancy and follow her and empathize with her and take the journey of survival with her because she wasn’t this perfect girl.” Her reclamation of power is particularly satisfying after we’ve witnessed so much of her fear, frustration and anger. Nathaxnne helps pinpoint that sense of satisfaction by stating, “She is able not just to survive, but to reverse the operations on [Freddy Krueger], trapping him in a nightmare reality of which she controls the parameters.” It doesn’t just have to be Freddy’s world we’re living in. It’s Nancy’s, too.

In Dream Warriors, she breaks generational cycles of parental neglect even more than she does in the first film by believing and equipping the next group of Freddy’s victims with the tools necessary to combat and defeat him. Her goals go beyond self-preservation. She seeks to protect the future of her world, even if harm befalls her in the process. Her presence on-screen for every installment of the franchise isn’t necessary because her impact reverberates through the films even when she’s gone. In New Nightmare, the meta-horror approach blurs the lines between actress and performance, showing that the impact of Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson is as lasting and as powerful as the character herself. It is only through embracing her role as Nancy that Heather is able to save our reality from Freddy’s latest exploits. In that way, Nancy manages to become just as eternal as Freddy himself.

Of course, anyone who’s seen A Nightmare on Elm Street knows that Nancy’s joy and victory are built on shaky foundations, as shown by the film’s memorable, ambiguous ending. As Nancy rushes out into a dreamy new world, the taint of her parent’s actions finds a way to stain even this success. Nancy and her friends drive off into the cruel world, enveloped in Freddy’s red and green iconography, his hunger for their lives something that isn’t as easily shakable as we all would hope. His image is the most lasting of them all.

Considered an all-time favorite by many, including Edgar Wright and Letterboxd member Mike Flanagan, A Nightmare on Elm Street’s legacy is one still felt in front of and behind the camera, especially when it comes to Freddy. Writer-director Wes Craven himself once shared in an interview with Filmmaker Magazine, “I have been amazed by how [Nightmare and Freddy’s legacy] goes on and on.” Bo Burnham: Inside was filmed in the guesthouse of the Elm Street home. Stranger Things’s leading antagonist, Vecna, stalks, taunts and eventually kills the children of Hawkins in the Upside Down, a dimension that bends and warps similar to the dream world that Freddy resides in. Craven’s popularization of the supernatural slasher opened the door to future staples like Candyman and Sinister, among others. While A Nightmare on Elm Street’s final girl and real-world relatability start to anchor it into the wider film canon, it is the twisted killer who ultimately keeps the horror classic alive for new audiences to find themselves tormented by.

Reflecting on the original picture’s legacy in conversation with Letterboxd, Englund teasingly proclaims to Langenkamp, “The men, they let you down. But not me. Not Freddy.” She agrees, echoing, “They let me down. Freddy never let me down.” 40 years on and so far Freddy still hasn’t let any of us down. From this side of things, it seems like he never will.