After A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child was panned by critics, New Line Cinema decided it was time to end the series by killing off Freddy. Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare was released on September 13, 1991, but of course it wasn’t really the final nightmare.
The film takes place in a time when Freddy had actually killed all of the children in Springwood Ohio and was going after the last known survivor. Unfortunately, Freddy’s Dead was also panned by critics much like its predecessor. The film is nearing its 30th anniversary, but some behind the scenes facts might still surprise you. Here are 10 things you didn’t know about Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.
Peter Jackson Worked On The First Draft Of The Script
Prior to 1991, Peter Jackson had only worked on a handful of movies. Today, Jackson is a big director in Hollywood, having directed films like King Kong and The Lord of the Rings, but he also worked on Freddy’s Dead for New Line Cinema. Jackson and Danny Mulheron wrote a script for Freddy’s Dead, which likely would have been better than what fans got.
In their script, kids no longer took Fred Krueger seriously and even purposefully went to sleep to go beat on him. Freddy would have managed to get some of his power back when he killed a kid and when a cop went into a coma. Instead of that storyline, New Line decided to go with the script that Rachel Talalay and Michael De Luca worked on.
Ricky Dean Logan Almost Played John
Ricky Dean Logan is an actor most known for Back to The Future II and Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. In Freddy’s Dead, he played Carlos, but he wasn’t originally supposed to. Logan was supposed to play John Doe, a role that went to Shon Greenblatt.
John Doe was at the center of the film for a while since it was believed that he was the son of Freddy Krueger. Logan decided to take the role of Carlos instead because he felt more connected with the character. Carlos is the character in the film who wears hearing aids and whose head explodes after Freddy scratches his claws on a chalkboard.
Divine Almost Had A Role
Divine, the actor most known for the films Pink Flamingos and Hairspray almost made an appearance in Nightmare 6. Divine was a drag queen actor, who worked with John Waters for several years. In one of John Doe’s dream sequences, he is on a plane and talks to a woman sitting next to him.
The woman is just an extra, but originally it was supposed to be Divine in the seat next to John. Unfortunately, Divine passed away in 1988 of a heart attack before he could film his scene.
They Had A Funeral For Freddy
When Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare was being developed, New Line Cinema had genuinely planned to kill off Freddy. Freddy would of course return for Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and Freddy vs Jason, but that wasn’t originally the plan. Having “The Final Nightmare” in the title certainly drew people in to see the last Nightmare on Elm Street movie, but that wasn’t their only marketing trick.
New Line Cinema also hosted a funeral for Freddy Krueger and brought back several of the actors from the previous Nightmare on Elm Street movies. The funeral drew a lot of attention, which certainly helped boost ticket sales.
Nintendo Said No To Using The Power Glove
One of the most memorable and silliest deaths in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare was Spencer’s. Spencer died in a video game sequence, where Freddy Krueger controlled his body with something that looked like a Nintendo Power Glove. The Power Gloves were immensely popular upon their release, so of course, New Line wanted to include it in Freddy’s Dead as a pop culture reference.
When New Line asked Nintendo for permission, they said no. Bob Shaye told director Rachel Talalay that he didn’t care what Nintendo said and told her to put it in the film anyway. Due to Freddy’s popularity, the appearance of the Power Glove actually boosted sales for Nintendo’s product, so the company didn’t bother suing New Line Cinema.
Lezlie Deane Had To Go To The Hospital
Leslie Deane is one of the characters who survive Freddy’s wrath in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, but she did have to go to the hospital during filming. In her fight sequence with Freddy, Robert Englund accidentally hit her in the head with the back of his glove, which resulted in stitches, a tetanus shot, and a nice scar for Deane.
Deane also explained in the documentary Never Sleep Again that the scene where she kills her abusive father also connected with her. After she shot the scene, she started having flashbacks and remembered being sexually abused as a child. Deane credits the scene for changing her life.
Roseanne Was A Fan Of The Series
One of the odder appearances in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is the inclusion of Roseanne Barr and her then-husband Tom Arnold. They play two characters at the fair who have lost their children to Freddy. Rachel Talalay has explained that the decision to include the two actors was because Roseanne was a fan of the series.
Talalay also admitted though that Roseanne probably didn’t have a good experience filming her scene. The actress thought she was only going to be there for a few hours, but she ended up being on set for an entire day.
The 3D Effect Was A Failure
One unique thing about Freddy’s Dead was that the film utilized 3D technology. Maggie puts on a pair of 3D glasses in the film to help her navigate the dream world, which was the moment that viewers were supposed to put on theirs. The 3D effect was supposed to be used as another marketing technique after the poor box office results of The Dream Child.
Lisa Zane explained in Never Sleep Again that the director told her to awkwardly point things at the camera, even though most of the time it didn’t make any sense for the scene. The idea turned out to be a failure since the 3D effect didn’t even turn out that great and because viewers didn’t know when to put on their 3D glasses.
The Final Fight Scene Was Mainly Improvised
Freddy has been killed a number of times in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, but he always seems to come back for more. People have tried burning him, turning their back on him, and even holy water, but he keeps on ticking. When it came to Freddy’s fight with Maggie, she pulls him out of the dream world and shoves a dynamite stick into his chest.
The entire fight scene wasn’t very well put together, but that could be because the fight was mainly improvised on set. When it came time to shoot the scene, the filmmakers hadn’t decided how Freddy was going to be killed, which seems odd since the film is literally called Freddy’s Dead.
The Director Has Admitted It Was Too Humorous
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is often considered the worst film in the franchise and it’s partly because of the humor that had been infused into the film. In the first Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy was a dark and disturbing child killer, but he became more light-hearted as the series went on. Freddy had developed a dark sense of humor in later sequels but the writers for Freddy’s Dead took this to a whole new level.
Freddy pushed spikes out onto the road like something you would see in Looney Toons and the character even pretended to be the Wicked Witch of the West in another scene. The comedy was just too much, and Rachel Talalay even admitted in Never Sleep Again that they went overboard with the jokes.
