One... Two... Freddy's Coming For You...

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by DFM

Which Elm Street movie would you say was the best/most frightening.

I mean I'm not actually joking when I say these movies scare the fuck out of me and I hate them and hate the people who make them so there's not really a "best" for me but I would say whichever one was set in the mental hospital (third one?), followed by New Nightmare, followed by the first one. The third one for being the one that my asshole babysitter when I was five was like "oh man naw he can totally watch this it won't give him a lifelong terror of a fictional character or nothin'", and also that scene where Freddy cuts the kid's arms open and turns him into a puppet and walks him off the roof, New Nightmare for being the one that was like "but maybe we're not bullshitting, maybe he's an actually real thing!!!!!! (gosh we're assholes)" and the third one for that scene at the end where his severed arm turns up out of nowhere and kills that one lady because it establishes (as New Nightmare reconfirms) right from the get-go that literally nothing will ever actually kill Freddie for any meaningful length of time, he will always, always come back.

Originally Posted by Premonitions

No, I mean, am I properly describing the essential premise of New Nightmare?

Yup.

[Raiden]

Ha. You're afraid of Freddy appearing in your mirror? Pshaw, there's tons of scarier creatures to see in your mirror. Like Candy Man.

...but seriously, for a few years if I even THOUGHT that I was starting to sink into my bed I jumped off that shit like it was on fire.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Raiden

Ha. You're afraid of Freddy appearing in your mirror? Pshaw, there's tons of scarier creatures to see in your mirror. Like Candy Man.

Here is the nub of the issue which is that the thing about Candy Man is you have no real problems as long as you don't do anything critically stupid like stand in front of a mirror and say "Candy Man" a bunch of times. Jason Voorhies isn't shit as long as you stay away from Crystal Lake (and aren't prone to tripping), Leprechaun doesn't give a fuck as long as you don't steal his gold and start demanding wishes, and that kid from the Ring can't do nothing unless you're the last jerk alive who owns a VHS player.

But Freddy Kruegger basically can't be escaped, killed, or deterred and basically lives inside of your most vulnerable state of existence right at the point where the line bleeds over between what you imagine and what's real and waits eternally for the moment you let your guard down to reach out and kill you and torture you forever. And if you tell yourself whatever he's not real or nothing it doesn't matter because the entire point of them is that he lives in unreality and just in case you thought you could get past that Wes Craven went ahead and made New Nightmare just to say "HEH".

So yeah this is basically in conclusion this is the one fictional thing that legitimately scares the fuck out of me. I honestly have to applaud it because if you were going to construct a fictional character to scare the fuck out of people as hard as possible that's pretty much what you would do. As far as why mirrors, I dunno? I guess it always seemed like jumping out of a mirror to kill me would be the sort of totally dick move Freddie Kruegger would do.

[Krylo]

I'm actually pretty sure that most of the older movies pretty well cemented that Freddy can only kill you 'cause you're afraid of him.

He always ends up getting (temporarily) banished by someone who just stands up and says, "Fuck you. My dream. GTFO." And then angry faces at him.

I mean the entire end of the first one was about how wuzzername strips his powers by not being afraid of him anymore, and the others were all like "Mah dreaaaam powers that I fight him with".

So, basically, yeah, YOU'RE fucked if you run into him, but pretty much anyone without an irrational fear of their own dreams is more or less ok.

Edit: And Vorhees totally followed some kids to New York once, and slaughters a bunch of people there, so staying away from Crystal Lake isn't guaranteed safety.

[Geminex]

Hey, IT would totally kick Freddy's ass. Seriously. In fact, IT would probably kill you as Freddy Krueger.

[Archbio]

Here is the nub of the issue which is that the thing about Candy Man is you have no real problems as long as you don't do anything critically stupid like stand in front of a mirror and say "Candy Man" a bunch of times.

Maybe someone else already said Candy Man a bunch of times in your vicinity. Or maybe you'll just get killed by criminals posing as Candyman, who come in through secret passages in the wall of your appartment.

But Candyman has the same limitation as Jason I think, in that he haunts a specific place?

[Seil]

The third one for being the one that my asshole babysitter when I was five was like "oh man naw he can totally watch this it won't give him a lifelong terror of a fictional character or nothin'",

The only thing that I can remember terrifying me as a child was this thing from Are You Afraid Of The Dark. I remember being big into that show, but this thing scared the bejesus out of me.

My brothers and I shared a room at the time, and my older brothers had to talk me into sleeping.

I mean the entire end of the first one was about how wuzzername strips his powers by not being afraid of him anymore, and the others were all like "Mah dreaaaam powers that I fight him with".

I actually thought that it was a neat way to end the villain, but not to destroy him. Because while some sequels can get totally crap with retcons and things like that, but with Freddy, it's basically that he can haunt the dreams of individuals that are afraid of him, and don't know his weaknesses.

[Premmy]

Whereas the slender man is just THERE at all times. *shudder*

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Seil

I actually thought that it was a neat way to end the villain, but not to destroy him. Because while some sequels can get totally crap with retcons and things like that, but with Freddy, it's basically that he can haunt the dreams of individuals that are afraid of him, and don't know his weaknesses.

Wasn't saying it wasn't, I was just refuting Fifth's assertion that Freddy doesn't fall to the same failings of say, Candy Man or Vorhees.

If you just keep your cool and treat him like any other dream thing to be ignored and forgotten about upon waking, he's completely impotent.

[Fifthfiend]

Four posts within 20 minutes all arguing the point says to me ya'll basically know you're kidding yourselves.