A Nightmare On Elm Street’s ending is one of the most divisive ones in the slasher genre, but a theory puts an end to the biggest question about it while also improving the movie and Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). Back in 1984, Wes Craven brought A Nightmare On Elm Street, through which he introduced the audience to a one-of-a-kind slasher villain: Freddy Krueger. The success of A Nightmare On Elm Street made way for a franchise with a total of nine movies (including a remake and a crossover), though few of them were able to match the quality of the first movie.

A Nightmare On Elm Street followed Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), who, along with her boyfriend Glen (Johnny Depp) and their friends, began to be stalked by serial killer Freddy Krueger – however, Krueger went after them in their dreams, as they were completely vulnerable in them, and if he killed them there, they died in the real world, too. Heather found a way to defeat Krueger and seemed to have succeeded until the ending of A Nightmare On Elm Street revealed Krueger was still around. Now, a theory finally puts an end to speculation on what the ending really meant and makes Krueger a lot more complex.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the most iconic horror films ever, and its star-studded cast has gone on to do great things since its release.

A Nightmare On Elm Street Theory Suggests It Was All A Multilayered Dream

Nancy’s Dreams Were More Complex Than They Seemed

Nancy spent most of A Nightmare On Elm Street escaping from Krueger in her dreams and doing her best to not fall asleep so she wouldn’t have to face him again and be potentially killed. After another encounter with Krueger while at a sleep disorder clinic, Nancy discovered she could pull Krueger into the real world after doing so with his hat and came up with a plan to pull him into the real world to make him vulnerable.

Nancy rigged booby traps around the house to trap Krueger and though she succeeded and lit him on fire, he smothered her mother and vanished into her bed before jumping back. Realizing that Krueger was fueled by his victims’ fear, Nancy simply turned around calmly to leave the room, and Krueger vanished as he tried to attack her from behind. Nancy then stepped outside into a new, foggy day, where all her friends, Glen, and her mother were alive and well, but when she left with her friends in Glen’s convertible, the top had the colors of Krueger’s sweater, the car locked them in and drove down by itself, while Krueger attacked Nancy’s mother.

This left the question of whether Krueger was truly defeated or not and what had truly happened when Nancy confronted him in the real world, and a theory gives a simple solution to it. Many viewers have theorized that most of A Nightmare On Elm Street was a dream, but more than that, it was a multilayered dream, similar to the ones in Christopher Nolan’s Inception. This means that, from Nancy’s first nightmare on, the whole movie was one big nightmare within a nightmare.

The nightmare began when Nancy fell asleep in class and burned her arm in the boiler room, and the next time she fell asleep, she entered another layer of the dream. Nancy’s friends (except Tina, who really died), Glen, and her mother died in Nancy’s nightmares, and the real nightmare began at the end, with Krueger’s “defeat” only taking Nancy back to the first layer of the dream, hence why everyone else was alive in it.

A Nightmare On Elm Street’s Original Ending Revealed The Whole Movie Was A Dream

Wes Craven’s Original Ending Was More Optimistic

The theory not only solves the mystery of whether the ending of A Nightmare On Elm Street was a dream or not, but it also does justice to Craven’s original ending. In the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven shared that he originally had another ending planned for the film, in which Nancy would have killed Krueger by not believing in him anymore (as seen in the final cut), and would have awakened to find that everything that had just happened in the film was a long, elaborate, vivid nightmare.

However, New Line demanded a twist ending for A Nightmare On Elm Street where Krueger disappeared and returned to show the audience they were still in a dream. Speaking to Cinefantastique in 1987, Craven explained the studio wanted Krueger to be driving Glen’s car and Nancy and friends screaming as they drove away, but Craven refused. They eventually came up with the ending that made it to the final cut, which left a lot more questions than the other endings would have.

A Nightmare On Elm Street’s Multilayered Dream Theory Makes Krueger A More Complex Villain

Freddy Krueger Greatly Benefits From This Theory

Freddy Krueger started as a horrifying villain, but as more and more sequels arrived, Krueger ended up being a more comedic type of slasher. As he operates in the dream world, Krueger has the ability to manipulate the dream’s environment, and he can take different shapes. Krueger is immortal inside the dream world but completely vulnerable if pulled into the real world. A Nightmare On Elm Street being a multilayered dream would make Krueger’s powers more complex and cruel, as it means he could come up with elaborate, vivid, long nightmares that wrapped his victims over and over again until they lost all sense of reality.

Essentially, Krueger would have subjected his targets to more, slow torture by throwing them into more and more layers of nightmares where their loved ones were killed, only to make them believe they were alive to truly kill them. While this doesn’t fully save Freddy Krueger from the ridiculousness of some of the sequels, it makes him even scarier in the first A Nightmare On Elm Street movie.

Sources: Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Cinefantastique.