Nightmare On Elm Quotes

One, two, I’m coming for you, three, four, you better lock your door.’” -Nightmare on Elm Street -Fool me twice by Mandy Hubbard

The first monster that an audience has to be scared of is the filmmaker. Wes Craven Director, A Nightmare on Elm Street

For my number-one favorite kill, I almost went with Johnny Depp being eaten alive and then regurgitated by his own bed in A Nightmare on Elm Street, but the winner, by a finger blade’s width, has to be the death of that feisty Tina (Amanda Wyss), who put up such a fight while I thrashed her about on the ceiling of her bedroom. Freddy loves a worthy adversary, especially if it’s a nubile teenaged girl. A close second goes to my hearing-impaired victim Carlos (Ricky Dean Logan) in Nightmare 6. In these uber-politically-correct times, it’s refreshing to remember what an equal opportunity killer Freddy always was. Not only does he pump up the volume on the hearing aid from hell, but he also adds a nice Latino kid to his body count. Today they probably wouldn’t even let Freddy force-feed a fat kid junk food. Dream death number three is found in a sequence from Nightmare 3. Freddy plays puppet master with victim Phillip (Bradley Gregg), converting his arm and leg tendons into marionette strings, then cutting them in a Freddy meets Verigo moment. The kiss of death Profressor Freddy gives Sheila (Toy Newkirk) is great, but not as good as Al Pacino’s in The Godfather, so my fourth pick is Freddy turning Debbie (Brooke Theiss) into her worst nightmare, a cockroach, and crushing her in a Roach Motel. A classic Kafka/Krueger kill. For my final fave, you will have to check out Freddy vs. Jason playing at a Hell’s Octoplex near you. Here’s a hint: the hockey-puck guy and I double team a member of Destiny’s Child. Yummy! Now where’s that Beyonce…

But something about the interesting plot bothered me: one of the major rules that Wes had established on A Nightmare on Elm Street had been broken - Freddy was taken out of the dreams. In Nightmare 2, Freddy would be allowed to manifest outside of the dreamscape. It didn’t hurt the quality of the script, but it messed up the continuity. On the plus side, I thought the bisexual-slash-homoerotic subtext was edgy and contemporary, and I appreciated how the plot investigated both the social-class system and the rise of suburban malaise. This may sound pretentious and over-analytical, but I believe that Freddy represented what looked to be a bad future for the post-boomer generation. It’s possible that Wes believed the youth of America were about to fall into a pile of shit - virtually all the parents in the Nightmare movies were flawed, so how could these kids turn out safe and sane? - and he might have created Freddy to represent a less-than-bright future.

Romance can be as simple as leaving a note on the refrigerator that says “I love you” or giving an unexpected hug. It can include heroic gestures like helping your partner do his taxes or scouring the tile in her skanky-looking shower or taking a whole day to organize a lover’s Nightmare-on-Elm-Street closet.

You carried your infant daughter in one arm, and walked with me, a child six years of age, tired, trudging beside you. You left that nightmare behind. And you left behind other things, too. The elm trees that lined your street. The familiar scent of autumn. The baker's smile when he handed you the fresh bread, the song of the peddlers in the street, the sound of strangers around you talking, haggling, buying, singing, speaking, fighting in a language you understood. Your friends. Your career. Your home. Your dreams. Your family. Your memories. Pots, pans, the fine silver spoons and forks. Photographs. Heirlooms. Your favorite dresses. Your father's grave. The colorful wares of the markets at the new year. Streets you knew by name. Cab drivers who recited poetry. The halls of your old university. You left whatever you couldn't fit into a single suitcase behind you and closed the door of your home for the last time, the dishes washed, the beds made, the curtains drawn, thinking, "Perhaps, perhaps we will come back," and you shut the door, and left, without knowing if you'd ever find home again.

I ordered Pad See Ew from the Thai place, ate half of it, watched the 1995 remake of Sabrina starring Harrison Ford, took another shower, downed the last of my Ambien, and found the porn channel again. I turned the volume down low, shifted my body away from the screen so that the grunts and moans could lull me. Still, I didn’t sleep. Life could go on forever like this, I thought. Life would, if I didn’t take action. I fingered myself on the sofa under the blanket, came twice, then turned the TV off. I got up and raised the blinds and sat in a daze for a while and watched the sun go down—was it possible?—then I rewound Sabrina and watched it again and ate the rest of the Pad See Ew. I watched Driving Miss Daisy and Sling Blade. I took a Nembutal and drank half a bottle of Robitussin. I watched The World According to Garp and Stargate and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Moonstruck and Flashdance, then Dirty Dancing and Ghost, then Pretty Woman.

As with the first Nightmare, we shot a couple of interesting scenes that didn’t make it into the final cut, most notably one featuring a female Freddy. One of the kids in the hospital has a Freddy dream in which he’s being seduced by a sexy nurse. The nightmare evolves into a kinky S&M fantasy, but becomes less M and more S when the ropes that bind the kid to the bed become Freddy tongues, and the nurse’s face morphs into Freddy’s, but her topless torso, which features a pair of perfect Playboy breasts, remains smooth and inviting… that is, for a moment. All of a sudden, the veins in her areolas come to life and turn into Freddy-like burn scars and snake up her cleavage, past her neck, and onto her face. (I’m pretty sure Kevin enjoyed the four hours it took to apply makeup to those tits.) This troubling, erotic transformation didn’t make the final cut for some reason. Occasionally I find myself signing bootleg stills from the missing sequence. Especially in Europe. Ooh la la!

The last week of shooting, we did a scene in which I drag Amanda Wyss, the sexy, blond actress who played Tina, across the ceiling of her bedroom, a sequence that ultimately became one of the most visceral from the entire Nightmare franchise. Tina’s bedroom was constructed as a revolving set, and before Tina and Freddy did their dance of death, Wes did a few POV shots of Nick Corri (aka Rod) staring at the ceiling in disbelief, then we flipped the room, and the floor became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor and Amanda and I went to work. As was almost always the case when Freddy was chasing after a nubile young girl possessed by her nightmare, Amanda was clad only in her baby-doll nightie. Wes had a creative camera angle planned that he wanted to try, a POV shot from between Amanda’s legs. Amanda, however, wasn’t in the cameramen’s union and wouldn’t legally be allowed to operate the cemera for the shot. Fortunately, Amy Haitkin, our director of photography’s wife, was our film’s focus puller and a gifted camera operator in her own right. Being a good sport, she peeled off her jeans and volunteered to stand in for Amanda. The makeup crew dapped some fake blood onto her thighs, she lay down on the ground, Jacques handed her the camera, I grabbed her ankles, and Wes called, “Action.” After I dragged Amy across the floor/ceiling, I spontaneously blew her a kiss with my blood-covered claw; the fake blood on my blades was viscous, so that when I blew her my kiss of death, the blood webbed between my blades formed a bubble, a happy cinematic accident. The image of her pale, slender, blood-covered legs, Freddy looming over her, straddling the supine adolescent girl, knife fingers dripping, was surreal, erotic, and made for one of the most sexually charged shots of the movie. Unfortunately it got left on the cutting-room floor. If Wes had left it in, the MPAA - who always seemed to have it out for Mr. Craven - would definitely have tagged us with an X rating. You win some, you lose some.

Who am I? You know who I am. Or you think you do. I’m your florist. I’m your grocer. I’m your porter. I’m your waiter. I’m the owner of the dry-goods store on the corner of Elm. I’m the shoeshine boy. I’m the judo teacher. I’m the Buddhist priest. I’m the Shinto priest. I’m the Right Reverend Yoshimoto. So prease to meet you. (…) I’m the one you call Jap. I’m the one you call Nip. I’m the one you call Slits. I’m the one you call Slopes. I’m the one you call Yellowbelly. I’m the one you call Gook. I’m the one you don’t see at all—we all look alike. I’m the one you see everywhere—we’re taking over the neighborhood. I’m the one you look for under your bed every night before you go to sleep. (…) I’m your nightmare…

Elm. The Nightmare slowed his pace. When he looked back at Elm, his voice drifted in the air, oil and honey and poison. “Neither Rowan nor Yew, but somewhere between. A pale tree in winter, neither red, gold, nor green. Black hides the bloodstain, forever his mark. Alone in the castle, Prince of the dark.

The hateful heart is crumbled by screaming faces.

kind of Princes ripped from the pages of a storybook. Handsome, clever, unmarried. Only, in the Nightmare’s storybook version, they weren’t simply the kingdom’s beloved Princes. They were also its villains. He snarled behind my eyes, watching Elm with curled claws. The berry of rowans is red, always red. The earth at its trunk is dark with blood shed. Trust never the man who wields the Card red. His voice seeped out of him, a poisonous fog filling my mind. No peace will be known till the final Rowan is dead. I fought a shudder, my face muscles straining against the chill the Nightmare’s words set upon me. For the Rowans, the Nightmare bore a bottomless, vengeful hatred. And I knew why. King Rowan, like his predecessors, used the ancient wisdom of The Old Book of Alders to instill fear—not wonder—of magic. He corrupted our ancient text. Defiled it so that it became a weapon to control Blunder by—just like the Scythe. The red Card. There were only four of them in the entire kingdom. And the Rowans had always claimed them all. With it, they had the ultimate power of persuasion. Three taps of the Scythe, and you would do whatever a Rowan asked of you. If Elm asked me to hop on one leg off a cliff, I would gladly do so, not because the Scythe made my legs move—but because it made me want to jump.

Hauth turned to the side, gesturing forward someone I could not see. Two lights warred for dominance. One burgundy, the other pink, carried by a strikingly beautiful woman with yellow hair. My heart plummeted into my stomach as Hauth’s voice rattled over the din. “Tonight,” he declared, “thanks to his generous contribution, my father has knighted Tyrn Hawthorn. We are proud to offer his daughter a place in our royal family.” Applause erupted around me, glass clinking and cheers sounding, the clamor enormous. Next to me, Ravyn Yew exhaled, as if all the wind in his lungs had frozen. Across the table, Elm Rowan and Jespyr Yew had gone ghostly pale, their faces arrested in shock. Hauth took the hand of the beautiful woman. She passed him the burgundy light, a smile on her full lips. Hauth, goaded by the crowd’s uproar, held up the Providence Card trimmed by dark burgundy velvet. “I present to you,” he called, “the elusive Nightmare Providence Card, and my future wife, Ione Hawthorn.

They sat at the rounded table, five of them: Jespyr Yew, Elm Rowan, Filick Willow, and two others I had not met but knew by the Yew insignia upon their clothes—Fenir and Morette Yew. Ravyn’s parents. A single chair was situated in the middle of the room, the light from the hearth casting long, ominous shadows across it. Ravyn gestured to it, offering me a seat. The Nightmare slithered to the forefront of my mind, acute—aware. Let the inquest begin.

When Elm extended his hand in greeting, our fingers met, cold and unfeeling. “Welcome back to Stone, Miss Spindle,” he said, his green eyes cunning. “May I escort you to dinner?” The Rowans are not to be trusted. They cling too desperately to their Scythes, hungry for power—for control, the Nightmare called in the din. Be wary.

There was something strange about Emory Yew. Now I understood what it really was. The infection—it was eating at him, ripping away his sanity. He’s degenerating, the Nightmare said. Little by little. Magic always comes at a cost. I twisted the crow’s foot in my pocket. “What magic did Emory’s infection grant him?” Elm’s gaze shifted to his young cousin. “He can read people,” he said. “As if all their secrets had been transcribed onto the pages of a book. All it takes is a single touch.” Coldness crept up my spine. I see a yellow gaze narrowed by hate, the boy had said to me. I see darkness and shadow. And I see your fingers, long and pale, covered in blood.

Did you know? I gasped at the Nightmare. He purred, gratification dripping like hot wax off his voice. I had my suspicions. And you didn’t think to tell me? You’ve had the man in your gaze all day. Surely you saw more than a handsome face. Elm watched me, tracing the shock on my face. This time, his smile was full. “He didn’t tell you?” I blinked, my tongue caught in a snare. “He—He’s—” “Infected,” Elm said. “Yes. Terribly so.” What creature is he, with mask made of stone? the Nightmare said once more. Captain? Highwayman? Or beast yet unknown?

Quiet,” Ravyn cautioned. He cast his eyes up the table to the King. Then, as if I’d pulled the words out of him, he lowered his voice. “I never lied. You merely assumed the King knew I had a Nightmare Card.” The Nightmare tapped his claws, laughter rolling off his back like snakeskin. How wonderful, he said. Absolutely marvelous. Shut up and let me think. Isn’t it obvious? The Captain of the Destriers is a sneaking, contemptible traitor. I had to sit on my hands to keep them from shaking. Just answer the riddle, he called. What has two eyes for seeing, two ears for hearing, and one tongue for lying? When I didn’t reply, he tittered. A highwayman, darling girl. But Ravyn hasn’t acted alone, I countered, my eyes shooting across the table to Elm. Even more curious, the Nightmare purred. Does the young Prince know his cousin is hiding such a valuable Providence Card from the King? Or is he a part of the scheme?

Your cousin,” he shouted. “She’s infected, isn’t she?” Ione’s voice was cold. “No.” He hit her across the face with an open palm—took her yellow hair in his fist. “Tell me the truth, Ione.” She stayed unmoving, unflinching. “Elspeth isn’t infected.” His face grew redder. “It’s disgrace enough that my own cousins carry that blight. But now my future wife’s—it is too much.” He dragged Ione by her hair to the casement window, slammed it open. “You’ll have your wish, my dear,” he said, hauling her over the sill. “I release you from our engagement.” Ione clawed at him. Screamed. But with one brutal shove— She was falling. Elm’s entire body seized, and he fell with Ione down Spindle House’s reaching tower. He heard the sickly crunch of her skull, cracking against brick. When Ione peered down at her body, jagged, red-tipped bones had torn through her clothes. Blood pulsed in Elm’s ears. He struggled to tap the Nightmare Card. When he opened his eyes, Ione was watching him. He

So formal.” She propped a shoulder against the throne. “What are we bartering, Elm?” He liked hearing his name on her lips far too well. “This terrible chair. And you in it with me.” Ione’s brows drew together, her gaze jumping between him and the throne. “You can still be Queen of Blunder, Hawthorn. If you want to.” Her voice was needle-sharp. “What are you talking about?” “Marriage contracts,” Elm said, itching to touch her. “A Kingly duty my brutish father has never tended well. The last one he penned himself—poorly, might I add—was signed on Equinox. A Nightmare Card, for a marriage.” “To Hauth. A contract that bound me to Hauth.” Elm smiled. “To the heir.

As for Elm, you won’t get your hands on him. He won’t be coming with us. What makes you think I’d hurt him? Ravyn scoffed. He’s a Rowan. Descendant of the man who stole your throne and killed your kin. You’ve had five hundred years to imagine your revenge. His stomach turned as he looked at the old blood beneath the Nightmare’s fingernails. Surely you want him dead. I had plenty of time to hurt him. Only I didn’t. The Princeling sensed me—saw my strange eyes—and recoiled. He understands, far better than you, Captain, that there are monsters in this world. He let out a long breath. My claws would find no purchase in a Rowan who is already broken. When Ravyn’s rigid jaw didn’t ease, the Nightmare grinned. Above rowan and yew, the elm tree stands tall. It waits along borders, a sentry at call. Quiet and guarded and windblown and marred, its bark whispers stories of a boy-Prince once scarred. His voice in Ravyn’s mind went eerily soft. And so, Ravyn Yew, your Elm I won’t touch. His life strays beyond my ravenous clutch. For a kicked pup grows teeth, and teeth sink to bone. I will need him, one day, when I harvest the throne.

What Ravyn had suspected before the inquest hit him now like a blow. Elm. Ione. Spirit and trees. The Nightmare’s laugh drifted like smoke up the stone walls. You don’t approve, Captain? It’ll wreck him if the King decides to kill her. I imagine he thinks the same thing about you and this body I currently occupy. Ravyn tore the Mirror from his pocket and released himself. He wanted the Nightmare to see the hate in his eyes. She has a name, parasite. Say it. Or don’t speak of her at all.

Bennett. He looked like Emory—like Ravyn. Blunder families have always taken the names of the trees, I whispered. But I have never heard of a tree called Taxus. That’s because it is an old name, came his oily reply. For an old, twisted tree. Like the last line of a poem, the truth fell into place. A yew tree. Ravyn searched the Nightmare’s eyes. “Does Elspeth know?” “Only just.” “Why didn’t you tell us?” “Would you have believed me, monster and liar that I am?” Ravyn’s pause was answer enough. “The Spirit showed me your death.” He heaved a sigh. “I can guess what it is you want from me, Taxus. But I am not the dark bird of your revenge. I will not be another Captain who steals the throne. I will unite the Deck—but I will never be King of Blunder.” I watched Ravyn, weighing words that he—a man who uttered so few—had offered. “Our walk in the wood,” the Nightmare replied, “was about more than the Twin Alders Card, Ravyn Yew. There were five hundred years of truth to unravel. And now that you and Elspeth know it—” His sharp laugh echoed over the water. “You still do not understand. My revenge is not merely a sword. It is a scale. It is balance. I will take the throne of Blunder back. But not for you.” He straightened his spine, fixing Ravyn in his unflinching gaze. “For Elm.

The Bachelor meets Nightmare on Elm Street,

Elm took the sword. Searched the Nightmare’s eyes. “You won’t stay?” “I’ve got to get back.” He glanced one last time at the glowing lights of the Providence Cards he had lived—bled—died for. “They’re waiting for me.

My claws would find no purchase in a Rowan who is already broken. When Ravyn’s rigid jaw didn’t ease, the Nightmare grinned. Above rowan and yew, the elm tree stands tall. It waits along borders, a sentry at call. Quiet and guarded and windblown and marred, its bark whispers stories of a boy-Prince once scarred. His voice in Ravyn’s mind went eerily soft. And so, Ravyn Yew, your Elm I won’t touch. His life strays beyond my ravenous clutch. For a kicked pup grows teeth, and teeth sink to bone. I will need him, one day, when I harvest the throne.

One wrong word, and they’d realize it wasn’t my magic they needed… but the monster’s in my head. Help me, I called into the void. The Nightmare slithered across our shared darkness, churning against the current of Elm’s influence. It will be easier with me here, my dear. After all, the Scythe has no sway on me. I blinked. What? Why didn’t you say before? You did not ask. Magic. I felt it like salt water up my nostrils. The Nightmare stirred, loosening the rope Elm Rowan had tied across my mind. The Scythe’s magic lessened, the desire to be honest—malleable—obedient—fading, washed away by a wave of salt.

have wanted to collect the Deck.” I gripped the lip of my chair so tightly my knuckles ached. “But you’re not working with King Rowan. Otherwise, you would have already given him your Nightmare Card. You’re collecting the Deck on your own account…” My eyes flew to the table. “Is there going to be a rebellion? Are you going to depose the King?” Fenir’s voice was sharp. “Nothing of the sort. Rebellion would destroy Blunder.” Then why not work alongside the King to collect the Deck? the Nightmare said, coiling through my mind. They’re hiding something. I waited, the room so quiet it might have been a tomb. “With the Deck of Cards,” Fenir said, “the King will lift the mist, regaining ownership of Blunder from the Spirit of the Wood.” He took his wife’s hand, his face drawn. “And he will be able to cure the infection.” I waited, my breath fast. “But as The Old Book of Alders so loves to remind us,” Elm said from the hearth, twirling the Scythe, “nothing comes for free. Now that my father has the Nightmare Card, he needs only two things to unite the Deck: the lost Twin Alders Card and blood. Infected blood.” He looked toward the flames, his shoulders tight. “And he’s going to kill Emory to get it.” The strange boy—his erratic, fitful nature. Infected. Which meant Emory Yew was not a resident in the King’s castle as a token of hospitality. He was a captive. And they were going to commit treason to save him.

The Nightmare,” he said, quoting The Old Book of Alders, swinging his finger at me as if he were conducting an invisible orchestra. “Be wary the dark. Be wary the fright. Be wary the voice that comes in the night.” “Enough, Emory,” Elm groaned. When Emory’s smile deepened, the hairs along my neck stood on end. I was suddenly certain that when he’d touched my hand on the stairwell, Emory Yew and his strange, dark magic had truly seen every last one of my secrets. “It twists and it calls, through shadowy halls. Be wary the voice that comes in the night.” Before I could say anything—before I could even shiver—Emory heaved, hunching his back, and coughed blood on the stone floor. Shame, the Nightmare said. I was just beginning to like him.