Nightmare on Elm Street
MARGE (CONTD) (low, raw) Fred Krueger is dead. Dead and gone. Believe me, I know. Now
go to bed. I order you, go to bed.
MARGE snatches the hat away. NANCY is furious, betrayed.
NANCY You knew about him all
this time, and you’ve been acting like he was someone I made up!
MARGE pulls away.
MARGE You’re sick, Nancy. Imagining
things. You need to sleep, it’s as simple as that.
NANCY wheels and smashes MARGE’S bottle of gin in the sink.
NANCY Screw sleep!
MARGE (CONTD) Nancy!
But NANCY runs past her mother for the front door.
MARGE (CONTD) Nancy — it’s only a nightmare!
NANCY turns in the doorway.
NANCY That’s enough!
On the door SLAM, we
CUT TO
121. EXT. SHAKESPEARE BRIDGE. DAY. 121.
ANGLE ON A NEIGHBORHOOD STREET. We hear GLEN’s VOICE and PAN UP
to REVEAL NANCY and GLEN high above, two tiny figures walking across this strange white bridge in old Los Angeles. CAMERA BEGINS A SLOW ZOOM.
GLEN Whenever I get nervous I eat.
NANCY And if you can’t do that, you sleep.
GLEN Used to. Not anymore.
GLEN jams more Big Mack into his face. By now our ZOOM reveals he’s attacking a huge bag of Big Macks, and furtively eyeing NANCY. The girl’s hair is startlingly white in the sunlight.
She’s reading a book, hardly paying attention.
GLEN (CONTD) You ever read about the Balinese way of dreaming?
NANCY
No.
GLEN They got a whole system they call ‘dream skills’. So, if you have a nightmare, for instance like falling, right?
NANCY Yeah.
GLEN Instead of screaming and getting nuts, you say, okay, I’m gonna
make up my mind that I fall into a magic world where I can get something special, like a poem or song. (grins hopefully) They get all their art literature
from dreams. Just wake up and write it down. Dreamskills.
He stops, seeing the look on NANCY’s face. Our ZOOM is much closer now, a wide medium, and still coming in on the kids.
NANCY
And what if they meet a monster in their dream? Then what?
GLEN They turn their back on it. (grins hopefully) Takes away its energy, and
it disappears.
NANCY What happens if they don’t do that?
GLEN
(shrugs) I guess those people don’t wake up to tell what happens.
NANCY Great.
She leans over the railing, poking her face back into her book. GLEN tips its cover and reads its title. OUR ZOOM IS STILL MOVING CLOSER, a MEDIUM CLOSE UP NOW.
GLEN ‘Booby Traps and Improvised
Anti-personel Devices’!
NANCY I found it at this neat survivalist bookstore on Ventura.
GLEN (shocked) Well what you reading it for?
OUR ZOOM LOCKS IN ON A TIGHT TWO ON THEIR FACES, NANCY’s grimly determined.
NANCY I’m into survival.
She walks away, OUT OF FRAME, leaving GLEN watching after her in astonishment.
GLEN
She’s starting to scare the living shit out of me.
122. EXT. ELM STREET/NANCY’S HOME/EVENING 122.
ANGLE ACROSS NANCY’S “TREE LAWN”, the grass between the sidewalk and the street, in the general direction
of GLEN’s home. This ANGLE doesn’t quite reveal Nancy’s house.
FOREGROUND is a utility truck in which a half dozen Hispanic WORKERS are loading tools, extension cords and hardware. They look like they’ve put in one hell of a hard day’s work.
MARGE appears and hands a check to the FOREMAN of the crew, a white guy in clean coveralls and a gold chain. He scrutinizes it.
FOREMAN And the other…
MARGE forks over a wad of cash, hands trembling in her half-drunk, helpless rage.
MARGE Where’s your mask and gun?
The FOREMAN counts the money swiftly.
FOREMAN Don’t bust my chops, lady. If the city found out I put ’em in without inside releases I’d loose my license.
He shoves the money in his pocket and climbs in his truck. MARGE EXITS FRAME for her house.
PAN WITH THE TRUCK as it pulls away, THEN PICK UP NANCY, walking across the street from the corner. Alone. Dispirited. She lifts her eyes to her home and stops in her tracks.
NANCY Oh gross…
123. WIDENING TO REVEAL THE HOUSE as NANCY walks across her front 123. yard. Every single window has been covered with brand-new ornamental iron bars, bolted deeply into their frames.
CLOSER, AT A WINDOW. NANCY gives a set of bars a powerful
shake. They don’t budge. Then girl looks up and sees even the window to her second floor bedroom is barred. And the rose trellis has been ripped down and heaped at the foundation in a tangle of wood, thorns and broken flowers.
124. INT. MARGE’S ROOM. EVENING. 124.
ANGLE ON THE DOORWAY INTO THE HALL. Easy listening MUSIC wafts
through the air. NANCY appears in the doorway.
NANCY (OS) Mom, what’s with the bars!?
125. REVERSE to MARGE, propped against the headboard of her bed, a 125. crooked shadow in the gloom. A fresh bottle of Gin glints in her
hand.
NANCY Oh, Mom…
The girl crosses and reaches gently for the bottle. MARGE snatches it away.
MARGE ‘S’mine…
She rocks the bottle in her arms.
NANCY What’s with the bars?
MARGE S’curity.
NANCY sits on the bed, a surprising compassion entering her voice.
NANCY
Mom, I want to know what you know about Fred Krueger.
MARGE Dead and gone.
NANCY
I want to know how, where — if you don’t tell me, I’m going to call daddy.
MARGE gives a laugh — a rasping chachination from deep in her chest.
MARGE (CONTD) Your father the cop. That’s a good one. (colder) Forget Fred Krueger. You don’t want to know, believe me.
NANCY I do want to know. He’s not dead and gone — he’s after me and if I sleep he’ll get me! I’ve got to know!
MARGE blinks at her a moment, then cracks a terrible, crooked grin.
