Nightmare on Elm Street
Had to’ve done it. No one else was in there.
LT THOMPSON How you know that?
MR LANTZ
Cause I thought Glen was gonna sneak out to see your lunatic daughter, that’s why. So I locked him in his room! (getting control) Sorry. Anyways, the door was
still locked when we heard the screams.
He blinks.
MR LANTZ (CONTD) Maybe god’s punishing us all…
LT THOMPSON (much lower and hard) Keep your head — this is a fucking flesh and blood killer we’re talking about.
MR LANTZ Like Rod Lane?
A voice calls down from upstairs.
COP (OS) Lieutenant Thompson. Coronor
wants to show you something.
THOMPSON gives MR LANTZ one final look, then heads upstairs.
CUT TO:
NOTE: These rewrites of scenes 180 and 180 A replace NANCY walking through the ‘dream streets’ at night, and NANCY
approaching the huge deserted building at night, prior to her entering the Boiler Room the final time.
180. INT. DOWNSTAIRS, NANCY’S HOUSE. NIGHT. 180.
LOW ANGLE UP STAIRS as NANCY appears at head. As she comes downstairs, CAMERA MOVES WITH HER through the hallway to the
cellar door. She opens the door.
180A. INT. NANCY’S CELLAR. NIGHT. 180A.
NANCY appears at top of these stairs, hesitates, then comes down.
WIDER as NANCY approaches center of room, stops in CU, then turns
eyes. We HEAR the distant SOUND of the boiler room now, faint
but unmistakeable. NANCY MOVES, and CAMERA PANS HER to the cellar’s side WALL, where another, new doorway is REVEALED. NANCY opens this door and looks down. FIRELIGHT is on NANCY’S face now, and the SOUND of the Boiler Room is very clear. NANCY goes through the door.
180B. INT. BOILER ROOM. 180B.
NANCY decends like Orpheus into hell, but without weapon save her wits.
She decends a steel stair to the lowest level, then hears the SOUND of the knives from down another shaft. She sees there’s an even deeper place down there. She starts down.
Again, and then again, NANCY decends, each ladder narrower or more twisting, each level deeper, wetter, darker, more airless. Soon she’s gasping for air, but still she pushes herself on. She doesn’t stop until she breaks out at last at the very bottom of the place, a wet, firelit sump deep in the bowels of the place.
CAMERA NOW PANS AROUND WITH HER, and for the first time we SEE the vast maul of the empty boiler behind her.
She stares at it. It’s seething with some dark WIND that soughs and whines like a huge dying dog.
NANCY crosses to it, touching the pile of old, coal-dusted dirt
at its base. It looks almost like an old grave.
She turns suddenly, listening. Then, hearing nothing, she looks down.
NANCY’S POV as she picks up GLEN’s earphones.
WIDER as she suddenly drops them, staring at her fingers.
They’re dripping blood.
There’s another BEEP.
180C. INSERT ON NANCY’S WATCH — the COUNT-DOWN a blur of black digits 180C. counting down to zero. They’ve just crossed the ten minute warning.
180D. CLOSE ON NANCY’S FACE. She speaks into the night. 180D.
NANCY (quietly) Come out and show yourself, you bastard.
No sooner are these words off her lips than the huge bulk of FRED
KRUEGER lurches up behind her! The man is even more hideous hatless, his bald head and tormented face veiled in skeins of ruined flesh, his ragged teeth barred, the great spider of razor-blades flashing from his fingertips.
He leaps, but the girl leaps just as fast, a fierce jump, that sends her out over black space and down into a huge, dark
sump of blackness.
180E. EXT. THE HEAVENS. NIGHT. 180E.
CLOSE ANGLE ON NANCY as she curves like a swan though her apogee, and begins falling, diving, planing through black air, the wind ripping at her hair and eyes. Suddenly the complex,
glittering skein of light that is the San Fernando Valley seen from the air slides INTO FRAME, and we see she’s falling from high, high over the earth.
NANCY falls, falls in slow motion against the spinning lights, free as a sky diver freefalling — a giddy, acrophobic plunge.
181,182,183,184 OMIT OMIT 181,182,183,184
185. EXT. ELM STREET/NANCY’S HOUSE. NIGHT. 185.
NANCY crashes suddenly out of the night and into a hedge just outside her own front door, rolling out at its bottom scratched and bloodied. If she were in any normal reality she’d be a mass of broken bones — but somehow she’s able to claw her way up and
look at her watch once more.
INSERT. Just a few seconds from zero.
She staggers for her house’s front door — but a moment later KRUEGER crashes down atop her! NANCY struggles to her knees just as the man lunges with that godawful handful of blades. But
instead of running, she ducks inside the deadly grab and seizes him in a desperate bearhug!
The surprise move sends him pitching backwards, her still on him –and they fall into the jumble of torn-down trellis of roses beneath her window. Almost at that very second we HEAR the jarring, deafening RINGING of NANCY’s alarm clock!
SMASH CUT TO:
186. INT. NANCY’S BEDROOM. NIGHT. 186.
NANCY sprawls out of her bed onto the floor, twisting from the jabs of the already vanished thorns, briars and brush. Gasping, she takes a second to get her bearings
ANGLE ON THE BED as she recovers quick as she can, snatching up
the net, ready for an assault from any direction.
But the room is empty.
Hardly able to catch her breath, her hair tangled, her nightgown torn, she drops the net. She sits on the bed, turns on the
bedside lamp and re-examines her room. No one there but herself.
It’s a terrible blow, despite the fact that she’s safe. Her face is covered with tears, she’s shaking and breathless. She rattles her head in confusion and despair, realizing her own madness.
NANCY
I’m crazy after all…
At that very instant FRED KRUEGER leaps up from the far side of the bed with an EXPLOSIVE SHOUT of rage!
He lunges across the table for her, missing by inches as NANCY pitches backwards and scrambles for the window. But she’s
stopped by the bars.
KRUEGER, incredibly fast, regains his feet and leaps again — the girl wheels and shatters the coffeepot over his head. As he crashes backwards NANCY flings open the door of her room and dives through — only to rebound off someone on the other side —
187. INT. HALLWAY. NIGHT. 187.
MARGE, knocked flying by NANCY’S charge, hits the floor hard, knocking the wind out of herself. NANCY sees what she’s done, jumps over the body and slams the door and throws the new bolt home. Next instant she gingerly ties a string to the door’s knob, a string that trails down from the ceiling, attached to
something up there that’s still just barely out of sight.
Next instant she’s dragging her MOTHER towards the woman’s bedroom as fast as she can.
KRUEGER is already splintering the doorway behind her as NANCY dips and makes it into MARGE’s room, SLAMMING the DOOR behind her
and locking it in a flash.
The MANIAC breaks the bolt and rips open the door.
But the in the very act of doing this he of course unknowingly pulls the string attached to the outside doorknob with terrific force.
CLOSE ANGLE ON THE CEILING. The string jerks against a single-edged razor, which in turn cuts a tight wind of cord holding a heavy wedge of steel to the ceiling.
WIDER as the thing falls free, pivoting at the hinge at the far
end of its handle, and drives straight into KRUEGER’S groin with
a terrific blow. As he catapaults backwards with an incredulous shriek, the twenty pound sledge hammer swings back and reveals to camera just what it is!
ANGLE DOWN ON KRUEGER, clawwing his way up despite his agony, lurching and cursing forward like an enraged bull.
WIDER ANGLE IN THE HALLWAY as KRUEGER roars out — only to
immediately strike the length of WIRE strung across the hallway, catching it just above the thigh. He cartwheels head-over-heels and lands flat on his back!
Instantly the DOOR to NANCY’s MOTHER’s bedroom flies open and NANCY brings a brass lamp down over KRUEGER’s head with all her
might! It sounds like a line-drive caroming off a metal flagpole.
NANCY SLAMS the DOOR as KRUEGER struggles up, clutching his head.
Enraged, the huge man CRASHES against the door with terrific
