Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare — Scripts

After killing all of Springwood’s children but one, Freddy Krueger seeks to escape the town’s borders and continue his murder spree of innocents in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. Two scripts are available here: an early draft by Rachel Talalay and Michael Almereyda, and the shooting draft by Rachel Talalay and Michael De Luca. The early draft appeared on the DVD released in 2000. Rachel Talalay and Michael De Luca’s draft is a website exclusive! It contains alternate scenes, extended dialogue, director notes, and more. Both scripts are in PDF format.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5’s disappointing box office results convinced New Line Cinema that maybe Freddy Krueger had run his course and it was time to put an end to the (in)famous villain.

Rachel Talalay, who worked on Nightmares 1–4 in a variety of capacities, convinced the studio to let her helm the project. “In terms of directing the film, I had decided this was something I really wanted to do,” explained Talalay. “I had watched enough directors, had been producing long enough, and had such passion for the project. So I wrote a story outline for Nightmare 6. Keeping in mind we would kill off Freddy, I wanted to create more story than what had been there originally—[especially] for what had been there for Nightmares 4 and 5 where I think they collapsed into convolution. I wanted more of a story but keeping the bible of what I knew worked with the Nightmare series. I was conscious with Nightmare 6 that I wanted to create more of a fun piece than what Nightmare 5 had been. I felt Nightmare 5 was very serious in its gothic horror elements.” (The Nightmare Series Encyclopedia)

Talalay initially teamed with screenwriter Michael Almereyda to develop a script. “Michael Almereyda wrote a script before Mike De Luca,” Talalay recalled. “Almereyda wrote the first script, using my outline. We hated it. De Luca saved the day. [Almereyda] wanted a credit on the movie, but the WGA ruled against him.” (Exclusive Interview)

Michael De Luca, a New Line executive at the time, wrote a script that was more in line with what Talalay envisioned. “It was actually during the time Twin Peaks came out and when Mike De Luca got involved with writing the script we found we were both in love with Twin Peaks,” added Talalay. “I had just worked with John Waters and produced Cry Baby which was a film full of cameos. Mike and I came up with the idea that we could probably use a lot of cameos in this film. There was the opportunity to create some really David Lynchian characters. A lot of the weirder ideas came out of a combination of watching Carnival of Souls and Twin Peaks. So, there’s a more off kilter side to my Nightmare.” (The Nightmare Series Encyclopedia)

“We had basically used up all the Springwood kids,” Talalay conceded. “We had gone to all of their funerals, seen them all cry and heard the Freddy backstory for the umpteenth time. I felt from an effects point of view that the audience had pretty much seen it all, and that a more adult script that concentrated on characters was the logical next step. [It was] an honest attempt to have a final closure, rather than simply have [Freddy] die.” (Fangoria)

“In the other films [the characters] vainly tried to kill [Freddy] on his territory,” commented Michael De Luca. “Basically, if you kill Freddy in a dream it’s good enough to be the end of that picture, but it only takes another person to dream him up and he’s reinvented. You see the reasons for the things he does [in Freddy’s Dead]. And it’s through those reasons [the characters] learn the way to kill him. In this film, they finally figure out the simplest solution, which is kind of hinted at in the first film, but it definitively takes care of him.” (Slash & Burn: The Freddy Krueger Story)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 6
Script by Rachel Talalay and Michael Almereyda

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
Script by Rachel Talalay and Michael De Luca
Third Draft, Revised: December 19, 1990

A Website Exclusive!
Special thanks to Rachel Talalay

Are you having trouble viewing any of the scripts on this page? Then click here.

Excerpts

A sad-faced little GIRL pushes her face up from the seat in front of him and turns to face John. Brown hair, red-ribbon pigtails. She startles him.

GIRL
(to John)
He’s gonna make you help him… because you’re the last.

John stares at her. He smiles weakly. Then signals the stewardess again.

JOHN
(to stewardess)
Listen, I really need to change this seat.

—

Maggie’s visibly unnerved by this revelation. Why are they dreaming about the same thing?

MAGGIE
The article, do you remember where you got it?

JOHN
No… it was about some woman, right?

MAGGIE
“Loretta Krueger.” She disappeared in ’67. They never found her.

JOHN
What was the name?

MAGGIE
Krueger.

John thinks, then makes an “I don’t know” gesture, frustrated.

—

INT. BASEMENT – NIGHT

Maggie comes downstairs and starts looking for Spencer and Carlos.

MAGGIE
Carlos?

A RUMBLING of BRICKS attracts Maggie’s attention to a walled up section of the basement. Cemented over, the cement has started to crack and the entire wall seems loose. She walks over to it. She HEARS a RUMBLING, and a SCRAPING from behind the wall.

MAGGIE
(calls out)
Carlos!
(beat, to herself)
Good thinking, the kid’s deaf.
(out loud)
Spencer!!!

She listens. No answer. Just SCRAPING. She sees a piece of twine on the floor, embedded in the cement. Maggie pulls it, and pulls it, and pulls it. The twine moves up until it’s ripped an outline of a door in the cement. The cement falls away, revealing a hidden room. She peers inside. Tacked to the walls are dozens of articles recounting Freddy’s infamous rampage. There are several, early models of Freddy’s glove littered about.

MAGGIE
This was Krueger’s house?

—

INT. FREDDY’S BRAIN

Maggie is a blur of light as she is literally injected into Freddy’s brain tissue. The inside of his skull is filled with bizarre, floating shadows. They surround Maggie as she falls through…

CUT TO:

INT. NIGHTMARE BOILER ROOM

Freddy grips his head in pain. We MOVE IN towards Freddy’s face as he SCREAMS.

FREDDY
Get outta MY HEAD!!!

INT. ELECTRICAL HALLWAY 0177

Maggie finds herself in a surreal, almost industrial hallway with several metal doors lining its walls and one at the far end. There are pipes and conduits hanging down, and CRACKLING arcs of electricity SHOOT between the pipes and the metal doors.

Maggie’s basically stuck in Freddy’s version of a synapse in his brain. Maggie ducks the dangerous electricity, unable to put her hands on any of the doors. Each time she goes for one, the electricity gets there first and ZAP! She ducks the electricity but it backs her towards the door at the end of the hall. She’s trapped there, with the advancing “lightning” coming closer and closer.