Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (also known as A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: The Final Nightmare) is a 1991 American slasher film and the sixth film in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. It is a sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and was originally intended to be the final installment of the series; Wes Craven's New Nightmare was released three years later but takes place outside the series canon. A canonical crossover/sequel, Freddy vs. Jason, was released in 2003. This was New Line Cinema's first 3D film release.
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare was released on September 13, 1991, and grossed $34.9 million in the US on a budget of $9–11 million, surpassing its predecessor's gross. It was panned by critics upon release.
The film stars Lisa Zane, Yaphet Kotto, Breckin Meyer, Shon Greenblatt, Ricky Dean Logan, Lezlie Deane, Tobe Sexton, and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger in his sixth portrayal. Additionally, several well-known actors make cameo appearances, including: Johnny Depp (whose screen debut was in the original film), Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold, and Alice Cooper. Iggy Pop sings the title song, which plays during the end credits over a montage of scenes from the previous films in the series.
Plot[]
Set "ten years from now", Freddy Krueger has returned and killed nearly every child and teenager in the town of Springwood, Ohio. The only surviving teenager, John Doe, is confronted by Freddy in a dream. John wakes up just outside the Springwood city limits but, due to a head injury, does not remember who he is or why he is there.
At a shelter for troubled youth, three of the residents—Spencer Lewis, an affluent stoner who is resisting his dad's attempts to get him to conform; Carlos Rodriguez, a troubled kid who was physically abused by his mother to the point of becoming deaf in one ear; and Tracy Swan, a tough girl who was sexually abused by her father—plot to run away to California. The police find John and take him to the shelter, where he becomes a patient of Maggie Burroughs. Maggie notices a newspaper clipping from Springwood in John's pocket. To attempt to cure John's amnesia, she plans a road trip to Springwood. In an attempt to run away, Tracy, Carlos, and Spencer stow away in the van, but they are discovered when John has a hallucination and almost wrecks the van just outside Springwood.
Tracy, Spencer, and Carlos attempt to leave Springwood but not before stopping to rest at the abandoned 1428 Elm Street. John and Maggie visit the Springwood orphanage and discover that Freddy had a child. John believes he is that child, because Freddy allowed him to live. Back on Elm Street, Carlos and Spencer fall asleep and are killed by Freddy. Tracy is almost killed, but is awakened by Maggie. John, who went into the dream world with Tracy to try to help Spencer, is still asleep. Maggie and Tracy take John back to the shelter. On their way back, Krueger attacks John in his dream. Before killing John, Krueger reveals that his child is a girl; as John dies, he tells this to Maggie. Tracy and Maggie return to the shelter, but they find that no one remembers John, Spencer, or Carlos except for Doc, who has learned to control his dreams. Maggie finds her adoption papers and realizes that she is Freddy's daughter. Her birth name was Katherine Krueger, but her name was changed to Maggie Burroughs when her father was arrested and subsequently murdered.
Doc discovers that Freddy's power comes from dream demons who continually revive him, and that Freddy can be killed if he is pulled into the real world. Maggie decides that she will be the one to enter Freddy's mind and pull him into the real world. Once in the dream world, she puts on a pair of 3D glasses and enters Freddy's mind. In his mind, she learns that Freddy was teased as a child, was abused by his foster father, inflicted self-abuse as a teenager, and murdered his wife. Freddy was given the power to become immortal by fiery demons. Maggie struggles to pull Freddy into the real world but eventually succeeds.
Maggie and Freddy end up in hand-to-hand combat against one another; she uses several weapons confiscated from patients at the shelter. Enraged by the knowledge of what he has done, Maggie tears off Freddy's clawed glove and stabs him through the stomach with it, embedding the glove's claws into a steel support beam and leaving Freddy suspended above the ground. Tracy tosses Maggie a pipe bomb which she throws into Freddy's chest. The three dream demons, unable to revive him in the real world, fly out of Freddy after the pipe bomb kills him. Tracy, Doc and Maggie rejoice as the latter triumphantly declares "Freddy’s dead."