In a Land of Passive Horror Movie Victims, Nancy Thompson Elevates Above the Pack.
Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare on Elm Street is smart, tough and refuses to be a victim. When BHM asked contributor Jennifer G. who her favorite horror movie heroine was, there was no question in her mind.
Written by BHM Contributor Jennifer G.
November 13, 2006
Hero: Nancy Thompson
Villain: Freddy Krueger
Movies: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), New Nightmare (1994)
Actor: Heather Langenkamp
When thinking of my favorite horror film heroine, images of Jaime Lee Curtis, a.k.a. Laurie Strode fighting off Michael Myers come to mind. So does the main character in Argento’s film, Suspiria , struggling to convince her peers that something is just not right at the ballet academy. Then, there are the more passive heroines, scores of them, getting attacked in showers, falling out windows and running through forests.
The heroine who stands out in my mind and one of my favorites, however, is Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare on Elm Street .
One thing that I always found genius about A Nightmare on Elm Street was the fact that Freddy Krueger could very well have been a figment of the teens’ imaginations, some monster collectively passed down through their parents’ guilt for killing him. Is Freddy real, or just a manifestation of family problems in the suburbs?
In A Nightmare on Elm Street II the new family living in Nancy’s old house talk about a girl whose mother committed suicide right in front of her, in their now living room. Later, the new teen in Nancy’s house, named Jesse, finds Nancy’s journal in the closet. Nancy talks about a man that comes to visit her at night, with razor-like claws and a burnt face. Jesse and his girlfriend Lisa interpret the diary as just a girl’s recordings of her bad dreams until Freddy makes his full- fledged appearance later in the film.
Nancy Thompson may not be in A Nightmare on Elm Street II, but the mythology of her character lives on and the question of her experience only becomes more intriguing when she returns in the later installments.
How many of us have faced our own private demons in dreams and how many of us have conquered them? Those demons could be anything from a drunken relative to guilt for misdeeds passed down from generation to generation. Nancy Thompson faces her demons head on and with gusto. Never the passive victim, she responds to the challenges of her environment with cunning and innovation.
At first, she questions the reality of Freddy, until she brings his hat back with her through her nightmare. This gives her the idea to booby-trap her house so she can bring Freddy out of her dreams and trap him. Angry that her friends are being killed off one by one, she never pities herself. Rather, she questions everyone around her to get to the bottom of these murders and her dreams. In the end, she knows what she must do - she must confront Freddy face to face in order to get her life and friends back. Whether she succeeds or not is up to question. Freddy seems to have the last laugh, pulling Nancy’s mom through a window and trapping her friends in a car. But Nancy returns later in the Elm Street movies to help other teens conquer their “demons.”
Nancy Thompson may not be the most beautiful movie heroine, or the most well-known, but she sure is the gutsiest and one that never lets her demons get her down. Questions or comments about Nancy Thompson? Discuss her on The Ossuary Forums!
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