[Mother of Fears] How Mommy Killed The Monster in A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984

Welcome to Mother of Fears – a monthly column that will explore the various roles that mothers play within the horror genre. Mothers are a staple feature in horror movies, and yet, their stories, motivations, representations, and relationships with their children are so varied and complex that we never feel like we’re watching the same story twice. Every month I will take a look at a different mother from the world of horror, explore their story, and look at how they fit into the broader representation of women in horror.

In slasher movies, parents are usually oddly missing from the picture. Often explained as out of town on business trips, or so chill about their kid’s whereabouts that they don’t bother to chase them down when they’re out all night, the focus of these stories is usually on the teenagers and their horrifying situation. 

However, in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), the story begins when our main characters are only young children, and the parents of Springwood, Ohio decide to take justice into their own hands and take down child serial killer Freddy Kruger. The only parent who is actually named as being involved with the revenge murder is Marge Thompson, mother of the film’s final girl, Nancy. 

Not only is Marge front and centre for the origin of our villain, but she’s also present in Nancy’s life throughout her entire ordeal, whether Nancy wants her to be or not. After all, protective parents can really start to get in the way when you’re trying to hunt down a serial killer in your dreams.

The first time we see Marge is in the police station after Tina’s murder. Nancy has been brought in partly for questioning, but also so her father, policeman Don Thompson, can speak to her about why she was there in the first place. To begin with, Marge seems like a normal parent, asking Nancy to stay home from school in order to stay safe. 

Marge is the perfect picture of a suburban housewife, with a crisp and clean outfit, and a perfectly put together hairdo. She’s ready first thing in the morning in the kitchen, ready to greet Nancy when she comes downstairs. At this point, she’s been able to block out the things that she and the other parents in the town did, but the further Nancy digs into Springwood’s past, the more Marge’s perfect mask starts to slip. 

As we follow Nancy dealing with the death of her friends, we see her trying to figure out who the man is that’s trying to kill her in her dreams. The kicker is that her mother already knows the secret and whether she’s trying to protect Nancy, or she simply wants to hide from her past, Marge is unwilling to share any information about Freddy Krueger with her daughter. 

Most slasher movies are a whodunnit, as the people involved try to figure out who the killer is. Usually, it’s someone they know, like a loved one or a friend, or it’s a dark secret from their past coming back to haunt them. A Nightmare on Elm Street is a whodunnit of a different kind because while Nancy is fighting for her life in her nightmares and desperately trying to piece together information about her stripey-clothed foe, she doesn’t know that the person she really needs to be talking to is sharing a house with her. 

It’s only when Nancy and her mother attend Rod’s funeral that things start to come to the surface pretty quickly. Nancy shares details of Freddy’s unique appearance, much to the dismay of Marge and Don. Nancy’s parents must have thought that any trace of Freddy disappeared on the night they killed him and that they were sparing Nancy any trauma by never sharing the secret with her. Of course, this means that Marge has to internalise her own trauma, unable to talk about it with anyone or process it effectively. Don and Marge’s marriage broke down, and she was left alone to care for Nancy, and as all the parents in Springwood seem unwilling to think back to that time or about what they did, Marge has to deal with the whole thing by herself.

Her way of coping is to try and provide as much protection for Nancy as possible, as well as turning to alcohol to help numb the pain of the situation. The last straw is when Marge takes Nancy to a sleep clinic for professional help, and she returns clutching Freddy’s hat in her hand. With the name Fred Krueger written inside, Nancy finally has the vital piece of information she needs, and forces her mother’s hand. 

It turns out that Marge took Freddy’s famous glove after the parents of Springwood killed him, and stashed it in her basement’s furnace. While lots of other parents were clearly involved, Marge is the only one willing to acknowledge it all these years later, and it seems that by choosing to keep Freddy’s favourite weapon, she has unintentionally made Nancy Freddy’s main focus. 

A vodka bottle soon becomes Marge’s main accessory, and her appearance becomes very dishevelled. Nancy comes home to find her mother still in her pyjamas, hair messy, smoking, and clearly drunk. However, she finally shares the whole truth of the situation with Nancy, hoping that knowing this will give her daughter the closure she needs to be able to sleep. While Marge recognises that this whole thing has something to do with Freddy, she can’t quite believe that he’s really hunting Nancy in her dreams. The only memory that Nancy and her friends seem to have about Freddy is the skipping rope song that can be heard throughout the film. While they’re aware of the lyrics, they don’t seem to know the origins of the rhyme. Marge probably thinks that Nancy has found out a little bit about Freddy through her friends and has driven herself into a sleepless wreck after two of her friends died. 

However, Marge finally telling her daughter all about Freddy gives Nancy  the knowledge she needs to know that everything she has seen up until this point is real, and that she’s the only one left who can take Freddy on and stop him for good. 

At this point, Marge is past the point of reasoning with and needs to do everything she can to make their house safe and protect Nancy from whatever threat is lurking out there. Even if she doesn’t believe Freddy is alive, two of Nancy’s friends have indeed died, and the town of Springwood is starting to feel a little less safe. The whole situation is no doubt dredging up memories of Freddy’s original killing spree all those years ago as well, and Marge is once again having to see her friends and neighbours lose their children. She goes into full protective mode and installs bars on every window in the house, even tearing down the trellis that Nancy’s boyfriend, Glen, typically uses to climb into Nancy’s bedroom. 

The main problem that Nancy faces with Marge is the fact she is so sure she is right in all the decisions she makes. She was sure all those years ago that killing Freddy and taking justice into her own hands was the best way to get revenge and protect her child. She never once considered that the repercussions could come back to ruin her life all these years later or about how her actions would affect Nancy. 

She is also confident that everything she’s doing now to protect Nancy is the best course of action. She refuses to listen to Nancy’s pleas that locking her in the house and forcing her to sleep is essentially signing her death warrant. Marge is primed to offer standard types of motherly protection, such as making warm milk or making sure Nancy doesn’t fall asleep in the tub, but she has no idea what to do when faced with a supernatural threat. This seems to cause her to double down on what she hopes will work, and then drink herself into a stupor so she doesn’t have to face the true consequences of her actions.

In the end, Nancy manages to take on Freddy by herself after tucking her mother into bed to sleep off her drunken state. By this point in the story, Nancy and Marge have almost swapped caregiving roles. Nancy is the only one who believes Freddy is a real threat, and so she leaves her mother safe in bed and goes to take on the monster herself. Much like her mother, Nancy is completely confident in her decisions and believes it’s the only course of action she can possibly take. Even though they’ve had their problems up until this point, both women say they love each other before Nancy heads off for a showdown.

While Nancy’s plan works, and she manages to pull Freddy into the real world so she can defeat him once and for all, Freddy uses the escape from his dream world to attack and kill Marge. He possibly did this just to hurt Nancy even more, but it’s also possible that because she seems to have become the face of the group of parents wanting revenge that Freddy decides to kill her as an act of vengeance. 

While Marge lost her life in the battle with Freddy, she managed to succeed in protecting her daughter, and eventually giving her the knowledge and power she needed to take on Freddy and win. Nancy was able to complete what her mother started all those years ago, and take Freddy’s power away from him once again. While Marge did it by stealing Freddy’s glove, Nancy does it by turning her back on Freddy, and showing him that he no longer has any power over Springwood. While Marge’s methods may not always have been ideal, she always did what she thought was best for her daughter. 

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