A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger has killed lots of people in horrifying ways on film, but Greta’s death in The Dream Child is the harshest. There are a lot of viable candidates for the title of Freddy’s harshest kill, beginning with the original film, in which Tina is violently sliced open and dragged along the ceiling, screaming all the while. There’s also the bizarre bit in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, in which Freddy turns Debbie into a cockroach and squishes her inside a roach motel.
It’s important to remember that despite how undeniably funny and charismatic Freddy can be in some of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, at heart, he’s one sadistic bastard that lives for the misery and pain of his victims. If there’s one thing Freddy isn’t capable of, it’s pity, as he never hesitates to torture and maim even the most pathetic prey he encounters.
Despite how disturbing the two aforementioned kills – and many others, Freddy has a high body count – are, the kill that proves just how savage Freddy is comes in 1989’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. The victim is a Springwood high school student named Greta Gibson (Erika Anderson).
Freddy Krueger’s Harshest Kill (Isn’t What You Think)
Greta, one of the people unlucky enough to be a friend of Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox) when Freddy returns in A Nightmare on Elm Street 5, is an aspiring model, although that seems to be less what she wants to do and more what her domineering mother wants. Greta’s mom is always on her case about her weight, and always needing to look her best when around anyone that could help ensure her future. Greta’s hatred of this relationship directly leads to her death at Freddy’s burnt hands.
During a boring dinner party thrown by her mother, Greta falls asleep, which obviously isn’t a good thing when Freddy is around. Sure enough, Chef Freddy Krueger soon arrives, and the dish he’s prepared is insanely cruel. Freddy proceeds to cut open Greta’s midsection, and feed her her own insides. From Greta’s perspective, her mother and the rest of the party guests are all laughing at her as Freddy forces her to eat more and more of her own guts. Freddy’s “you are what you eat” line is one of his usual pre-mortem jokes, but it doesn’t really take away from just how mean-spirited of a kill this is (even more so in A Nightmare on Elm Street 5‘s unrated cut). Eventually, Greta chokes on a piece of herself and dies, in the real world just appearing to choke on food. Damn Freddy, that’s cold blooded.
