An Imaginary Friend on Elm Street
28/08/25
My love for A Nightmare on Elm Street has seemingly been lifelong, starting at an inappropriately young age. I can recall my fandom going back to before I reached double figures in terms of age. The main protagonist of this film (and its sequels) was the dream dwelling spirit of a known child murderer and would resume his atrocities after being burned alive by angered parents. But in their dreams! What primary school age kid could possibly think this nasty character was cool?
Obviously, me. Being a very unknowing and naive child of probably about 6 years old when he first became aware of Freddy Krueger, this kid thought Freddy was a celebrity on the same level of other mega stars The Fonz and James Bond (these being the other famous people, well, characters, that I admired as a young boy). I cannot recall when I first became aware of the Springwood Slasher, however I can recall being such a fan of this horror villain when I was perhaps about 8 years old that a typical trip to the local high street with my father would show how much of a fan I really was so soon. In hindsight I am unnerved by what happened.
It was a Saturday morning and I was excitedly inside the Stockton branch of WH Smith (now closed, of course). This was probably late 1991 or early 1992, back when they had a proper section of the store dedicated to VHS. I’m not just talking about a few shelves here, I mean the back wall was filled with various video tapes and off to one side a little counter that had a poster on it which featured all the BBFC certificates on it and what they meant (that 18 cert meant INSANE STUFF – ADULTS ONLY, right?) as well as a lanky, gormless and spotty teenage lad working a Saturday job behind the counter.
I always went there straight away when Dad would go to WH Smith. I would invariable pester that same spotty teen with some inane questions (Do you get to watch all the tapes yourself? Is it true you won’t stock any movies that have boobies in them?). After several minutes of this I would clock my dad going to the cashier counter near the front (always to pay for MCN) and I would then slowly walk along the wall running the whole length of the store that contained many magazines and newspapers.
That’s when I saw something I had to have.
I saw 'him' looking at me from one of the magazine shelves. He was snarling, looking like pure evil. It was Freddy Krueger. My warped idea of a mega celebrity. He was on the front cover of a comic, further convincing me that it was okay to think he's cool as 'comics are for kids and I'm a kid!' (how naïve I was). I made a beeline to it straight away and picked it up. I wanted it, I had to have it. I was a Krueger fan after all!
My dad rarely bought me anything I would pester him for during these trips, however on this occasion he stunned me by taking the comic out of my hand after I had pleaded my case for why I should why it. He gave it a brief glance, dropped it on top of the MCN on the counter and said “That too.” to the fella behind the till. YES! Although this man, my father, was clearly buying this for a child the bloke on the till didn't seem to give a toss and rang up the offending item.
I'll be honest, I can't for the life of me recall how I got home that day. I must have walked along the high street with my old man as I stared with joy at the cover of that comic, no doubt unknowingly walking into the path of oncoming traffic with my father grabbing me by the scruff of my t shirt collar at the last second. All I can remember is being in my bedroom and staring with some fascination at the gory artwork within the comic. I'm pretty sure it showed Freddy stalking some woman in a back alley and slashing off her knockers. Even as an 8 year old I could not believe he would mistreat boobies in such a manner. I still can't!
Due to being undiagnosed as severely dyslexic and not given a lot of help at primary school despite noticeable learning difficulties, I was not really capable of reading the words in the speech bubbles. Not that this stopped me from staring at the text and making up what it said. This was perhaps more far fetched than what was actually written considering I was nowhere near aware of Freddy's true character traits. I perhaps imagined he was killing someone because having knives for fingers meant he had no other option but to take this up as a pastime?
Then something happened that should have taken place when I first saw this comic. I became scared. I cannot remember why but seeing a photo of a snarling Freddy on the cover started to really frighten me. Having it in my bedroom now started to affect my sleep as I was paranoid that Krueger was somehow watching me from the front cover. Like any right minded horror obsessed boy I decided that to stop this I would hide it in the family home's living room. Of course.
First place was the paper rack, stashing it in there I hoped that my mother would chuck it out with the old newspapers like usual after a few days. Only this didn't happen. I came home from school one day and the Freddy comic was back in my bedroom! I like to think she was sorting out the newspapers and found it, deciding that her little boy must have misplaced his inappropriate comic book and returned it to my room (instead of questioning how the hell I had gotten it like any other mother would have). Whatever the reason, I knew my plan of hiding it was shit. So what did I do? I just hid it again, only this time 'really, really better' than before.
This involved me simply going back to the living room and placing the offending item under the sofa. Brilliant, right? If I couldn't stand to look at it now and mam wouldn't chuck it (why didn't I just put it in the bin? I'll never know) I thought slipping it under something as big and, in my young mind, unlikely to be moved as the sofa was 100% the end of my troubles. I easily slid it under the pale blue three seater and swaggered off to go play on my Game Boy until my eyes ached. 'No one will ever look under there, it is impossible to lift a sofa to look under it' was my naïve thought process.
As you may have anticipated, I was proven wrong rather quickly. The very next day I came into the living room after another gruelling day of learning stuff at primary school only to be terrified at the sight of Freddy's eyes glaring at me from the top of the paper rack! But, how?! Putting it under the sofa was as good as throwing it into a bottomless hole. Obviously I hadn't taken into consideration that the bloody thing could be moved around on the floor, this having happened as my mother had nudged aside some of the furniture to vacuum beneath it better when I was out of the house. Instead of taking the comic back to my bed room like last time she had simply stuffed it into the paper rack which was usually down the right-hand side of the sofa. The side where I had stashed it.
All out of ideas, still having not thought of PUTTING-IT-IN-THE-BIN, I stuffed the thing under the three seater again. Looking back what was I honestly expecting to happen? The magazine reappeared in its new home of the paper rack a few days later. I hid it again. It was back in the rack within days yet again. I began to fear going into the living room in the days following yet another hide-the-scary-comic session. This may be my memory playing tricks on me but I think this went on for weeks.
Ultimately my mam asked me if I was 'finished' with the magazine as it had been in that paper rack and 'ended up' under the sofa loads; surely I had finished looking at it? Note she questioned if I stopped 'looking at it' because she rightly guessed my dyslexia would put me off reading it and I would no doubt stare at the lurid artwork. I would 'look' at magazines featuring nude women a lot when I was a teen, but that's a different story. Anyway, she wanted to know if she could throw it out as she was sick of the sight of the thing! I played shocked by this but it was secretly what I wanted. Throw it out, throw it out, throw it out! The Elm Street comic was binned and I soon forgot about it and went back to being a Freddy fan like all good school kids...
Decades later, in 2025, I've tried finding the issue of that comic in question. A Google search makes me believe it was an issue of Nightmares on Elm Street; a 6 issue comic of the franchise that ran from September 1991 till July 1992. That would match up with my memories of the time that it happened and how old I was. I can't find an issue with the image that terrified me on the cover however that's probably due to it being a near 35 year old memory distorted with time.
My fandom of Freddy would see a couple more strange events during my childhood, but that's for later.
Dead Ringers: Double the Unexpected
When David Cronenberg found worldwide success in 1986 with his explicit body horror remake of The Fly, you would be forgiven for thinking he would stick to this proven path for his next feature.
But David Cronenberg didn't, what he did next was unexpectedly different to The Fly. DEAD RINGERS took some by surprise. The Fly was a visceral, gooey body horror that used some impressive special effects to achieve the desired result. DEAD RINGERS is a stern body horror that hints at the imperfections and faults of the mind as well as the impact it has on the body.
DEAD RINGERS was released in the United States on September 23rd 1988 by 20th Century Fox. The story follows identical twin brothers Beverly and Elliot Mantle (both played by Jeremy Irons), highly respected gynaecologists in Toronto, Canada. They may be identical in a physical sense, mentally they are very different. Elliot is a womaniser, arrogant and abuses drugs. Beverly seems introvert and overpowered by his twin.
Yet they both abuse their trusted positions: Elliot starts sexual flings with patients at their clinic, only to 'pass them on' to Beverly. Somewhat immorally they do not tell the women about the switch, Beverly simply pretends to be his brother. He struggles to be someone he is not, despite their identical appearances. The pressure and consequences of this pretence become too much and mentally unravels.
Cronenberg's use of the twins job is maybe an allegory for the story. As gynaecologists they examine women internally in efforts to detect anything wrong. The patients may appear on the surface to be healthy, inside it might be different. This is the fate of Beverly. Throughout much of DEAD RINGERS he looks, acts and does his job the same. When the inner struggle with various emotions, traumas and drug abuse take their toll on his mental state he cannot cope.
His inner demons reach out from the brain and cause physical problems: his work, his relationships and dependency all suffer. At one point he says the patients “...they're normal on the outside, but not on the inside”, it's a statement that can be easily made about Beverly and Cronenberg's message. The body horror in DEAD RINGERS is all about the inside of the human.
This could ring true today. Now is an age where some people live out their lives on social media, posting selfies and living seemingly ideal lives. Diagnoses of depression, mental health issues and anxiety are increasing despite many living an apparent personal utopia. Studies have been carried out that link the two together, it is 'keeping up with the Joneses' on a cyber scale. Externally everything appears great, internally things are different. DEAD RINGERS is tackling a similar subject.
It is also a story about the bond twins have, told in an extraordinary manner. The attachment and devotion the twins have one for another is something many people may never experience in their lives. Eli and Bev have a bond that, strained on occasion, is unbreakable. Cronenberg touches upon it throughout the runtime with scenes where the Mantles discuss the first set of Siamese twins and Beverly has a nightmare he and Elliot are hideously conjoined at the stomach.
Not even love interest Claire (Genevieve Bujold) can match this brotherly love. She starts off as a positive for Bev only to add to his woes as he cannot cope with the guilt of having room in his heart for someone other than his brother. She features in that same conjoined dream, the role she plays in it reveals Bev's fears about her. One line in DEAD RINGERS sums up his feelings of losing the bond when Elliot asks Bev why he is crying, his answer is “Separation can be a terrifying thing.”
DEAD RINGERS shows the bond as something akin to an addiction, too, and all the negatives that would entail. The relationship with Claire is an effort to break the habit, only Bev cannot go cold turkey. The more he is distressed the more he feeds the habit. The Mantle Twins have actual substance abuse problems, the metaphor extends to more than one level.
Cronenberg comes dangerous close to unleashing the full power the body horror genre can have. As Bev's issues impair his judgement and reflects in his actions he horrifyingly has special gynaecology instruments created. These are to be used on the 'mutant' women he examines and the contraptions are sinister in their design and chilling due to their intended use. Cronenberg teases Bev using them, stopping short of the visceral visuals that could have been.
The special bond of twins has recently been explored in the Soska Twins stunning body modification/horror American Mary. The sister directors appear as twins that want left arms exchanged so they will literally be apart of each other. Even when not in the same room they will never truly be apart
The inspiration for the feature was taken from the fate of real life twin gynaecologists Cyril and Stewart Marcus. In July 1975 it is believed both died of drug overdoses in their New York apartment. They were 45.
DEAD RINGERS was unexpected for its style and message. But, when David Cronenberg is involved the unexpected should have been expected.
