5FIGURES
3MAKERS
1997EARLIEST
2024LATEST
THE LEGEND
Fred Krueger was a child killer in Springwood, Ohio. When he walked free on a technicality, the parents of Elm Street took the law into their own hands, cornered him in his boiler room and burned him alive. That should have been the end of it. Instead Freddy came back where nobody could lock a door against him: in their children's dreams.
He is easy to recognise and impossible to escape. The face is burned raw, the red-and-green striped sweater is filthy, the brown fedora sits low, and on his right hand is the glove he made himself, with blades for fingers. Die in his dream and you die in your bed. His mother, Amanda Krueger, was a nun assaulted by the inmates of an asylum, and her son was known ever after as the bastard son of a hundred maniacs. He likes to play with his victims, and he likes a joke while he does it.
OFF THE PAGE
Wes Craven created Freddy Krueger for A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. He built him from several sources: a childhood bully, a disfigured man who frightened him as a boy, and Los Angeles Times reports of people who had died in their sleep. Robert Englund played Freddy through the original run of films, from 1984 to Freddy vs. Jason in 2003, and on television in Freddy's Nightmares. Jackie Earle Haley took over for the 2010 remake.
Dream Warriors, in 1987, gave Freddy his mother's story and leaned hard into the black humour that turned him into a horror star with a personality of his own. Englund's grin became as much a part of the character as the glove. The American Film Institute ranked him 40th among the villains on its 100 Years, 100 Heroes and Villains list. With [Jason Voorhees](/character/jason-voorhees) and [Michael Myers](/character/michael-myers) he stands at the centre of the American slasher film, and Freddy vs. Jason finally put two of them on the same screen.
IN SIXTH SCALE
Medicom Toy made a twelve-inch Freddy for its Real Action Heroes line, with the striped sweater, fedora and glove. The modern standard came from Sideshow in 2016: a sixth-scale Freddy in his Dream Warriors look, sold as a regular figure and an exclusive edition, made for the same horror line as Sideshow's Jason. More recently Why Studio took on the Freddy vs. Jason version, selling him on his own and in a boxed two-figure set with Jason.
The burns make or break a Freddy. Collectors look hard at the head sculpt: the texture of the scarring, the wet sheen of the paint, and whether Englund's smirk survives under the make-up. The glove matters nearly as much, and the best have blades that look and catch the light like real steel. The sweater should look worn and grimy, never costume-shop new. Freddy sits at the heart of the Horror shelf, and the A Nightmare on Elm Street page gathers the rest of the series.
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Why Studio
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Sideshow Collectibles
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Medicom Toy
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