Nancy Thompson (A Nightmare On Elm Street) - Reception

Reception

In his book Horror films of the 1980s, John Kenneth Muir references Nancy Thompson, stating the following:

"As written by Craven and performed by Langenkamp, Nancy is a rarity in the horror genre: an intelligent and insightful youth who is capable of connecting the important things in her life. Only Nancy can recognize the link between worlds for what it is, and look below the surface of reality because she is already trained to do so, through family history. Nancy is prepared in her battle with Freddy because, one senses, she has already detected the dark truth lurking beneath the affluent surface of Elm Street. She has suffered her parent's divorce, her father's absence, and her mother's alcoholism...Nancy is even compared explicitly to Hamlet...in that Hamlet stamps out the lies of his mother, an act which Nancy will repeat during the course of the film..."

"So the key to defeating her Freddy...is something that goes against Nancy's most prominent characteristic.She must turn her back on the dream demon. She must take back all the energy she gave him...This is Nancy's crisis: knowing when to dig for truth and confront the lies, and when to turn her back on the corruption and lies she has discovered..."

"The final girl must actively take steps to protect herself and vanquish evil. For example, Nancy buys a survivalist, self-defense manual and in the conclusion of Elm Street, baits Freddy into chasing her. She then runs him through a punishing course of booby traps...Unlike Laurie, whom Halloween depicts as a victim of unchangeable 'fate,' someone who must mount a defense on the fly, Nancy is armed for battle and ready to rock."

In his book Horror Movie Freak, Don Sumner (2010) also notes how Nancy was a different "final girl" despite following the rules of avoiding sex, drugs, and juvenile behavior. He mentions that "the stereotypes of the victimized female screaming in terror and hiding in the closet do not apply to Nancy as she sets out to trap Freddy and attack him with all of the vigor of a killer herself. Her active role and anti-victim posture broke the mold of the horror heroine..." In her book Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion, and Psychology, Kelly Bulkeley compares Nancy Thompson to Dorothy Gale in Wizard of Oz in that "Nancy ultimately finds in her dreams the deep resources of personal strength to overcome an evil that the adult social world had failed to defeat." Nancy's death in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is even given some interpretation. In her book Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny, Barbara Creed notes that as "Nancy embraces her father's/Freddy's body and tells him that she has always loved him she is torn apart by his finger-blades. The point is that it is dangerous for children to want the love of their parents--disappointment, even death, is the final result."

The documentary The Making of Nightmare on Elm Street features a segment concerning the casting of Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson. According to Sara Risher, Langenkamp was chosen because Wes Craven wanted a "young girl who was smart-looking, obviously pretty, vulnerable, but clearly had a good head on her shoulders." Langenkamp herself said that she identified with Nancy Thompson the most, stating that Nancy "had a great sense that she could solve problems without anybody's help at all. I try to be like her, actually." In the same documentary, Langenkamp also characterizes Nancy as the "good girl" whereas the Tina Gray character is contrasted as giving the feeling that "she wasn't going to make it."

In her documentary I Am Nancy, Heather Langenkamp laments how Freddy Krueger became an iconic character while Nancy Thompson disappeared into the background. To explore why this phenomenon occurred, Langenkamp visits six horror conventions, and tries to discern why the villain became the celebrated figure. After interviewing several attendees, Langenkamp learns that while Nancy Thompson's impact on fans is subtle, she still represents strength and intelligence in the hearts and minds of many. For the advertising campaign, campaign buttons were given out that displayed "I am Nancy". A Facebook page allowed Nancy fans to share their artwork, photographs, and sentiments about the character. The film won a Best Editing Award at the Amsterdam Film Festival. In addition to interviewing Nancy fans, the documentary also features interviews with Wes Craven, Robert Englund and Jessica Craven (Wes Craven's daughter). Langenkamp learned from Craven that:

"I never knew it but now that I’ve talked to him about it, he always thought that Nancy was the centre of his story. It wasn’t this typical horror movie where you’re going to kill off everybody. He knew that she was the heart and soul of Nightmare On Elm Street so I think it made a lot of sense for him to bring her back, but I didn’t know all of this until recently, after conducting my own interviews with him and asking him myself..."

When developing her documentary, Langenkamp also learned that Nancy Thompson is considered a gay icon. Although Nancy Thompson is heterosexual, Langenkamp shared her theories of why gay and lesbian audience members would be drawn to the character:

"I read a lot of these PhD thesis’ that talk about the final girl, sexuality and sexuality of horror… they’re kind of on to something but I don’t know if they’re onto the right thing. One theory goes that Nancy is not a particularly feminine hero; she’s not androgynous but she’s not scarily beautiful and as a result she can easily identified by both men and women and I don’t know if that’s the key to her popularity..."

"I think that people like these movies at a time in their lives when they’re also understanding who they are sexually so it makes sense that they make connection and they see things in these movies that express who they are...For the gay population out there, I’m not sure if its just a great movie or there is something to it that gives a gay man or woman a sense of strength maybe...that watching inspirational characters helps you be true to yourself and find the strength you need to do whatever you need to do..."

Even today, Nancy Thompson remains integral to the Nightmare on Elm Street mythos. In the short film "KRUEGER (A tale from Elm Street)", produced by Chris .R. Notarile and Blinky Productions, it is established why Freddy Krueger was so fixated on Nancy Thompson. The film revolves around Donald Thompson interrogating Freddy Krueger for the murders he has committed. Nancy becomes an unconventional bargaining tool that seals Donald Thompson's doom.