Freddy Says RELAX

Confession: I absolutely hate scary movies.

I realize that this is, to say the least, an extremely unpopular opinion. In today's zombie-obsessed, blood-and-gore-loving culture, it's much more likely to find 100 people who not only search out scary movies but love every minute of them than one pseudo-adult cowering in a corner just waiting for the tamest of scary movies to be over with. I have been encouraged by many good-intending friends to try to build up some kind of scare immunity by immersing myself  in American Horror Story (no thanks), or The Walking Dead (double no thanks) or Twilight (which, coincidentally, was terrifying but probably not in the way that the suggester had intended). I just can't do it. A love affair with all things terrifying just isn't in the cards for me. Not since Freddy ruined it all.

I should probably back up a bit.

The year is 1988 and it's some time right around Halloween. I am four years old and have just been informed by my babysitter that she forgot her copy of "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" that she meant to bring with her (I should say "allegedly" forgot because frankly, I have my doubts). To make us happy (i.e. make us stop complaining incessantly), the babysitter in question tells us that she has another movie with her, one that I've never heard of, but judging by my brother's ecstatic reaction is something that I should at least pretend to want to see. That movie is Nightmare on Elm Street.

For those of you who have never seen the movie, the basic premise is that children are stalked and killed in their dreams by the ultimate scary guy Freddy Krueger. Now, I realize that back in 1988 there weren't the same set-in-stone, Oprah-approved guidelines for what kids should and shouldn't watch that we have today, but come on. Regardless of the times, it should be obvious that showing a four-year-old Nightmare on Elm Street will not end well for anyone. Children. Being Killed. In their sleep. It's basically every kid's worse nightmare (no pun intended) and it was definitely a far cry from the Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers that my young, innocent eyes were used to.  

Needless to say, the babysitter was fired and never seen or heard from again, but the damage was already done. For weeks on end, I'd wake up screaming, sweaty and terrified that I was going to be killed in my sleep (assuming I had allowed myself to fall asleep at all). It was awful. Now many years later as a parent myself, I can now fully appreciate the hell that my mom must have been going through trying to coax me to sleep and convince me that I didn't need to be curled into a shaking ball at the end of her bed every night. Luckily for me (and her, probably), I had a mom with a plan.

Quick question: Does anyone remember mall tours? If you're too young to remember (or were too cool to care at the time), a mall tour was a somewhat clever marketing tool of the 80's/early 90's where a few A-list and B-list celebrities would tour the malls of major cities (because malls used to be cool back in the day as odd as that seems now) promoting whatever they were working on at the time. Picture the cast of Saved By The Bell signing autographs outside of Sears next to Orange Julius and you'll get the idea. Mall tours were actually pretty cheesy and completely unnatural, but we didn't have Twitter back then so we had to take what we could get. Anyway, since we were living in Santa Fe at the time and people always seem to want to to go Santa Fe for some reason (I'll leave my Santa Fe hating at that, but I could honestly write an entire blog on how overrated it is. Sorry, Santa Fe), my mom caught wind that some of the cast of Nightmare on Elm Street would be appearing at a mall near us, including Robert Englund AKA Mr. Freddy himself. And she decided that if she couldn't convince me that he was just a normal guy in make-up, she'd let him convince me instead.

Retrospectively, this was a great lesson in facing your fears boldly and head-on. But at the time, I honestly thought my mom was trying to have me killed. I BEGGED her not to take me, pleaded, bargained (to the best of my limited four-year-old abilities), but my mom refused to budge. She was just as sick of the nightmares and constant feeling of terror as I was and probably just really wanted to get a decent night's sleep. I was going whether I wanted to go or not. I was meeting Freddy Krueger.

The big day arrived and after prying me (literally) from the car, we made our way inside the mall. Naturally, it was packed with fans, and there were fedoras and stripped sweaters as far as the eye could see. I distinctly remember the fact that I couldn't breathe. My heart pounded against my rib cage so hard I was half-expecting it to pop out of my body. On top of what I would later realize was a panic attack, I felt a blind, raging hatred for my mom at that moment, still not convinced that she was trying to help me and not have me killed. I was so panicked that it took me awhile to realize that we had stopped walking and were standing in front of youngish, perfectly normal looking guy with a sharpie poised over a stack of Freddy pictures ready to sign for fans. "Who's this guy?" I wondered, my eyes still scanning over the crowds, expecting my untimely demise at the hands (claws, really) of a psychopath, not knowing what random, smiling dude at a card table had to do with anything. My mom introduced us and quickly explained the situation basically telling Mr. Englund that neither of us had had a good night's sleep in weeks due to my crippling fear of Freddy. The incredibly nice and not at all scary Mr. Englund spent about 15 minutes explaining to me that he was an actor playing a part. His scary Freddy face was nothing more than make-up and the premise of children being stalked and murdered in their dreams was just a creative, well-told story. No more, no less. It was a defining moment for me in terms of separating fantasy from reality. I have a feeling that he probably had to have this kind of chat with a lot of terrified children over the span of his career, and although I don't remember everything he said, I remember that he was sweet, friendly and gracious. In other words, about as far from Freddy Krueger as a person can get.

Needless to say, everyone in my house had a great night's sleep that night. Finally.

Although meeting Robert Englund was a really cool moment in my life and I learned a lot about acting, crazy, creative make-up and storytelling, the aftermath of Nightmare on Elm Street has continued to haunt me in ways. I can cringe my way through a scary movie, but I don't particularly like it (okay, fine. I hate it). The experience also made me much more strict about what I find appropriate or inappropriate for my kids to watch and a real stickler for sensible, responsible babysitters.

And I don't think it's any coincidence that I've always hated fedoras.

Freddy Krueger: A face a mother couldn't even love.