Kristen Parker was the main protagonist in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and plays a smaller role in its sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.
She has the unique ability to pull people into her dreams, and was a patient of therapist Dr. Neil Gordon and Nancy Thompson, whom she builds a sister-sister relationship. She is friends with Joey Crusel and Roland Kincaid, the girlfriend of Rick Johnson and the best-friend of Alice Johnson.
She was portrayed by actress Patricia Arquette in Nightmare on Elm Street 3, and by Tuesday Knight in Nightmare on Elm Street 4.
Kristen is the third victim of Freddy Krueger's fourth on-screen killing spree and the final Elm Street child in the original series.
Personality[]
Kristen appears to be quiet, understanding, warmhearted and idealistic, she is helpless at first due to the repeating attacks from Freddy Krueger, but she soon becomes stronger and able to defend herself as a Dream Warrior. She shares a lot of personality similarities with young Nancy, which eventually builds up to their sister-sister relationship.
In The Dream Master, She is less optimistic and more repulsive. Her personality changes even greater upon realising Freddy's return. She becomes very sentimental and often appears to be in distress.
History[]
Early Life[]
Kristen Parker was born in 1969 (according to her gravestone) to Elaine Parker and Kirk Parker, in Springwood Ohio. In 1968, her parents, along with the other parents of Elm Street, burned child murderer Freddy Krueger to death after the courts let him go free on a technicality. The parents established themselves on Elm Street and covered up all traces of Krueger. Kristen was born a year later, and was never told about Krueger or her parents' hand in his death. At a young age, Kristen began to demonstrate extraordinary abilities: she sometimes pulled her father into her dreams. Kirk always thought these experiences were normal dreams of his, and never suspected a thing. However, this strange ability of Kristen's stopped manifesting when her father left the family. Following this, Elaine began to frequently bring men home, and her relationship with Kristen could be described as rocky at best. Some time before the events detailed below, Elaine took away Kristen's credit cards.
Dream Warrior[]
At some point in 1987, seventeen-year-old Kristen began to have recurring nightmares involving Freddy Krueger and the old Elm Street House. Following his death, (as shown in Freddy's Dead-The Final Nightmare) three Dream Demons had allowed Krueger to ability haunt the dreams of his murderers' children. Any injuries that the so-called Elm Street Children suffered in these nightmares happened in the waking world. Recently, Freddy had been killing numerous children in their sleep, and Kristen was one of his latest targets. One night that year, Kristen stayed up very late, under the pretense that she was waiting for Elaine to come home, but in reality she was finishing her paper-mache model of the Elm Street House, trying to ward off sleep. When she eventually fell asleep, Kristen suffered a nightmare in which she entered the Elm Street House and was chased by Freddy before entering a room full of dead teenagers. Upon waking up, Kristen went into her bathroom only to discover she was still dreaming. Freddy, disguised as the sink faucet, cut her wrist with his razors. Elaine walked in just after and saw Kristin with a razor in her hand, making it appear as an attempted suicide. Kristin falls unconscious from the blood loss and shock. The next morning, Elaine took her daughter to Westin Hills Asylum to be treated for what Elaine thought was attention seeking. When the orderlies attempted to sedate Kristen, which would put her to sleep, the teenager went into a rage, cutting the wrist of Max, one of the orderlies. Kristen, in a state of shock, began to sing the jumprope nursery rhyme sung by neighborhood children based on the story of Freddy. Kristen only calmed down when a woman, Nancy, looking for a job at the hospital and herself an old adversary of Freddy Krueger, came in and finished the rhyme for her. Dr. Neil Gordon was amazed how Nancy was able to relate to Kristin and gain her trust, not knowing her true history with Freddy. The next day, a calmed Kristen attended a group session with the other troubled teens of the hospital, supervised by Nancy and Doctor Neil Gordon. The assembled teens were the last seven remaining Children of Elm Street, and had all ended up in the hospital as a result of surviving attacks from Freddy.
As the teenagers around her are systematically slaughtered, Kristen learns a horrifying secret; that her parents had torched Freddy after the courts had set him free on a technicality. Thanks to her parent's actions, Freddy was now after Kristen and the gang. Nancy also informed everybody that they all posess dream powers, supernatural abilities available to them in their dreams, with Kristen's being the ability to pull people in and out of dreams. She also has the dream ability of a professional gymnast, able to perform aerial attacks and flips to combat and dodge Freddy.
In the final battle, Nancy is stabbed by Freddy, leaving Kristen to try and help defeat Freddy Krueger, only to see Nancy get back to Freddy by stabbing him, saving Kristen before Nancy dies in her arms and Freddy is destroyed after Neil buried his bones, glowing Freddy gold. The team is successful in their efforts, although there are only three of the Elm Street Children left.
She later attends Nancy's funeral.
Dream Master[]
Kristen is now out of Westin Hills, and enjoying life with her boyfriend Rick Johnson and his sister Alice. She goes to Springwood High again with her surviving friends from Elm Street 3, Kincaid and Joey. Still paranoid that Freddy isn't completely dead, Kristen still goes into her dreams to make sure he is still gone, even pulling Kincaid and Joey into her dreams for help. Unfortunately, her suspicions aren't completely unfounded as Freddy is reanimated and begins to slaughter her friends again. After coming to the conclusion that he killed Kincaid and Joey and barely surviving her recent encounter with him, Kristen tells her friends about Freddy and fears that his mayhem won't stop.
Death[]
Kristen is drugged by her mother at dinner, who has noticed that Kristen quit sleeping again. Dizzy and close to passing out, Kristen tries to call Alice Johnson for help before falling asleep. Kristen remembers Alice's advice about controlling her dreams and dreaming into a good place and she ends up on a beach. Freddy invades her dream, sinking her through the sand and sending her into the boiler room of 1428 Elm Street.
Freddy then fights Kristen and forces her to call Alice into her dreams in order to have someone new, bring him victims. Kristen charges Freddy in order to protect Alice from him but is grabbed by Freddy and thrown into the fiery furnace, slowly burning her to death. Before she dies, though, Kristen passes her power to pull people into dreams to Alice. Before the power could reach Alice, it passed through Freddy first taking a part of himself with it. Alice could only watch in horror as Freddy absorbs Kristen's soul. In reality, Kristen's room was ignited in flames.
After Death []
The tombstones seen in the cemetery immediately after Kristen's death reveal she was buried in the row immediately in front of the graves of Donald Thompson, Roland Kincaid, Nancy Thompson and Joey Krusel. Nancy's grave is immediately behind Kristen's, whilst Roland Kincaid's grave is next to Kristen's in the same row. The inscription on her stone reads 'Kristen Parker Beloved Daughter 1969 - ' with the year of her death obscured.
During several points after the film, Kristen is brought up several times by Alice and Rick. Alice tells Rick that she can feel Kristen's presence within her. In Rick's nightmare, Kristen is looking in the mirror asking Rick to make her laugh. Kristen immediately turns around and laughs at Rick as her face is now burnt. When Alice is sucked into the movie screen, she sees that several audience members clapping, are her deceased friends, among them is Kristen.
Kristen's soul is freed along with those of Freddy's other victims when Alice remembers an old nursery rhyme she learned when she was a child, and turns Freddy's own reflection back on him allowing the collected souls within him to revolt and literally tear him apart before escaping.
Dream Power[]
Kristen has the unique ability to bring people into her dreams and gymnastics. They manifested when she was younger, when she would bring her father into her dreams. Her father would believe that they were his dreams. Once her parents divorced, her power lied dormant, only to resurface when she calls out for Nancy. She can only pull people into her dreams as long as the person(s) is asleep. However, only Kristen can pull people out of her dreams, which can become problematic if she is sedated. Only by managing to wake herself up, can she free those in her dreams, otherwise the result will be the person(s) unable to get out, potentially living in her nightmare.
Like the other Dream Warriors, she too has a dream power which is that of a professional gymnast and to pull people, animals, and things into the dream world. With this power, she has amazing speed and agility such as flipping off walls and landing perfectly and can perform aerial attacks such as flip kicks. Once she died, this ability, along with her ability to pull people into her dreams and smoking habit went to her best friend Alice Johnson.
Other Appearances[]
The Innovation comic series detailing Alice's 3rd adventure in Springwood, Kristen is one of the mentioned friends while Alice is driving through the entrance to Springwood, not wanting to go back.
In the Wildstorm comics of Ash vs. Freddy vs. Jason, Kristen is mentioned by Alice during her final confrontation with Freddy. Kristen is also one of the resurrected spirits of Freddy's victims and can be seen fighting against the hordes of undead skeletons.
Kristen is a playable character in A Nightmare On Elm Street (1989 DOS/C64 Video Game) alongside the other Dream Warriors Nancy, Kincaid, Will and Taryn. She has a power kick ability.
Trivia[]
- Kristen's name in early drafts was Kirsten.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 was Patricia Arquette's first film.
- Actress Tuesday Knight, who portrayed Kristen in Nightmare on Elm Street 4, performed the opening song called "Nightmare".
- According to Internet Movie Database, actress Patricia Arquette could not reprise her role as Kristen as she was pregnant during filming.
- She is the first, and the only Nightmare heroine who was portrayed by two actresses.
- In The Dream Master, her tombstone mentions she was born in 1969, however, according to the timeline of the series, she was more likely to be born in 1971 or even later. It's possibly one of Nightmare on Elm Street 4's movie mistakes.
- Strangely in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Kristen is shown to smoke, while in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, she showed no interest in smoking, it is possible that she saw it as a stress reliver, and later, Alice pulls out a cigarette and before lighting it, remembers that she doesn't smoke, this is one of the traits she picked up from absorbing Kristen's power.
- Kristen is the only Nightmare heroine, who doesn't see Freddy outside of dreams as Nancy, Maggie, Lori and Nancy (remake) do. Alice only saw Freddy's reflection in a fountain while awake.
- In the original script and possibly a deleted scene, Kristen's death by fire is foreshadowed. On the same night in which Kincaid and Joey are murdered, Kristen falls asleep and encounters Freddy who chases her down a narrow passageway between the walls of his house. She tries to summon Kincaid and Joey but to no avail, unaware that Freddy already got to them. Before he can kill her, her hand bursts into flames and she wakes up, realizing that her cigarette had started a small fire.
Quotes[]
- "We have matching luggage again...The bags under your eyes. Nightmares?" (To Alice)
- "God, I hate dreaming."
- "I told you, you can't help me. This isn't a normal nightmare... I'm history."
- "Well, Mom, when two of your friends die in the same day, let me know what it does to your appetite."
- "Sorry!? Sorry that you and your tennis pals torched this guy and now he's after me? In case you haven't been keeping score, it's HIS fucking banquet! And I'm the last course!"
- "No mother. You just murdered me. Take that to your goddamn therapy!"
- "Leave her alone, you son of a bitch!"