A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 (1989) vs. Stranger Things Season 5 parallels
First of all, I'm not supposed to be here.
I haven't posted anything on Tumblr for 12 years (yes, my last post was made in August 2014, that's crazy). BUT I noticed something and now I just have to share.
I originally posted this theory on Reddit, but the community is private there, so bringing it out here too.
So I was rewatching the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies to take a bit of a break from Conformity Gate.
But then I rewatched A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (which, if you’ve seen it, you know isn’t great - but is still important) and now I just cannot stop thinking about how many structural and thematic overlaps it has with Stranger Things.
I might be reaching here, but since we’ve already discussed multiple Freddy references in ST, I thought I’d share the moments I noticed. I’m not saying this has to mean something - these could just be references, or maybe certain scenes were used as inspiration. But still.
In Elm Street 5, the characters graduate high school in 1989
In Stranger Things S5, the characters also graduate in 1989
We discover that Freddy is afraid of the tower - the one place he cannot enter (until the end, when he finally does, if I’m not mistaken)
We also discover that Vecna has a specific place in his memories that he cannot enter (also eventually breached)
In both cases, the villain’s limitation is spatial and psychological, like a locked room in their own mythology.
3. Power transferred through the body
Freddy intentionally gives Jacob powers by feeding him souls while he’s still in Alice’s womb, using the umbilical cord
Vecna unintentionally (or intentionally?) gives Will powers during Season 1, when Will is trapped and has some sort of a cord attached to his mouth
Both villains seed power into a child through a parasitic connection.
So, Jacob has powers and Freddy uses him as a bridge
Jacob can pull people into his dreams
Freddy enters reality by piggybacking on Jacob
At this point, Alice doesn’t even need to be asleep anymore - she’s dragged into Jacob’s dream
If you haven’t seen the movies: Alice previously pulled friends into her dreams while she was asleep. Now the mechanic flips.
And here comes the missing parallel.
5. The missing parallel? (Or is it?)
What if Vecna used Will the same way? What if:
Vecna drags Will’s friends and family into an illusion or false resolution
Not by simply “Vecna-ing” them - but through emotional proximity and Will’s bond with everyone
6. The final confrontation
Freddy is ultimately fought by Jacob, who uses the powers Freddy gave him against Freddy
Vecna is fought by Will, who uses Vecna’s own abilities against him
In both stories, the villain engineers the weapon that harms him - but doesn’t kill him.
Smaller but weirdly specific overlaps
Elm Street 5 was heavily rewritten during production, with filming starting before the script was finished and with release date nearing them. It was discussed in the documentary called Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. Sounds familiar, right?
Robert Englund played both Freddy and Freddy’s father
Englund also played Henry Creel’s father in Stranger Things
Elm Street 5 and Stranger Things S5 share:
the same year of graduation
the same “child-as-bridge” mechanic
the same body-horror power transfer
the same villain limitation
the same “weaponized gift” trope
Which raises the question:
Could Vecna use Will the same way Freddy used Jacob - to drag everyone into an illusion and stage the ending?
And if you think about it, this could actually justify why half of Hawkins was in the room when Will came out - because that still weirds me out.
I mean, why would Will want everyone to be there, if not as part of Vecna’s plan to gather everyone in one place? Gathering all of your enemies in the same room before making a move sounds like a pretty smart villain strategy.
So if Vecna needed them all in one place to sort of initiate the illusion for everyone at once, that would explain it.
And the things Will says - like “milkshakes at Melvald’s” and “getting lost in the woods” - no one corrects him or even questions it. That could easily be Vecna testing whether they’ve started accepting the illusion without resistance.
That's it, thanks for reading!