A Nightmare on Elm Street Page #29

MR LANTZ:

Like Rod Lane?

A voice calls down from upstairs.

COP (OS)

Lieutenant Thompson. Coronor

wants to show you something.

THOMPSON gives MR LANTZ one final look, then heads upstairs.

CUT TO:

NOTE:
These rewrites of scenes 180 and 180 A replace NANCY

walking through the 'dream streets' at night, and NANCY

approaching the huge deserted building at night, prior to her

entering the Boiler Room the final time.

180. INT. DOWNSTAIRS, NANCY'S HOUSE. NIGHT. 180.

LOW ANGLE UP STAIRS as NANCY appears at head. As she comes

downstairs, CAMERA MOVES WITH HER through the hallway to the

cellar door. She opens the door.

180A. INT. NANCY'S CELLAR. NIGHT. 180A.

NANCY appears at top of these stairs, hesitates, then comes down.

WIDER as NANCY approaches center of room, stops in CU, then turns

eyes. We HEAR the distant SOUND of the boiler room now, faint

but unmistakeable. NANCY MOVES, and CAMERA PANS HER to the

cellar's side WALL, where another, new doorway is REVEALED.

NANCY opens this door and looks down. FIRELIGHT is on NANCY'S

face now, and the SOUND of the Boiler Room is very clear. NANCY

goes through the door.

180B. INT. BOILER ROOM. 180B.

NANCY decends like Orpheus into hell, but without weapon save her

wits.

She decends a steel stair to the lowest level, then hears the

SOUND of the knives from down another shaft. She sees there's an

even deeper place down there. She starts down.

Again, and then again, NANCY decends, each ladder narrower or

more twisting, each level deeper, wetter, darker, more airless.

Soon she's gasping for air, but still she pushes herself on. She

doesn't stop until she breaks out at last at the very bottom of

the place, a wet, firelit sump deep in the bowels of the place.

CAMERA NOW PANS AROUND WITH HER, and for the first time we SEE

the vast maul of the empty boiler behind her.

She stares at it. It's seething with some dark WIND that soughs

and whines like a huge dying dog.

NANCY crosses to it, touching the pile of old, coal-dusted dirt

at its base. It looks almost like an old grave.

She turns suddenly, listening. Then, hearing nothing, she looks

down.

NANCY'S POV as she picks up GLEN's earphones.

WIDER as she suddenly drops them, staring at her fingers.

They're dripping blood.

There's another BEEP.

180C. INSERT ON NANCY'S WATCH -- the COUNT-DOWN a blur of black digits 180C.

counting down to zero. They've just crossed the ten minute

warning.

180D. CLOSE ON NANCY'S FACE. She speaks into the night. 180D.

NANCY:

(quietly)

Come out and show yourself,

you bastard.

No sooner are these words off her lips than the huge bulk of FRED

KRUEGER lurches up behind her! The man is even more hideous

hatless, his bald head and tormented face veiled in skeins of

ruined flesh, his ragged teeth barred, the great spider of

razor-blades flashing from his fingertips.

He leaps, but the girl leaps just as fast, a fierce jump,

that sends her out over black space and down into a huge, dark

sump of blackness.

180E. EXT. THE HEAVENS. NIGHT. 180E.

CLOSE ANGLE ON NANCY as she curves like a swan though her

apogee, and begins falling, diving, planing through black air,

the wind ripping at her hair and eyes. Suddenly the complex,

glittering skein of light that is the San Fernando Valley seen

from the air slides INTO FRAME, and we see she's falling from

high, high over the earth.

NANCY falls, falls in slow motion against the spinning lights,

free as a sky diver freefalling -- a giddy, acrophobic plunge.

181,182,183,184 OMIT OMIT 181,182,183,184

185. EXT. ELM STREET/NANCY'S HOUSE. NIGHT. 185.

NANCY crashes suddenly out of the night and into a hedge just

outside her own front door, rolling out at its bottom scratched

and bloodied. If she were in any normal reality she'd be a mass

of broken bones -- but somehow she's able to claw her way up and

look at her watch once more.

INSERT. Just a few seconds from zero.

She staggers for her house's front door -- but a moment later

KRUEGER crashes down atop her! NANCY struggles to her knees just

as the man lunges with that godawful handful of blades. But

instead of running, she ducks inside the deadly grab and seizes

him in a desperate bearhug!

The surprise move sends him pitching backwards, her still on him

--and they fall into the jumble of torn-down trellis of roses

beneath her window. Almost at that very second we HEAR the

jarring, deafening RINGING of NANCY's alarm clock!

SMASH CUT TO:

186. INT. NANCY'S BEDROOM. NIGHT. 186.

NANCY sprawls out of her bed onto the floor, twisting from the

jabs of the already vanished thorns, briars and brush. Gasping,

she takes a second to get her bearings

ANGLE ON THE BED as she recovers quick as she can, snatching up

the net, ready for an assault from any direction.

But the room is empty.

Hardly able to catch her breath, her hair tangled, her nightgown

torn, she drops the net. She sits on the bed, turns on the

bedside lamp and re-examines her room. No one there but herself.

It's a terrible blow, despite the fact that she's safe. Her face

is covered with tears, she's shaking and breathless. She rattles

her head in confusion and despair, realizing her own madness.

NANCY:

I'm crazy after all...

At that very instant FRED KRUEGER leaps up from the far side of

the bed with an EXPLOSIVE SHOUT of rage!

He lunges across the table for her, missing by inches as NANCY

pitches backwards and scrambles for the window. But she's

stopped by the bars.

KRUEGER, incredibly fast, regains his feet and leaps again -- the

girl wheels and shatters the coffeepot over his head. As he

crashes backwards NANCY flings open the door of her room and

dives through -- only to rebound off someone on the other side --

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