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Last October, we dove into the careers of famous horror directors likeDario Argento,Tobe Hooper, andWes Craven, and this year we're going in a different direction: Franchise town! This October we're going to be digging into some of the most skin-filled franchises in all of horror cinema, continuing this week with the dream-based horror of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise!

My personal favorite horror franchise growing up, the Nightmare movies spoke to my love of horror and puns—one of which I actually make money doing today—and struck me as more overtly campy and comedic than either Friday the 13th or Halloween (coming next week to this very spot!). Part 2 was the first one that I saw and Part 4 was the first one I saw in theaters—and at only 9 years old—so I've had a deep, abiding love for this franchise. I cannot begin to articulate just how disappointing this franchise rewatch was, as the films do not hold up thirty-plus years later.

The first one is the best by a country mile—followed by 3, 2, 4, and New Nightmare, in that order—with the fifth and sixth editions being particularly stultifying and the Freddy vs. Jason match-up is hampered by an early aughts Nü Metal aesthetic that looks horrendous sixteen years on. Like Jason Voorhees, the character of Freddy Kreuger doesn't work as well when he's removed from the tacky Reagan-era suburban dream turned nightmare surroundings of the early-to-mid 1980s. There's power in that parallel between those prosperous days for many Americans and an external boogeyman coming in to ruin the idyllic surroundings.

True, the genre was invented and many of its tropes established prior to Reagan years, but that was when many of these films and franchises flourished—except, perhaps Texas Chainsaw and Halloween, which aremore tied to the waning days of Vietnam and the peak of America's disillusionment withits government. Sending them into the 90s and beyond has only made them less scary, further relics of a time gone by, when Americans believed in the power of optimism again and the only thing that could threaten that utopia is their past sins catching up to them.

Like Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist just two years earlier, this franchise made horror real in a familiar and otherwise utopian suburban environment. It brought horror into the real world for a lot of suburban kids and is best thought of as a time capsule from another era. Thankfully there has been some great nudity along the way, though probably not nearly as much as you're hoping for. There's roughly one nude scene per film, if there's any nudity at all.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

The original tale of former school custodian Fred Krueger (Robert Englund), exacting revenge for his death through the dreams of the children of the townsfolk that murdered him, is much more macabre and dark than its increasingly humorous sequels. Though Krueger is a fan of puns in this film, in his first outing he's not quite the quip machine he'd eventually morph into. They also mostly refer to him as Fred in this one, too, which is a nice change of pace.

The sleepy suburban town of Springwood, Ohio is plagued by the ramifications of an act of violence perpetrated by some of the most respected citizens in town many years ago. Fred Kreuger was let go due to a technicality, so the residents of Elm Street got together and delivered some mob justice, burning the child murderer alive in the school's boiler room. Now, the spirit of Kreuger hunts the children of these people in their dreams, making their teenage kids desperate to stay awake at all costs.

It's a killer premise and Craven, at this point making his seventh feature film, knocks it out of the park with a legitimately spooky flick. It's fun seeing a young Johnny Depp get murdered in his bed and Heather Langenkamp is a terrific final girl who would end up appearing in two further sequels. Perhaps the biggest missed opportunity in the film, however, was convincing Langenkamp to do the film's nude scene. Immediately after shooting this film, she filmed a topless scene for the drama Nickel Mountain...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise

Perhaps Langenkamp just didn't want to be underwater, which is where we get a look at her body double's breasts as she thrashes about in the water...

Apparently the actress didn't wear pasties for the scene and thankfully Craven's camera managed to briefly catch a glimpse of her right breast as she gets out of the tub...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

Just as the Friday the 13th movies were secret abstinence parables and zombies have stood in for any number of social issues, so too did the Nightmare franchise take a stab at handling a delicate social topic. For the first sequel, writer David Chaskin decided to make Freddy Kreuger a metaphorical stand-in for the main character's homosexuality trying to get out of whatever closet he buried it in. Five years after the events of the first film, the lead character Jesse, played by Mark Patton, moves with his family into the home that used to be occupied by Nancy's family. Jesse begins experiencing nightmares, similar to those that plagued Nancy, and it isn't long before he discovers that the malicious spirit of Freddy is attempting to use him as a cypher to gain entry into the real world.

Although Jesse ostensibly has eyes for Lisa (played by Kim Myers, a dead ringer for a young Meryl Streep), he seems to take more of a shine to a bully named Ron (Robert Rusler) after the two get detention for some greco-roman-wrestling-esque horseplay. Soon enough, Jesse's circle is large enough to rack up a body count, and the friends begin dropping like flies. There's also the matter of Marshall Bell's overly aggressive gym teacher who runs into Jesse at a gay bar and proceeds to punish him for this transgression.

The film, unfortunately, has no female nudity in it, but there is an aborted sex scene between Jesse and Lisa. He holds on to her breasts for dear life, trying desperately to make sure that they don't end up on film. I let the clip run a little long so you could see just how much Kim Myers looks like a young Meryl Streep...

You can make out her breasts in a wet swimsuit earlier in the film as well...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise

While kissing Myers, Patton suddenly sports an abnormally long tongue, freaks out, and runs to the comfort of his good buddy Ron's house, sneaking into his bedroom. I get that the writer denied until 2010 that he intentionally made Jesse's journey a parable for coming out, but it's mindblowing to me that people at the time just didn't recognize the subtext. I mean, come on...

Patton quit acting soon after due to excessive typecasting as either a gay or closeted character and became an interior designer instead. The mid-80s is littered with pop culture suffused with gay subtext that is so thinly veiled, it's more text than subtext. For another example of this, see Billy Squier's video for "Rock Me Tonight" where he prances around his bedroom like a teenage girl getting ready for a date in a Frankie Avalon movie...

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

Finally, a flick in this franchise with a proper nude scene! My personal favorite of the sequels, this third entry in the series moves the action off of Elm Street and to a mental hospital. In addition to Heather Langenkamp returning as Nancy, the series also gets its next best final girl in Patricia Arquette's Kristen—though the character would be recast with Tuesday Knight in the next entry. Body Double's Craig Wasson and future Oscar nominee Laurence Fishburne also appear in the film, along with a "special appearance" by John Saxon, returning as Nancy's father—though sadly both characters will end up dead by the time credits roll.

Much like Friday the 13th Part 3, Dream Warriors is where the franchise begins devoting itself to creative and inventive kills for Freddy's many victims. While Kreuger mostly just used his glove to slash people to death in the first two films, here he starts getting crafty. Drug addict Taryn sees her puncture wounds and track marks turn into hungry mouths and the blades on Freddy's glove being replaced with syringes. Of course, there's also the famous, "Welcome to prime time, bitch!" line that Freddy delivers before smashing poor Jennifer's head into a television, and the most famous death of them all when he controls Phillip like a puppet using his veins as puppet strings...

The film's only nude scene doesn't lead to a character's death, but it does leave him in a coma. Still, this guy probably gets the best bargain of any survivor in a Nightmare on Elm Street movie because he essentially wakes up when the movie's over, and all he had to do was make out with a hot topless nurse played by the gorgeous Stacey Alden...

They begin to make out and their tongues lock together, eventually being spit out by the nurse/Freddy and used to tie his ass to the bed...

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

The highest grossing entry among the original six movies, this Renny Harlin-directed entry continues the story from the last film, while also continuing the trend of the final girl from the last film—Kristen in this case—being killed off in the sequel to make way for an all new final girl—Lisa Wilcox's Alice, who breaks the trend by making it all the way through the next film. Plot became less essential from here on out to make way for the more creative deaths and the more groan-inducing Freddy puns.

This flick also, surprisingly, has the most nudity among the original six, with the beautiful Hope Marie Carlton swimming up from inside Joey's waterbed before dragging him in, transforming into Freddy, and murdering him...

The other nudity comes courtesy of horror legend Linnea Quigley, who lends her topless talents to a scene near the end of the film when Freddy reveals all of the tortured souls he houses inside himself...

Fun fact, this shot ends up being recycled in 1991's Freddy's Dead, which we'll get to soon enough.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)

Here's when things really start to go off the rails. An original pitch by writer Leslie Bohem for the first sequel was to do a Rosemary's Baby-esque horror film involving a pregnant woman moving into the house on Elm Street. Though this pitch was rejected at the time, it came back around for the fourth sequel and final film for the franchise in the 80s. Part 4's final girl Alice (still played by Lisa Wilcox) finds herself haunted by nightmares involving a child she thinks is her own. Blah blah blah, Freddy's back and getting lazy with his creative deaths this time around, with a motorcycle providing the only visually interesting death gag in the film...

In an interesting change of pace—at least for the last three films—the final girl also gets nude in this flick and sadly also used a body double!Lisa Wilcox's Alice gets in the shower just three minutes into the flick and falls asleep. Soon the stall fills with water and she's eventually washed down into an asylum filled with nuns. As she walks around exploring, we get some nice looks at her boobs and buns—or her body double's anyway...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the Nightmare on Elm Street FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

While the series proper didn't really come to an end until the totally skinlessWes Craven's New Nightmare three years later, the titular promise of this 1991 effort kinda brings things to a close. Like a lot of horror films at the time, celebrities came out of the woodwork to get a taste of the glory, with Johnny Depp returning for a cameo and Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold showing up as well. With Alice and her baby now firmly out of the picture, the story shifts focus to a home for wayward youth and a plot that finds Billy Zane's sister Lisa Zane discovering that she's Freddy's long lost daughter.

It's ridiculous and the 3D effects have not aged well at all, but it's still a Nightmare movie. Worst of all is that the only nudity comes from that recycled shot of Linnea Quigley and the other tortured souls inside Freddy from The Dream Master...

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

As far back as 1987, New Line was attempting to acquire the rights to Jason Voorhees—with Paramount likewise attempting the same with Freddy—to team these two horror icons together for the first time. Friday the 13th Part VII eventually morphed into Jason vs Carrie, but then New Line finally acquired the rights to Voorhees after 1989's Jason Takes Manhattan. They teased us with a shot at the end of Jason Goes to Hell of Freddy's glove pulling Jason's hockey mask down to hell, but for nearly a decade, the promise of that movie lay dormant...

While certainly not the worst film in either franchise, this 2003 flick reeks of the JNCO-jeans wearing, Nü-Metal listening, terrible horror movie making times in which it was created. It doesn't look like a Nightmare movie or a Friday movie, and splits the difference to its own detriment, clearly not wanting to alienate either fan base. In the process, we get a rather lame film about Freddy losing his power to terrify kids in their dreams and exploiting Jason to be his muscle.

One of the film's more famous stories surrounds a shower scene with Katharine Isabelle's character Gibb. Apparently Isabelle had been assured that she wouldn't have to do a nude scene, but on the day of filming, director Ronny Yu attempted to pressure her into shooting the scene anyway. It didn't work and body double Tammy Morris stepped in admirably for the notoriously skingy Isabelle...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the Nightmare on Elm Street FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise

The film's other nudity comes to us from the gorgeous Odessa Munroe, whostrips completely nude in the film's cold open to go skinny dipping, showing off her boobs and buns before meeting a gruesome end...

A SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the Nightmare on Elm Street FranchiseA SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise

As someone who hates to have his nostalgia bubble popped, I would recommend that only the die hard fans go back and revisit this series. If you have fond memories of the films but haven't revisited them in years, let them live in your memories where they're much better than the reality. That's not necessarily a dig at fans of the franchise, as I still consider myself one, I just think that these movies play a lot better in your mind than they do on screen. Best to let them stay there, forever pleasant.

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Non-nude images courtesy of IMDb