“Trick or treat, bitch!”
After three successful A Nightmare on Elm Street films, short-lived spinoff series “Freddy’s Nightmares” was launched in October of 1988. The series, which premiered the same year Dream Master was released, kicked off with a Tobe Hooper-directed episode that centered on Freddy Krueger’s origin story, but from that point forward, Freddy (played, as always, by Robert Englund) mostly served as the host of the series rather than the star. The stories were set in the fictional town of Springwood, Ohio, and the dream demon only popped up from time to time.
One of the episodes that did indeed feature Freddy as a character in the story was the show’s one and only Halloween special, which aired on October 29th, 1988. The episode, the fourth in the first of two seasons, was titled “Freddy’s Tricks and Treats,” and it was directed by none other than Ken Wiederhorn (Return of the Living Dead 2). A young Mariska Hargitay starred as a bookish medical student, Marsha, who chooses to study rather than party on Halloween night, and Freddy comes knocking when she falls asleep at the proverbial wheel.
Only half of the episode takes place on October 31st, while the second half plays out more like a traditional Nightmare on Elm Street film. On Halloween night, Freddy torments Marsha at the Springwood Medical Hospital, appearing to her in the form of her dead grandmother and even a skeleton decoration – he also carves the word “BOO!” into a cadaver, because why the hell not? The woman’s night of Halloween horror ends with her being forced to revisit the night that she accidentally killed her abusive grandma. Naturally, this sends her over the edge.
Two months later, Marsha’s dreams are being studied in a psych lab by a doctor who’s intent on literally recording them to video, and Freddy returns to play around in her nightmares…
Check out the original promo below and then watch “Freddy’s Tricks and Treats” in full!
