We’re back! The latest entry in our comprehensive score rankings is here, and this time, we’re taking on all 9 (as of this writing) feature films featuring Freddy Krueger in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise!

Feel free to check out our previous rankings here.

Growing up, I wasn’t a fan of slasher films. I never saw a single Friday the 13th (I’m in the process of correcting that now), and until very recently, the only Halloween I’d seen was the original. But A Nightmare on Elm Street? I saw and loved them all.

There was just something about them. Freddy’s wisecracks. The tongue-in-cheek nature of their horror. The ridiculous death scenes. (Freddy skewering a decapitated Rick, “you little meatball,” from atop a pizza in The Dream Master checks all these boxes.)

In the harsh light of day, most of these movies are admittedly really bad. But that doesn’t diminish my love for them AT ALL.

But what about the music? Over the course of 9 films, there have been 9 different composers. (There have also been 8 different directors.) That doesn’t add up to any sort of consistency of voice, but does it matter?

As big a fan as I am of the franchise, I’ll readily admit that these movies are an acquired taste. But keep in mind that we’re not here today to talk about the merits of the films themselves. We’re here to talk about the music.

We’re ranking the orchestral scores – not the movies. And at only 9 entries, this is also the smallest score ranking we’ve done thus far.

This is the part where I mention that, if you’re a fan of this music and franchise, you need to RUN to the Varèse Sarabande site and get one of the few remaining copies of the 8-CD box set that includes ALL this music (minus the 2010 reboot), along with hours of alternate cuts and previously unreleased tracks. As of this writing, there are fewer than 25 copies left of the 2,000-copy run. Don’t wait!

So without further ado…

#9: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

• composed by Angelo Badalamenti (1987)
• listen to: “The Dream House”

Listen. I hate that this happened. Dream Warriors is probably my favorite film in the franchise, and far be it from me to say that Angelo Badalementi (Twin Peaks) turned out a bad score. But this one has NOT aged well. It’s almost entirely computerized synth beats and sounds. It almost sounds like a PS1 game in places. Listen to it out of context, and you might believe it’s music for an old-school Castlevania game. In short, this one is VERY 1987… and not in a good way.

#8: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

• composed by J. Peter Robinson (1994)
• listen to: “Everything Is NOT Fine”

Again, keep in mind: we’re not ranking the films. Wes Craven returned to the franchise with New Nightmare and certainly gave us the most original – and entertaining – film in the franchise. But J. Peter Robinson’s music is far from exceptional. In fact, it’s barely even memorable. And it’s probably best if we just move along…

#7: A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

• composed by Jay Ferguson (1989)
• listen to: “Main Title,” “Like Father, Like Son”

Jay Ferguson was a 70s rocker who turned to film composing later in his career. His films are fairly eclectic, and The Dream Child was his first “big” film, but other projects relevant to our interests are Double Dragon, Tremors 2 and 4, and over a dozen episodes of Tales from the Crypt. (He’s also the current composer for NCIS: Los Angeles and has done almost 250 episodes of that show.) Coming off Nightmares 3 and 4, there’s a noticeable shift away from the onslaught of computerized effects and midi sounds that dominated those scores. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot of synth and keyboard here, but it at least sounds more orchestral. (It’s not.)

#6: Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare

• composed by Brian May (1991)
• listen to: “I Hate This House,” “Happy Father’s Day”

No, not THAT Brian May. The founding member of Queen did NOT compose the score to Freddy’s Dead. Australian composer Brian May, however, did. And it was THAT Brian May who also composed the music for the original Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Still, nothing to sneeze at. Freddy’s Dead also had a separate soundtrack release featuring a disturbing number of Goo Goo Dolls songs, but May’s score is surprisingly good, despite the film’s atrocious reputation. (Aside from the 2010 reboot, it ranks lowest on Rotten Tomatoes with a dismal 20%.) The music quotes extensively from Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain,” but if you can get past that, the score is suitably creepy and atmospheric.

#5: Freddy vs Jason

• composed by Graeme Revell (2003)
• listen to: “The Legend,” “Girl with No Eyes,” “Jason’s Surprise Attack”

The team-up/throwdown every 80s kid dreamed about. There’s two ways this could have gone… and the music could have followed. Despite the insane conceit of the film and less-than-inspired storyline, composer Graeme Revell scored this film as if it were a legitimately great horror film. It incorporates occasional cues from each franchise (the jump rope rhyme from Nightmare and the “ooh ooh ah ah” music from Friday), but it also has its own themes – something most of these films lack. Revell is also well versed with the music of genre films, and he brought a career’s worth of experience to the score – again, something most of these films went without.

#4: A Nightmare on Elm Street

• composed by Steve Jablonsky (2010)
• listen to: “Freddy’s Coming for You,” “Jesse and the Police,” “Like it Used to Be”

Steve Jablonsky has a two-sided career. On one side, he’s a frequent collaborator on big-budget explosion films with Michael Bay (including all those Transformers movies) and Peter Berg. On the other, he’s well versed with horror (he also composed the reboots of Friday the 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).

His score for the 2010 Nightmare reboot with Jackie Earle Haley is certainly the most “modern” sounding soundtrack on this list. Recorded with a 60-piece orchestra, it’s got a lushness and “fullness” most previous scores lack. Jablonsky quotes Charles Bernstein’s theme and jump rope rhyme from the original film, but most of this score is a good old-fashioned scare-em-up. It’s creepy, it’s dark, and it’s scary – which is exactly on point.

#3: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

• composed by Craig Safan (1988)
• listen to: “Freddy’s Back,” “Freddy’s Pizza Restaurant,” “Corpus Krueger”

The Dream Master is the one that graced us with The Fat Boys’ “Are You Ready for Freddy?” And, listen, I’m not above admitting some love for that song. And I’m not ashamed to admit I owned it on cassette back in the day. Yet, even though it played over the end credits, it wasn’t even included on the film’s soundtrack album. For shame! Which pretty much means there’s no point in ever tracking that one down.

Craig Safan’s score, however, is. It’s firmly at home in the mid-t0-late-80s computerized sound that was so prevalent. However, where Badalamenti’s score for Dream Warriors just the previous year relied on those midi sounds like a crutch, much to its detriment, Safan (The Last Starfighter) uses them to his advantage here. The music is creepy, moody, and definitely worth repeated listenings.

#2: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

• composed by Christopher Young (1985)
• listen to: “Main Title,” “Wrong Turn Right”

In 1985, Christopher Young was a young composer at the beginning of his career. His score for Hellraiser was still two years away, and he was on the precipice of a decades-long career that would see him write for dozens of horror and thriller films. Freddy’s Revenge was the film that helped push him over the edge and fully embrace the genre.

Despite this film’s reputation (as pure cheese, as one of the worst entries in the franchise, as the “gayest” horror movie ever made), Young’s score is moody, thematic, and terrifying. It might actually be “scarier” than the original… though certainly not as memorable.

It’s also the only horror film (that I can think of) that features a Bing Crosby song over the end credits.

In short, if you don’t have this one on your Halloween playlist, you’re doing it wrong.

#1: A Nightmare on Elm Street

• composed by Charles Bernstein (1984)
• listen to: “Main Title,” “Rod Hanged/Night Stalking,” “Sleep Clinic”

When it comes to the big horror franchises, Charles Bernstein’s score for Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street is second only to John Carpenter’s timeless Halloween theme. It may not be as hummable, but it’s withstood the test of time and is as associated with Freddy Krueger as Carpenter’s theme is with Michael Myers.

Unfortunately, Bernstein only composed this first film; just imagine how different these movies would be if he had done more! But he wrote, recorded, and performed ALL the instruments on this score! That earns him major points.

Like the film, this one’s a classic.

(We heartily recommend checking out this video/interview Gibson Guitars did with Bernstein.)