A Nightmare on Elm Street: What Happened to Alice Johnson

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 introduced Alice Johnson, who would survive Freddy in two films, and continue her story in other licensed media. Every slasher icon has an arch nemesis, and Freddy Krueger is no exception. Due to her starring roles in both A Nightmare on Elm Street and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy Thompson will now and forever be inextricably linked with the Springwood Slasher. However, that doesn’t mean Freddy never got another worthy foe.

Alice Johnson faced off with Freddy in both A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5, and not only did she defeat the dream demon both times, she managed to do something Nancy couldn’t: survive. Alice made it out of her second battle with Freddy intact, and while Heather Langenkamp herself would survive Freddy in 1994’s meta sequel Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, that doesn’t technically count as Nancy doing so. She did sadly duplicate one aspect of Nancy’s story, that being her boyfriend’s death at Freddy’s hands.

Many fans have long wished Alice would return to the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, but with Robert Englund now retired from playing Freddy, that ship seems to have sailed. Still, those same fans may not be aware that her story didn’t end with Nightmare 5, at least according to additional tie-in material.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: What Happened to Alice Johnson

In A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Alice was gifted with Kristen’s dream power when she died, then gained further powers from each death thereafter. She used these to defeat Freddy with a mirror, but by A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Freddy was back, using the dreams of Alice’s unborn son Jacob to claim victims. With the help of Jacob and Freddy’s mother Amanda, Alice won again, albeit with Jacob’s father Dan getting killed along the way.

Alice’s story continued in a 1991 Nightmare on Elm Street comic book series, which saw Alice return to Springwood after her father’s death, and Freddy again try to use a now older Jacob to be reborn. In a pretty cool, if quite out there, ending plot twist, Alice seeks help from Dream Warriors‘ Dr. Neil Gordon, who ends up allowing Dan’s soul to possess his body and reunite with Alice and Jacob. Dr. Gordon’s spirit reunites with Nancy inside the “beautiful dream” Kristen wished her into as she was dying. In a later comic series, titled Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: Nightmare Warriors, Alice finally meets her maker, sacrificing her life to save Jacob from Freddy. Understandably many fans will likely want to ignore that ending in favor of 1991’s happier conclusion.

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