Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) got nightmares in which a burned man with knives on the end of his hands attacks and attempts to kill her. When she tells her friends, one of them being Glen (Johnny Depp), they realizes they are being haunted by Freddie Kruger (Robert Englund), a child murderer who was put to death by a group of vengeful citizens a few years prior. As her friends on Elm Street begin to die one by one, Nancy figures out that the trick to staying alive is to never fall asleep! Finally, she schemes to bringing Freddie out into the daylight where she may have a small hope of getting rid of him for good. But first she must uncover the truth behind his past and how it links to her life in the present.