Film Theory: How To Beat Freddy Krueger! (A Nightmare on Elm Street)  w/ Dead Meat

one two met Pat's coming for you three four with a feeling about Google five six throw some science in the mix seven eight gonna settle the debate nine ten ready won't kill again hello Internet welcome to film theory admittedly it's scary these days there's a lot of uncertainty in the world and things feel really out of control so today we're taking control back into our own hands weren't taken one of the scariest most powerful monsters in all of horror cinema one who attacks when we're most helpless when we're asleep and were beating him at his own game we're learning how to defeat the dream killer Freddy Krueger's loyal theorists grandpappy Matt Pat wants to take you on a stroll down memory lane to the time when he was a wee little child and still went to Blockbuster Bree see kids in those days Blockbuster still existed now I loved the video store partially for the video game rentals harshly for the sour patch kids and partially for the mystery of whatever was in that back room with the red light that my dad liked so much was it World War 2 documentaries knowing my dad was probably World War 2 documentaries yes I'll never know anyway my other memories of going to blockbuster include timidly walking down the horror movie aisle a young mind curious about all those scary r-rated movies that I was too young and too much of a chicken to watch I was always careful not to stop and look too long at any of the boxes because even those were enough to give me nightmares a giant shark looming under an unsuspecting swimmer still the reason I don't swim death spa you'll sweat blood it's still the reason I don't exercise a green goo Li popping out of the toilet still the reason I don't you get the idea prep an extra set of bed sheets MA cuz baby pad is waking up damned but for the best 80s horror classics that dominated those VHS displays a Nightmare on Elm Street is probably the most memorable for one just because there are so many of them after the original came out in 1984 The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise created four sequels in less than five years it's a release calendar that would make the likes of Scott Cawthon jealous but as a kid with just a passing knowledge of the horror movie universe Freddy is probably the monster who scared me the most sure Jason Voorhees is more imposing and bloodthirsty but I didn't go to camp or space for that matter which seemed like the main prerequisite for getting killed by him pinhead yeah can't solve a Rubik's Cube to save my life but Freddy Krueger a monster who attacks in your dreams seems like cheating to make matters even creepier Wes Craven was inspired by the real story of several refugees who died suddenly and inexplicably in their sleep something we just talked about recently over on game theory in fact link is in the corner but yeah Freddy is not only inescapable he's actually based on something real what defense do we have against all of that none or Floyd thought for the last 25 years but friends today it's time to put Freddy to sleep for good that's right theorists you can all sleep a little tighter tonight after watching this episode because we're gonna show you how to survive Freddy Krueger and keep him confined to Dreamland once and for all turn out the lights and tuck yourself in it's time to put Freddy to Betty and yeah and well that line was cheesy but it's on brand for these movies I mean have you heard the lines this guy uses his puns are worse than mine I rest my case the first step in learning how to defeat Freddy Krueger is to study all the times that he's been defeated in the past to see if we can get any pointers from there and so I called in the expert the master of all things horror and gore here on YouTube it's none other than James a Jenice from the YouTube channel dead meet the man who is most known for counting all the dead bodies in every single horror movie out there a concept that I may or may not have ripped off for my Disney death series I just loved his work but figured he wouldn't do it to Mulan any time soon so I took it upon myself James what do you got to say about Freddy hey buddy thanks for including me in this video in the original and Nightmare on Elm Street Freddy is pulled out of the dream world and is burned by a Molotov cocktail except that doesn't quite finish the job our final girl Nancy realizes that without fear Freddy has no power so she just turns her back on in many vaporizes apparently Freddy's life force is roughly the same as Tinker Bell's because if you ignore them they die only in Freddie's case he comes back and in a Nightmare on Elm Street two Freddy's revenge he possesses a teenage boy to kill for him until his girlfriend sees the only way to defeat Freddy is by kissing him and freeing her boyfriend's soul that's trapped inside of him in a Nightmare on Elm Street three dream warriors Freddy is a terrorizing a pediatric psych ward and we get the back story that he's a real son of a nun whose bones need to be laid to rest this time he's killed when his bones are doused in holy water and topped with a cross because of the power of Jesus I guess a nightmare down street for the dream master gives Freddy the Medusa treatment when our new final girl Alice recites a nursery rhyme and makes Freddy look at his own reflection that causes the souls inside of him to rip him to shreds one of his Souls is played by Linnea Quigley fun fact the fifth installation the dream child has Freddy lose to his demon apprentice who turns Freddy into a baby it's just as stupid as it sounds other installments go Freddy via bomb decapitation throat attack so basically we've got two takeaway lessons here one there is no reliable or consistent way to kill Freddy and prevent him from ever coming back and to not even dream demons are immune to dope rhymes nursery rhymes that is so if there's no offensive strategy to kill Freddy then what are our defensive options for keeping him from killing us the first is the most obvious one don't sleep I know just what you're saying and it's dumb unfortunately this isn't the best solution not because we're bad at not sleeping quite the contrary in fact according to the CDC one in three Americans isn't getting enough sleep and that's without us even trying no the problem is that we will always always end up falling asleep at the end of long periods of staying awake in the 1960s a high school student named Randy Gardner broke the record for the longest stretch of being awake at 11 days 25 minutes which he did for a school project well you know what he did when it was all over fall asleep for a total of 25 hours spread across two days and Freddy is a patient man he waited several years between being burned by the parents of Springwood Ohio and eventually taking his revenge on their kids so even if you stay up for a solid week playing Minecraft he'll catch you right when you're about to start dreaming of diamond I mean you could try to push Randi Gardner's record but that's also gonna run you into a lot of problems there are no known cases of a human death caused by a simple lack of sleep but tests have been done to monitor the effects of extreme sleep deprivation on lab rats because apparently scientists are in a constant competition to see who can kill rats in the most creatively cruel way possible after about a month all the rats were dead due to mysterious reasons but suspected all the reasons were tied back to their lack of sleep again I go into way more detail about all of these things over on that game theory episode it's almost as if these two episodes were meant to be watched together and somehow the programming schedule got shifted in some way go figure anyway suffice it to say that the length of time which humans could stay awake without dying is probably not identical to that of rats but there's no reason to believe that it'd be significantly longer so basically we find ourselves in a catch-22 here if you asleep Freddie is gonna kill you if you don't sleep your body is gonna kill you so what is the answer then well remember that Freddie isn't just a killer who attacks in our sleep he's a killer who attacks in our dreams no dreams no Freddie we're not always dreaming when we sleep realistically the vast majority of our dreams and pretty much any dream you to actually remember takes place during rapid eye movement or REM cycles of sleep I would insert another 90s music joke here but you know copyright issues so just know that the thought was there and it's just a missed opportunity for everyone REM sleep usually occurs in about ten minutes at the end of the sleep cycle which lasts roughly nine minutes the longer you sleep the longer those REM cycles will become so one possibility is sleeping for shorter periods that prevent us from going into REM and that brings us to our next candidate to defeating Freddie polyphasic sleep most people engage in what's known as mono phasic sleep you're awake all day to go to bed for one long stretch at night you wake up you rinse you repeat polyphasic sleep on the other hand seeks to boost productivity by giving people shorter separated periods of sleep throughout the day it was allegedly used by Leonardo da Vinci who I think I can safely say was a reasonably productive dude the most popular versions of polyphasic sleep tend to still have a longer stretch of sleep at night with some naps sprinkled throughout the day but both the uberman and Dymaxion models call for no more than 30 minutes of sleep at a time foolproof plan writes not so fast for one medical professionals are very is about the benefits of polyphasic sleep a doctor from the UCLA sleep disorder center was quoted in Time magazine as saying quote there is very little data none whatsoever in the medical literature of carefully designed clinical studies demonstrating that polyphasic sleep has any advantage in human sleep medicine end quote well thanks a lot dr. killjoy but even if polyphasic sleep isn't exactly good for you it's still a cheat code to getting around REM sleep right no once you start depriving your body of sleep it actually starts to enter REM sleep faster than it otherwise would a big selling point for people who advocate polyphasic sleep is that it should in fact increase the amount of time that you're spending in REM sleep so paradoxically enough less sleep actually means more REM and more RAM means more dreams and more dreams means more Freddy so the real question is how do we sleep while avoiding REM altogether and that requires a little more understanding of how REM works in the brain most of the neural activity that takes place during REM sleep comes from the brainstem in particular the pontine tegmentum and locus karolius but if you're thinking we can just deactivate those parts of the brain or any other parts that contribute to remand dreaming that's sort of like dealing with a clogged toilet by burning down your house take away much function from the brainstem and all of a sudden you're gonna have a lot of problems with muscle control including the ones that you need to pump your heart and help you breathe so if the goal is still not to die well that's a no-go solution there are some very early indications that REM can be turned on and off by the activation of certain neurons this has only occurred in mice that were genetically engineered to have certain receptors to allow scientists to control their brains that way because again the scientists are just bored little kids who make rats stay awake until they die and like to control mouse brains with lights soap from the brains electrical perspective you're probably stuck with REM sleep but there are also chemical reactions in your brain that are required for REM to take place and that my friends is where we finally find our answer for the chemical reaction to trigger REM sleep our brain needs to produce a lot of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and they need to eliminate mono amine neurotransmitters like norepinephrine and serotonin you don't really want to get rid of your brain's ability to produce acetylcholine as that's gonna lead to issues like weakness fatigue cognitive impairment constipation chronic inflammation however if you can keep your brain from removing those other neurotransmitters the motto amine neurotransmitters you can nip REM sleep right in the bud and lucky enough for us there's a whole class of drugs that'll do exactly that monoamine oxidase inhibitors also known as Mao is are a class of antidepressants that were developed in the 1950s and are still being used today though less often than the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs that many are familiar with to treat things like panic disorders atypical depression PTSD and other conditions the whole job of Mao is is to promote the brain's production of the exact neurotransmitters that the brain needs to sweep away in order to produce REM sleep people who take Mao is have been observed to have their REM sleep effectively eradicated from their nights now I know what you're gonna say okay matpat but there's always a catch now you're gonna tell me that not having REM sleep is gonna make your eyes bleed or turn your toes into cocktail sausages or something weird and I understand why you'd think that I do like throwing in that there's a catch but in this case the twist is that there is no twist multiple scientists have described people without REM sleep is experiencing no real defects and being at no particular health risk so interestingly enough if you've got panic attacks or PTSD as a result of Freddy Krueger the same drugs that you would have taken to address the effects are actually the same drugs that you're gonna need to get rid of the cause in the first place those are the things that are gonna keep you safe more monoamine neurotransmitters equals less REM sleep equals zero Freddy wait a second if Freddy Krueger is defeated by antidepressants does that mean that the whole nightmare and Elm Street franchise is about mental illness this idea of a silent killer one only you can see that operates in your brain and can be deadly if it's not dealt with makes a lot of sense maybe a Nightmare on Elm Street was actually more sensitive more culturally aware more subtle than we could have ever thought or you know maybe not that all series can be winners but hey do me a favor and go check out James's channel dead meat like I said his channel is great if you are a fan of horror movies then well chances are you've probably seen his channel here on YouTube because he is the man when it comes to counting all the deaths in your favorite and also least favorite never-before-heard from horror movies out there anyway his channel is great his podcast is great and he is just a fantastic really nice guy so please show him some love click the link that you see on screen and leave in the comments below that you came from the film theorist Channel and I don't know if you can do me a favor and work into your comment the word dongle you can say the word dongle somewhere in your comment that would be awesome you can say like hey man Pat sent me stop stealing his dongle so anyway thank you guys so much for watching thank you for showing James from dead meat some love and remember that's just a theory a film theory and sweet dreams

Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 3,227,455

Rating: 4.9529228 out of 5

Keywords: freddy krueger, a nightmare on elm street, nightmare on elm street, how to beat, how to beat freddy krueger, dead meat, how to win, scary, horror, scary movies, horror movies, erb freddy krueger, freddy krueger vs wolverine, mark rober freddy krueger, erb freddy krueger vs wolverine, nightmare on elm street explained, nightmare on elm street 2020, trailer, film theory, film theorists, matpat

Id: 5nRfaFgWL1c

Length: 13min 53sec (833 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 09 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Gene_freeman]

James and Matpat have similar but opposite energies, not like in a good and evil type of way but more of a Ryu and Ken sort of thing

[u/themooseporject]

Gotta watch this!!!

[u/dragonkyng]

“By the power of Jesus, I guess.”

Hallelujah

[u/scarredsquirrel]

I’m not a big fan of film/game theory

[u/pupperlover_123]

No shit all you gotta do is literally tell him he's fake

[u/[deleted]]

Matpat will be building a better youtube with James, i think he mentioned it in one of his sofa talk videos