In the eighties Wes Craven created the character Freddy Kreuger, who became a staple of the horror genre and led to a successful series of "Nightmare on Elm Street" films.

By "Shocker", Craven wants to create a Freddy for the nineties. The adventures of "electric" killer Horace Pinker (played by "The X-Files" actor Mitch Pileggi) turn out to be not quite as popular, and no sequel was ever made. The film however remains a high point of MTV like hysteria, pushed by a tremendous hard rock score featuring Megadeth and Alice Cooper.

The third film following the adventures of Freddy marks a turn for the series. Freddy becomes the star of the picture and the dream sequences get all the more surreal and delirious! The heroine is played by Patricia Arquette in her first main role.