Alice Johnson (A Nightmare on Elm Street)

Film

In A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Alice Johnson was the best friend of Kristen Parker because her brother Rick was dating Kristen. Alice came from a damaged family and was timid, working as a waitress; she used her dreams as a way to escape from the real world. When Kristen accidentally pulls Alice into her dream, she passes her dream powers onto her before Freddy kills Kristen. Combining Kristen's powers with Alice's lucid dreaming abilities made her the "Dream Master" and she became Krueger's next target. Her link to Krueger, allowed her to take on the abilities, both from the real world and the dream world, of Krueger's victims. One by one her friends are killed off by Freddy and she is given their abilities making her much stronger and capable of fighting back. She attempts to go to Debbie's alongside Dan to form a plan but when Debbie is murdered they are left to face Freddy alone. Alice crashes Dan's car and he is rushed to the hospital. Alice prepares for her battle and pulls Dan into her dream. When Dan is woke up in the hospital, Alice is left alone. Sensing that Krueger relied on his victim's souls, she defeated him by forcing him to stare into a glass shard from a church, which caused all of his victims to claw their way out of Krueger's body.

In A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Alice forgot all about Krueger and made new friends. However, after becoming pregnant by Dan, Alice soon begins having nightmares about Krueger once again. Her new friends and loved ones are soon murdered. Krueger was planning to be reborn in the body of her son, which he fed with the souls of his victims. After a long battle with Krueger, her friend Yvonne found the remains of Sister Mary Helena (Amanda Krueger), Freddy's mother, which summoned her spirit and the spirit of her unborn son, Amanda urges Jacob to use the power that Krueger had given him. Freddy is narrowly defeated by Amanda. Several months later, Jacob is having a picnic with his mom, grandfather and Yvonne.

In the original script for Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Alice was set to return. She would have been killed by Freddy Krueger early in the film. However, this version of the script was scrapped and the actual film makes no mention of Alice or Jacob, and leaves their fates ambiguous. Alice appears in flashbacks during Freddy's introduction in Freddy vs. Jason.

Literature

Alice is the protagonist of Innovation's 1991 A Nightmare on Elm Street comics from issue 3 onwards. In this comic book series, Alice returns to Springwood following the death of her father and is forced to face Freddy after he again tries to use Jacob to kill. In the anthology The Nightmares on Elm Street: Freddy Krueger's Seven Sweetest Dreams,(1991) Alice appears in Philip Nutman's story "Dead Highway, Lost Roads." After having been involved in a major accident, Alice becomes ensnared in the dreamworld by Freddy Krueger. She is trapped in a macabre "Alice in Wonderland" setting. With the aid of serial killer Karl Stolenberg and anthropomorphic armadillo Joe Bob, Jacob eventually finds Alice. A deranged Karl attacks Alice, but is returned to his senses by Jacob through physical force. Alice and Karl cooperate to defeat Freddy, though Karl perishes in the battle. With Freddy defeated, Alice and Jacob return to the waking world. She also appears in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: Nightmare Warriors, where a vision of Freddy causes her to meet with other Freddy and Jason survivors. She reveals that her dream powers have caused a terminal illness, and later sacrifices herself to pass her powers onto her son. The aforementioned comic series is not the only literature that has killed off Alice. Due to Alice having been killed by Freddy Krueger, her son Jacob is the main protagonist in Natasha Rhodes' novel A Nightmare on Elm Street: Perchance to Dream. In the end, Gordon gives up his body so that Dan can take it over and be re-united with Alice and his son.

Reception

In his book Horror Films of the 1980s, John Kenneth Muir noted the following:

"Alice's blossoming is coupled with the mirror (an important symbol in the film). When she is weak and diffident, the mirror is loaded with photographs that obscure her reflection. The message is that she doesn't want to see herself; she'd rather hide from what she considers ugly. But as Alice's strength grows, she takes down the photos and countenances her own image. What she finds there is gorgeous and strong."

Muir believes that Alice's transformation "is the perfect counterpoint to Freddy's storyline." Whereas Freddy's reflection encompasses evil, Alice's "reflection is what makes her powerful." According to Muir, the character of Alice Johnson, goes against the "final girl" stereotype in that she is a "greasy-haired ugly duckling [who finds] her inner strength and beauty through self-actualization.." Furthermore, he adds that "from Nancy to Alice, the women on Elm Street are tough, resourceful, powerful role models for teenagers, ones who--mirror--reality in their efforts to navigate high school, and indeed life."

As Muir summarizes:

"[Alice is] afraid of what her child will be; she wants to protect it; and she has to fend off Dan's parents, who want to adopt the child...[she must deal] with all of these competing emotions and stresses, not to mention Freddy...."

Monika Bartyzel stated that Alice is different when compared to other final girls and that her empowerment over the course of the films became an essential plot point, she said:

At first, she’s the shy, introverted hanger-on to her much more wild friends (much like Laurie Strode). She considers herself a non-entity, preferring to mask her mirror, and thereby herself, with her friends’ images. When they die, however, and she mystically consumes portions of their strength, the pictures come down in chunks as she wipes away the old Alice to become the active fighter. Instead of teamwork, the team is infused into one previously passive being, a mecha-human designed to defeat the dream monster. Alice is one of the few true and ongoing Final Girls; she survives two films, saves her child from demonic possession, and disappears from the Nightmare on Elm Street world without ever succumbing to the inevitability of death in a future installment.

The website Lady Geek Girl and Friends praised the intelligence and strength of the character saying, "Letting go of the past, suiting up for battle with the accoutrements of her fallen friends, and finally looking at herself in the mirror and being damn pleased with what she sees, ugh, it’s one of the best sequences in the series. In the ensuing battle we see just how powerful Alice really is as she is the first heroine in the series to face Freddy in the dream, alone, and triumph. The fight takes her to the limits of what she can do, and everything she’s gained from her friends helps, but in the end it’s her own intelligence that defeats the monster." Similarly, Tommy Watanabe praised the strength of the character, saying:

"In the fifth installment of the franchise, Alice fights to protect her unborn child from the possession of Freddy's spirit using more of her abilities, even invading the nightmare of her new bestie (wow, Alice, you move on quick) Yvonne by spearing Freddy with a pipe as he tries to kill Yvonne. Capable and creative, Alice proves to be a strong woman readily available to protect her friends (or attempt to, in the case of comic book artist Mark and aspiring model Greta) and family at any cost. More importantly, she had sex... and survived!"

Characterization

In an interview Lisa Wilcox described Alice as an outcast that a lot of people can relate to, she said:

“I immediately fell in love with the story of Alice, she’s a daydreamer who was kind of pathetic at the beginning of Part Four, and I think we all can relate to that feeling in some ways. Actually, I was totally a wallflower in high school so there was a lot of myself in the character of Alice. There’s a lot of Lisa on that screen.” Wilcox also mentioned the character development of Alice saying, "“As an actress, though, what made Alice remarkable is that audiences watch Alice become stronger and stronger as the movie plays along, and you can’t help but be a part of her journey because she’s so relatable."