Badham Preschool

"He brought us here so we would remember what he did to us."

- Nancy Holbrook

Badham Preschool is a fictional learning center featured in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. It is featured only in the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

1994-1995
The Badham Preschool was a learning center located on the far end of the town of Springwood, Ohio. The place was the subject of a great scandal that erupted in 1995 when the school's gardener, Fred Krueger, was accused of molesting several children in Mrs. Winton's class.

Krueger had not only worked at the school, but he also lived in a maintenance room in the basement of the building. Inside the room was a secret door that led to a hidden room. This was Krueger's private sanctuary. Preumably, nobody else working at the school at that time were aware of the room. They were definitely unaware of Freddy's personal relationship with the children. Krueger loved his job, but loved the children even more. Freddy's personal favorite was Nancy Holbrook. Freddy liked watching her draw and he brought her into the secret room where they splashed paint on the walls together. Freddy took a series of Polaroid photographs of Nancy which he kept in the secret room.

Nobody felt that there was any real danger from Krueger until Nancy Holbrook came home with deep scratches across her back. She told her mother that Freddy had taken her to his "secret cave".

When word got around, the parents of Elm Street decided to take matters into their own hands. They believed the stories that the children had told them about Freddy's unsavory actions and organized a lynch party. They chased Krueger down and locked him inside of an abandoned building and set it on fire, killing him. Krueger's soul lived on however and he committed himself towards avenging his death by manifesting in the dreams of those whom he felt had betrayed him.

The Badham school shut down shortly following this incident.

2010
Fifteen years after Krueger burned to death, his essence took on a monstrous demonic form that could manifest itself in people's dreams. As a dream demon, Krueger began stalking the Badham children, who were now all teenagers. One of his first victims was Lisa Harper, who had since moved to Dallas, Texas. A story ran in the Dallas Crier by reporter Elise Miller stating that star athlete Lisa Harper had "died in her sleep".

Another victim was Bret Tanzer, who was a seventeen-year-old Junior High School student. Tanzer died in an apparent automobile accident when he fell asleep at the wheel on a Monday evening.

Other surviving children from the Badham incident had grown older and were classmates in high school. Several of them, including Nancy Holbrook and her friend Quentin Smith had repressed the memories of what had happened to them when they were children.

Nancy Holbrook fell asleep in the bathtub of her house and had a dream wherein she saw herself at the Badham school in the middle of a snowy winter. As she approached the front doors, Freddy Krueger appeared behind her. He came in close and sniffed at her, entreating her to remember who he was and how she had always been his favorite. After awakening from the dream, Nancy drew a picture of the school.

Quentin Smith did research on the school at the Springwood Times website and found an article about how it had closed down following the scandal.

Nancy Holbrook found a photograph of Mrs. Winton's class from the 1994-1995 year. People seen in the photo include:
 * 1st row: Quentin Smith; Kristen Fowles; Jesse Braun; Nancy Holbrook; Dean Russell
 * 2nd row: Sukar McGill; Elisabeth Cook; Marcus Yeon; Lisa Harper; Nancy Lumb; Carrie Bush
 * 3rd row: Mrs. Russell; Craig Jackson; Bret Tanzer; Mrs. Winton

Nancy and Quentin went to Badham, which by now had long since been abandoned and was in a severe state of disrepair. The building had not even been cleaned out and notices and drawings could still be found on the bulletin boards lining the corridors. Quentin found the door to the maintenance room and together they discovered the secret room. Nancy's memory began to return to her and Quentin found the old photographs that Krueger had taken when she was a child.

Nancy believed that the secret to defeating Krueger lied with being able to pull him from the dream world into the real world. Quentin and she decided that the Badham school basement would be their final battleground. Nancy went to sleep with instructions for Quentin to wake her if he saw signs of her struggling. When Nancy began reacting violently to the images from her dreams, Quentin tried to wake her up. Failing that, he injected her with a shot of adrenalin, which prompted her to awaken. Freddy Krueger manifested in the real world and attacked Quentin. Nancy was able to cut off his arm and then sliced his throat open with the broken blade from a paper cutter. It appeared as if the menace of Freddy Krueger was gone forever.