Joey Crusel (portrayed by Rodney Eastman) is a character from the Nightmare on Elm Street horror film franchise. He was one of the original Elm Street children whose parents were involved with the killing of notorious child murderer Freddy Krueger. He appeared in the third film Dream Warriors and then in the fourth film The Dream Master when he met his demise.
Personality[]
Joey was a quiet, socially-awkward teenager. In Dream Warriors, he was mute and unable to speak at all, most likely a result of trauma inflicted on him by Freddy. Despite his shy nature, he was close friends with the other patients at Westin Hills Asylum, largely due to their shared circumstance of being stalked by Freddy in their nightmares.
History[]
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors[]
Joey is a patient at Westin Hills Asylum along with Will Stanton, Taryn White, Roland Kincaid, Phillip Anderson, Jennifer Caulfield and Kristen Parker. All of these youngsters have been admitted to Westin Hills following apparent suicide attempts, but they each claim to have been attacked in their dreams by a malicious, deformed figure which they later learn is the reincarnation of former child killer Freddy Krueger. Nancy Thompson, a survivor of Freddy's first post-death rampage, begins working at Westin Hills as a counselor and explains to the patients why Freddy is attacking them.
After Phillip and Jennifer are both killed by Freddy, Nancy tries to teach the surviving patients how to take control of their dreams so they can defend themselves. With the help of Kristen and her unique ability to pull other people into her dreams, the kids discover they each have a power they can use to fight against Freddy. Joey, however, is attacked by Freddy in his dream who holds him hostage in his nightmare, leaving Joey comatose in the real world.
With Kristen's power of shared dreaming, Nancy and the others delve into the dream world to rescue Joey. Though Will and Taryn are both killed, the others persevere and find Joey hanging over a pit of fire. Freddy is distracted when he senses his physical remains being tampered with and departs the dream world to possess his bones and kill Donald Thompson and Dr. Neil Gordon. This allows Nancy and the others to free Joey, but they find themselves lost within a hall of mirrors. Freddy reappears and pulls Kincaid and Kristen into the mirrors, but then Joey reveals his own dream power: a deafening supersonic voice that causes the mirrors to shatter, releasing his friends.
It seems that the Dream Warriors have won as Freddy is gone, when suddenly Nancy's father Donald (having been killed by Freddy's skeleton in the real world) appears and bids farewell to Nancy. Nancy embraces her father, but it turns out to be Freddy assuming Donald's form and he stabs Nancy. As he does so, Neil is consecrating Freddy's bones with holy water in the real world, which causes Freddy pain in the dream realm. In her last moments, Nancy grabs Freddy's arm and stabs him with his own bladed glove. Freddy then vanishes, apparently destroyed, and the surviving kids awaken to find Nancy dead. They all later attend Nancy's funeral.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master[]
A year after the previous film, Joey is living an ordinary life in Springwood. However, he and Kincaid are being pulled into Kristen's dreams who fears that Freddy may return some day. Kincaid and Joey aren't entirely convinced, but one night Kincaid dreams that he finds himself in the junk yard where Freddy's bones were buried and watches as his dog Jason digs them up. Freddy is resurrected and kills Kincaid before setting his sights on Joey and Kristen.
That same night, Joey dreams that he finds an attractive woman in his water bed. The woman suddenly transforms into Freddy who rips his way out of the water mattress and pulls Joey under the water, slashing him to death. The next morning, Joey's mother enters her son's room and is horrified to find her son somehow drowned inside the water mattress, which appears undamaged.