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141-718: A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American supernatural slasher film written and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Robert Shaye . It is the first installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and stars Heather Langenkamp , John Saxon , Ronee Blakley , Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger , and Johnny Depp in his film debut. The film's plot concerns a group of teenagers who are targeted by Krueger, an undead child killer who murders teenagers through their dreams, as retribution against their parents who burned him alive. Craven filmed A Nightmare on Elm Street in Los Angeles on an estimated budget of $ 1.8 million. It

282-473: A Belarusian children's film titled " Кешка и Фреди ", or " Keshka i Fredi ", directed by Boris Berzner. The film focused on the Belarusian youth, Keshka, who is described as being a "... Tom Sawyer successor", and a "...a pioneer at heart...", who decides to skip out on his school's English lessons to attend a showing of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master at a cultural center . Falling asleep in

423-553: A reboot of the original Nightmare on Elm Street film, starring Jackie Earle Haley , was released. Wizard magazine rated Freddy the 14th-greatest villain of all time; the British television channel Sky2 listed him 8th, and the American Film Institute ranked him 40th on its " AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains " list. In 2010, Freddy was nominated for the award for Best Villain (formerly Most Vile Villain) at

564-638: A saber-toothed tiger reaching with its tremendous hooks. I transposed this into a human hand. The original script had the blades being fishing knives." When Jim Doyle, the creator of Freddy's claw, asked Craven what he wanted, Craven responded, "It's kind of like really long fingernails, I want the glove to look like something that someone could make who has the skills of a boilermaker." Doyle explained, "Then we hunted around for knives. We picked out this bizarre-looking steak knife, we thought that this looked really cool, we thought it would look even cooler if we turned it over and used it upside down. We had to remove

705-443: A turtleneck version of his trademark sweater, a blue-black trench coat , and a fifth claw on his glove, which also has a far more organic appearance, resembling the exposed muscle tissue of an actual hand. Freddy also has fewer burns on his face, though these are more severe, with his muscle tissue exposed in numerous places. Compared to his other incarnations, these Freddy's injuries are more like those of an actual burn victim. For

846-439: A waiter or wearing a superhero -inspired version of his sweater with a cape ( The Dream Child ), appearing as a video game sprite ( Freddy's Dead ), a giant snake -like creature ( Dream Warriors ), and a hookah-smoking caterpillar ( Freddy vs. Jason ). In New Nightmare , Freddy's appearance is updated considerably, giving him a green fedora that matches his sweater stripes, skin-tight leather pants, knee-high black boots,

987-439: A 1982 Scientific American that said these two colors were the most clashing colors to the human retina. Craven strove to make Krueger different from other horror film villains of the era. In 2014, he recalled, "A lot of the killers were wearing masks: Leatherface , Michael Myers , Jason . I wanted my villain to have a mask, but be able to talk and taunt and threaten. So I thought of him being burned and scarred." He also said

1128-448: A boiler room at an industrial park and set it on fire with a Molotov cocktail made out of a gasoline canister, killing him. As a spirit, he takes his revenge on the teenagers by haunting their dreams; he is particularly obsessed with Nancy Holbrook ( Rooney Mara ), who had been his "favorite" when she was a child. Krueger's power comes from his prey's memories and emotions upon remembering the abuse they suffered at his hands. His bladed glove

1269-507: A burn mark on her arm. Nancy visits Rod at the police station, where he describes Tina's death along with his own recent nightmares about the same man. At home, Nancy falls asleep in the bathtub and is nearly drowned by the man. She then relies on caffeine to stay awake and invites Glen to watch over her as she sleeps. In her dream, she sees the man preparing to kill Rod in his cell, but he turns his attention toward her. Nancy wakes up when her alarm clock goes off. The man kills Rod, staging it as

1410-436: A callback. Wes Craven decided immediately upon mixing Wyss and Langenkamp that this was the duo he wanted. Craven then mixed the duo with auditioners for the male teenage roles trying to find actors who had chemistry with Wyss and/or Langenkamp. Johnny Depp was another unknown when he was cast, initially accompanying his friend ( Jackie Earle Haley who went on to play Freddy in the 2010 remake) to an audition. According to Depp,

1551-507: A cameo. Freddy Krueger appears as an OASIS avatar in Ready Player One . He is among the avatars seen on the PVP location Planet Doom where he is shot by Aech. The frog species Lepidobatrachus laevis had been given multiple nicknames, one of which is the "Freddy Krueger frog" for its aggressive nature. In 2023, Firkantus freddykruegeri , a prehistoric ichneumonid parasitoid wasp ,

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1692-459: A downloadable playable character for Mortal Kombat (2011) , with Robert Englund reprising his role. He has become the second non- Mortal Kombat character to appear in the game. The game depicts Krueger as a malevolent spirit inhabiting the Dream Realm who attacks Shao Kahn for "stealing" the souls of his potential victims. During the fight, he is pulled into the game's fictional depiction of

1833-456: A fictionalized version of herself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). There were no separate auditions for the characters of Tina and Nancy; all actresses who auditioned for one of the two female roles read for the role of Nancy, and upon potentially being called back, were mixed with other actresses trying to find a pair that had chemistry. Amanda Wyss was among those switched to Tina after

1974-536: A fine stump. Waking up shortly after, Keshka meets up with his friends, holding Krueger's hat in his hands, as he decides to devote more time to his studies in English. Freddy's first video game appearance was in the 1989 Commodore 64 game A Nightmare on Elm Street , published by Monarch and developed by Westwood Associates , which was followed by the 1990 NES game A Nightmare on Elm Street , published by LJN Toys and developed by Rare . Freddy Krueger appeared as

2115-586: A further two seconds for subsequent releases (which the Ultra HD Blu-ray release did not involve with Media Home Entertainment and Smart Egg Pictures). It was released in the United States on November 9, 1984, through New Line Cinema and in the United Kingdom on August 30, 1985, through Palace Pictures . The film was first introduced to the home video market by Media Home Entertainment in early 1985 and

2256-650: A ghost... psychological horror, on the other hand, does not involve violations of physical law, but features naturalistic (if often implausible) menaces and scenarios." Paul Meehan also distinguishes supernatural horror films from psychological horror, "The threat to societal order comes from something preternatural or anomalous: a haunted house, a curse, or a monster like a vampire or a werewolf." Charles Derry, writing in Dark Dreams 2.0 , contrasted supernatural horror and pseudoscientific horror as "two basic methods of explaining things away" in horror stories. Derry wrote, "Into

2397-449: A group of teens learning the truth and drawing Freddy and Jason to Camp Crystal Lake in the hope that they can draw Freddy into the real world so that Jason will kill him and remain "home." The ending of the film is left ambiguous as to whether or not Freddy is actually dead; despite being decapitated, when Jason emerges from the lake carrying his head he looks and winks at the audience. A sequel featuring Ash Williams ( Bruce Campbell ) from

2538-409: A metal gauntlet with four finger bars, but it is patterned after its original design. Owing to this iteration of the character's origin as a groundskeeper, from the outset it was a gardener's glove modified as an instrument of torture, and in film its blades was based on a garden fork . Freddy's glove appeared in the 1987 horror-comedy Evil Dead II above the door on the inside of a toolshed. This

2679-414: A pimp hat. It was like, "What are you thinking, you guys?" I think I said something to Wes like, "Look, the fedora was your idea." And I stood and showed my shadow on the wall with the [fedora] hat, and how strong that silhouette was. And then I took the hat off and showed the baldness, revealing the baldness, and how he could save that for the right time in the movie. And I kind of got my way. Freddy's skin

2820-410: A script ... I just didn't get it completely, but I still took a meeting with Wes. And when I met him, I said, "Look, with all due respect, and as a fan of your talents, I just don't see this guy wearing a funny hat with a rotted face and a striped sweater and a bunch of clacky fingers. I just don't see this catching on." Mark Patton , who would later be cast as Jesse Walsh in the sequel, auditioned for

2961-404: A sense, Freddy stands for the worst of parenthood and adulthood – the dirty old man, the nasty father and the adult who wants children to die rather than help them prosper. He's the boogey man and the worst fear of children – the adult that's out to get them. He's a very primal figure, sort of like Kronos devouring his children – that evil, twisted, perverted father figure that wants to destroy and

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3102-454: A startled Craven and walked off. This served as the inspiration for Krueger. Initially, Fred Krueger was intended to be a child molester, but Craven eventually characterized him as a child murderer to avoid being accused of exploiting a spate of highly publicized child molestation cases that occurred in California around the time of the film's production. On Freddy's nature, Craven states that "in

3243-402: A suicide. At his funeral, Nancy's parents become worried when she describes her dreams. Her mother, Marge, takes her to a sleep disorder clinic where, in a dream, Nancy grabs the man's fedora with the name " Fred Krueger " written in it and pulls it into the real world. After barricading the house, Marge explains that Krueger was an insane child murderer who killed 20 children but was released on

3384-414: A technicality. He was then burned alive by the victims' parents, who sought vigilante justice. Now a vengeful ghost , Krueger is killing Nancy and her friends out of revenge and to satiate his psychopathic needs. Glen falls asleep and is killed by Krueger. Now alone, Nancy asks her father, who is across the street investigating Glen's death, to break into the house in 20 minutes. She rigs booby traps around

3525-432: A terrifying nightmare in which a disfigured man wearing a bladed glove attacks her in a boiler room. Her mother points out the mysterious slashes on her nightgown. Tina's best friend Nancy Thompson and Nancy's boyfriend, Glen Lantz, reveal that they too had nightmares about the same disfigured man. During a sleepover at Tina's house, Tina's boyfriend, Rod Lane, arrives, and they have sex. When Tina falls asleep, she dreams of

3666-448: A translucent body bag. During the scene in which Freddy kills Rod in the prison cell, Nancy witnesses a centipede crawl out of Tina's mouth. The filmmakers initially attempted to achieve this effect by having Wyss force a rubber centipede out of her mouth; the effect seen in the final film was accomplished by having an actual centipede crawl out of the mouth of a clay sculpture of Wyss's likeness, sculpted by David B. Miller. During filming,

3807-407: A twist ending, in which Krueger disappears and all seems to have been a dream, only for the audience to discover that it was a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream. According to Craven, The original ending of the script has Nancy come out the door. It's an unusually cloudy and foggy day. A car pulls up with her dead friends in it. She's startled. She goes out and gets in the car wondering what the hell

3948-423: Is The Exorcist (1973). It has an unadjusted gross of over $ 441 million with the original release and 2000 re-release combined; the estimated adjusted gross in 2019 is over $ 1.04 billion . The highest-grossing supernatural horror film, unadjusted for inflation, is It (2017) with a worldwide gross of $ 701 million . In 2013, Variety ' s Andrew Stewart said supernatural horror films grossed more at

4089-490: Is a feminist movie, but I look at it more as a 'youth power' film." When the film was submitted to the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system (MPAA), they required two cuts to grant it an R rating . The theatrical version was released with an R rating and thirteen seconds of cuts. In the United Kingdom, the film was released theatrically and on home video uncut. The Australian theatrical release

4230-493: Is able to get them at their most vulnerable moment, which is when they're asleep!". By Craven's account, his own adolescent experiences led him to the name Freddy Krueger; he had been bullied at school by a child named Fred Krueger. Craven had done the same thing in his film The Last House on the Left (1972), where the villain's name was shortened to Krug. Craven chose to make Krueger's sweater red and green after reading an article in

4371-478: Is attacked by Krueger in her bathtub was accomplished with a special bottomless tub. The tub was put in a bathroom set that was built over a swimming pool. During the underwater sequence, Heather Langenkamp was replaced with a stuntwoman. The melting staircase in Nancy's dream was Robert Shaye's idea based on his own nightmares; it was created using pancake mix. The film's special effects artist Jim Doyle portrayed Freddy on

A Nightmare on Elm Street - Misplaced Pages Continue

4512-493: Is commonly identified by his burned, disfigured face, dirty red-and-green-striped sweater and brown fedora , and trademark metal-clawed, brown leather, right hand glove. This glove was the product of Krueger's own imagination, having welded the blades himself before using it to murder many of his victims, both in the real and dream worlds. Over the course of the film series, Freddy has battled several reoccurring survivors including Nancy Thompson and Alice Johnson . The character

4653-512: Is darker and more evil than as portrayed by him in the films; he struggles to keep his sanity intact from Krueger's torments and goes into hiding with his family. Krueger aims to stop another film of the franchise from being made, eliminating the films' crew members, including Langenkamp's husband, Chase Porter ( David Newsom ), after stealing a prototype bladed glove from him, and causes nightmares and makes threatening phone calls to producer Robert Shaye . The entity also haunts Wes Craven's dreams, to

4794-492: Is fueled by his victims' fear, she calmly turns her back to him, and Krueger evaporates. Nancy steps outside into a foggy morning where all her friends and her mother are still alive. She gets into Glen's convertible to go to school when the top suddenly comes down (colored in green and red stripes) and locks them in as the car speeds down the street, while Marge waves them goodbye on the doorstep. Three girls in white dresses playing jump rope chant Krueger's nursery rhyme as Marge

4935-407: Is going on, and they drive off into the fog, with the mother left standing on the doorstep and that's it. It was very brief, and suggestive that maybe life is sort of dream-like too. Shaye wanted Freddy Krueger to be driving the car, and have the kids screaming. It all became very negative. I felt a philosophical tension to my ending. Shaye said, "That's so 60s, it's stupid." I refused to have Freddy in

5076-452: Is grabbed by Krueger through the front door window. The cast of A Nightmare on Elm Street included veteran actors such as Robert Englund and John Saxon and aspiring young actors like Johnny Depp and Heather Langenkamp. Robert Shaye has two uncredited roles as broadcasters for local television news and KRGR Radio station. Make-up artist David B. Miller designed Krueger's disfigured face based on photographs of burn victims obtained from

5217-404: Is hunted down by a mob made up of the town's vengeful parents and cornered in the boiler room. The mob douses the building with gasoline and sets it on fire by throwing Molotov cocktails , burning him alive. While his body dies, his spirit lives on within the dreams of a group of teenagers and pre-adolescents living on Elm Street, whom he preys on by entering their dreams and killing them, fueled by

5358-409: Is made out of discarded pieces of his gardening tools. Nancy destroys him at the end of the film by pulling his spirit into the physical world and cutting his throat; the final scene reveals that Freddy's spirit has survived, however. Englund continued to portray Krueger in the 1988 television anthology series, Freddy's Nightmares . The show was hosted by Freddy, who did not take direct part in most of

5499-478: Is present in Freudian images and is almost exclusively displayed in a threatening and mysterious context (e.g., Tina's death visually evokes a rape, Freddy's glove between Nancy's legs in the bath). The original script called for Krueger to be a child molester, rather than a child murderer, before being murdered. Wes Craven has explained that "the notion of the screenplay is that the sins of the parents are visited upon

5640-414: Is revealed by the mysterious nun who repeatedly appears to Dr. Neil Gordon ( Craig Wasson ). Freddy's mother, Amanda Krueger ( Nan Martin ), was a nun and a nurse at the asylum featured in the film. At the time she worked there, a largely abandoned, run-down wing of the asylum was used to lock up entire hordes of the most insane criminals all at once. When Amanda was young, she was accidentally locked into

5781-409: Is revealed that Freddy was adopted by an alcoholic named Mr. Underwood ( Alice Cooper ), who abused him throughout his childhood until Freddy finally murdered him as a teenager ( Tobe Sexton ), becoming his first kill. Freddy tortured animals and engaged in self-mutilation , and became a serial killer by murdering the children of people who had bullied him when he was a child. Prior to his murder, he

A Nightmare on Elm Street - Misplaced Pages Continue

5922-479: Is scarred and burned as a result of being burned alive by the parents of Springwood, and he has no hair at all on his head as it presumably all burned off. In the original film, only Freddy's face was burned, while the scars have spread to the rest of his body from the second film onwards. His blood is occasionally a dark, oily color, or greenish in hue when he is in the Dreamworld. In the original film, Freddy remains in

6063-414: Is supposed to be a new look for Freddy, Craven and everybody involved decided that the glove should be different. This hand has more muscle and bone texture to it, the blades are shinier and in one case, are retractable. Everything about this glove has a much cleaner look to it, it's more a natural part of his hand than a glove." The new glove has five claws. In the 2010 remake , the glove is redesigned as

6204-494: The Evil Dead franchise was planned, but never materialized onscreen. It was later turned into Dynamite Entertainment's comic book series Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash . In the 2010 remake of the original film , Freddy's backstory is that he was a groundskeeper at Springwood Badham Preschool who tortured and sexually abused the teenage protagonists of the film when they were children. When their parents found out, they trapped him in

6345-604: The Motion Picture Production Code (or the Hays Code). The Haunting featured a female protagonist interested in another woman, and she was a queer coded character. Such characters were commonplace in the history of supernatural horror films. Sue Matheson wrote of Rosemary's Baby , "[It] popularized depictions of witchcraft, demonic activity, and the Devil on screen and generated a wave of supernatural horror movies." By

6486-470: The Scream Awards . In A Nightmare on Elm Street , Freddy is introduced as a serial child killer, Fred Krueger, from the fictitious town of Springwood, Ohio , who kills his victims with a bladed leather glove he crafted in a boiler room where he used to take his 20 victims. He is captured, but is set free on a technicality when it is discovered that the search warrant was not signed in the right place. He

6627-587: The UCLA Medical Center . A Nightmare on Elm Street contains many biographical elements from director Wes Craven's childhood. The film was inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the Los Angeles Times in the 1970s about Hmong refugees, who, after fleeing to the United States because of war and genocide in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, suffered disturbing nightmares and refused to sleep. Some of

6768-410: The morality play that revolves around sexual promiscuity in teenagers resulting in their eventual death, leading to the term "slasher film". Critics and film historians state that the film's premise is the struggle to define the distinction between dreams and reality, manifested by the lives and dreams of the teens in the film. Later critics praise the film's ability to transgress "the boundaries between

6909-434: The 1970s, the films The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976) revived the supernatural horror genre. Literature was used as source material like with the earliest films, with the written works of Stephen King being adapted into Carrie (1976) and The Shining (1980). The film Poltergeist (1982) was also a genre highlight in the 1980s. In the 2000s, violent horror films called " torture porn " were popular. By

7050-457: The 2010 remake, Freddy is returned to his iconic attire, but the burns on his face are intensified with further bleaching of the skin and exposed facial tissue on the left cheek, more reminiscent of actual third-degree burns than in the original series. Wes Craven stated that part of the inspiration for Freddy's infamous bladed glove was from his cat , as he watched it claw the side of his couch one night. In an interview he said, "Part of it

7191-407: The Left (1972), helped Craven at the end of the shooting, heading the second film unit during the filming of some of Nancy's dream scenes. Craven originally planned for the film to have a more evocative ending: Nancy kills Krueger by ceasing to believe in him, then awakens to discover that everything that happened in the film was an elongated nightmare. However, New Line leader Robert Shaye demanded

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7332-790: The Spanish Civil War, Colombian armed conflict, and Guatemalan genocide, respectively. Films like Host (2020) reflected contemporary fears, with The Others (2001) and Insidious (2010) revisiting haunted house narratives, and The Conjuring (2013) grounding its story in real-life paranormal investigations. The genre also blended horror with comedy, as in Housebound (2014) and Extra Ordinary (2019), to explore similar themes. The films employed various techniques, such as jump-scares, tension-building, and emotive performances, to examine deep-rooted fears and societal issues. The highest-grossing supernatural horror film, adjusted for inflation,

7473-481: The Vampyre (1979) and some of the works of Lon Chaney , while he based Freddy's poise and gait on the "Cagney stance" originated by actor James Cagney . Freddy's characteristic of keeping his gloved arm lower than the other was incidental due to the knives being heavy to wear for Englund and forcing him to carry himself as such while playing the role. Freddy's physical appearance has stayed largely consistent throughout

7614-450: The apartment building's entrance. I ran through the apartment to our front door as he was walking into our building on the lower floor. I heard him starting up the stairs. My brother, who is ten years older than me, got a baseball bat and went out to the corridor but he was gone. According to Robert Englund, Freddy's look was based on Klaus Kinski 's portrayal of Count Dracula in Nosferatu

7755-517: The back edge and put another edge on it, because we were actually using the knife upside down." Later Doyle had three duplicates of the glove made, two of which were used as stunt gloves in long shots. For New Nightmare , Lou Carlucci, the effects coordinator, remodeled Freddy's glove for a more "organic look". He says, "I did the original glove on the first Nightmare and we deliberately made that rough and primitive looking, like something that would be constructed in somebody's home workshop. Since this

7896-453: The basis of Freddy Krueger's power stemmed from several stories in the Los Angeles Times about a series of mysterious deaths: All the victims had reported recurring nightmares and died in their sleep. Additionally, Craven's original script characterized Freddy as a child molester , which Craven said was the "worst thing" he could think of. The decision was made to instead make him a child murderer in order to avoid being accused of exploiting

8037-478: The bathroom between takes. In 2014, he revealed that he was high on heroin during the scene with Langenkamp in the jail cell. "His eyes were watery and they weren't focused," Langenkamp said. "I thought, 'Wow, he's giving the best performance of his life. ' " Craven said in a 2014 interview that twelve frames of blood had to be cut during Tina's death scene or the film would have been axed. Following Tina's death, Nancy repeatedly dreams of an animate corpse of Tina in

8178-531: The boiler and burning to death due to the parents ignoring his pleas for help, deciding to avenge himself by targeting their kids for their callously letting him burn to death. Krueger ultimately was stopped by Maggie plugging his bagpipe spider form, causing him to uncontrollably inflate and detonate within the dream world, though it is implied in the ending this resulted in him being restored to life in reality, albeit significantly less threatening. In 1992, Freddy Krueger made an unlicensed appearance in appearance in

8319-1063: The box office than other horror sub-genres. He advised that filmmakers interested in tapping into the profitable market of low-budget horror should focus more on stories about ghosts and the supernatural, as movies about slashers and extreme horror tend to have less consistent commercial success. Joe Tompkins wrote that following the 1950s, many "Gothic and supernatural horror movies utilize dissonance, atonality, and unusual configurations of instruments to signify all sorts of anomalous, paranormal activity". He wrote that Black Sunday (1960) and The Haunting (1963) "make use of atonal clusters, which operate in sharp contrast to tonal music and thus provide antagonistic symbols for supernatural evil and good (respectively)". He also highlighted that The Amityville Horror (1979) and Poltergeist (1982) "employ various thematic materials ranging from soft-sounding lullabies to atonal outbursts". According to Janet K. Halfyard, supernatural horror-comedy films deploy various strategies to using music "to simultaneously locate

8460-528: The boy throughout the cultural center, threatening to kill him. Eventually backed into a corner by Freddy, Keshka recites the "законы пионеров советского союза" or the "Laws of the Pioneers of the Soviet Union" , like a psalm, while performing a pioneer salute in lieu of a cross. De-powered, Krueger falls limp, as Keshka takes a pair of pliers and snaps off each of his glove's blades, before filing each one down to

8601-658: The centipede was temporarily lost on set before being found again. About halfway through the film, when Nancy is trying to stay awake, a scene from Sam Raimi 's The Evil Dead appears on a television. Craven decided to include the scene because Raimi had featured a Hills Have Eyes (Craven, 1977) poster in The Evil Dead . In return, Raimi featured a Freddy Krueger glove in the workshed scene of Evil Dead II , and later in Ash vs Evil Dead . Sean Cunningham , whom Wes Craven had previously worked with while filming The Last House on

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8742-555: The chapter are set immediately following Nancy Holbrook's escape from Krueger, after which he targets Quentin Smith as revenge for aiding her. Invading Smith's dreams, he forces him to go to the Badham Preschool, where the two are unwittingly taken to the universe of Dead by Daylight by an unseen force. The character returned to television in an episode of The Goldbergs titled "Mister Knifey-Hands" with Englund reprising his role in

8883-506: The children, but the fact that each child is not necessarily stuck with their lot is still there." Robert Englund observes that "in Nightmare , all the adults are damaged: They're alcoholic, they're on pills, they're not around". Blakley says the parents in the film "verge on being villains." Englund adds: "the adolescents have to wade through that, and Heather is the last girl standing. She lives. She defeats Freddy." Langenkamp agrees: " Nightmare

9024-434: The company's rejection letter on the wall of his office, which reads in its December 14, 1982 print: "We have reviewed the script you have submitted, A Nightmare on Elm Street . Unfortunately, the script did not receive an enthusiastic enough response from us to go forward at this time. However, when you have a finished print, please get in touch and we would be delighted to screen it for a possible negative pick up." Finally,

9165-531: The dark places in his mind. Robert understood Freddy." Englund has stated that Craven was indeed in search of a "big, giant man" originally, but casting director Annette Benson had talked Craven into seeing him about the role after Englund had auditioned for National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982) previously. Before Englund's agent at the time, Joe Rice, sent him to the casting office, Rice's friend Rhet Topham recommended Englund to act "rat-like", "weasel-like", adding that "When we read about abusers and molesters in

9306-432: The disfigured man who attacks her; in real life, Rod sees her fatally slashed by an unseen force, forcing him to flee. Nancy and Glen find Tina bloodied and dead. Nancy's policeman father, Don Thompson, arrests Rod despite his pleas of innocence. At school, Nancy falls asleep in class and dreams that the man chases her to the boiler room. She deliberately burns her arm on a pipe, which startles her awake in class, and notices

9447-534: The dominant cinematic mode of the genre between the release of Dracula (1931) and House of Dracula (1945). In the early 1940s, supernatural horror films had more contemporary settings, but the genre was ultimately superseded by psychological horror films. By the end of World War II, the supernatural horror genre "met its demise", being overshadowed by the atrocities of the war. By the 1950s, science fiction horror films had replaced supernatural horror films, and psychological horror films also became more popular in

9588-492: The doors to realising these ideas." Krueger went on to become playable in the mobile edition of the game's sequel , Mortal Kombat X , alongside Jason from Friday the 13th . In October 2017, the Jackie Earle Haley incarnation of Krueger was released as a downloadable playable character in the seventh chapter of the asymmetric survival horror game Dead by Daylight , alongside Quentin Smith . The events of

9729-401: The driver's seat, and we thought up about five different endings. The one we used, with Freddy pulling the mother through the doorway amused us all so much, we couldn't not use it. Craven explains that the effect of the mentioned fog did not work out for the team and they had to film without it: there were around 20 persons with fog machines, but the breeze at the time was too much, and the fog

9870-824: The end of the decade, supernatural horror reclaimed their popularity. The found footage film The Blair Witch Project had achieved fame in 1999, and in the late 2000s, Paranormal Activity succeeded with the same film technique, which led to a film series that lasted until the mid-2010s. In the first two decades of 21st century, supernatural horror films explored a variety of themes and styles. Movies like Martyrs Lane (2021) focused on grief and loss, while Oculus (2013), Personal Shopper (2016), and Hereditary (2018) explored unfinished family business and personal trauma. The genre also incorporated real historical events, as seen in The Devil's Backbone (2001), Los Silencios (2018), and La Llorona (2019), which draw on

10011-829: The ending, was played by Hodder. At Six Flags St. Louis ' Fright Fest event (then known as Fright Nights), Krueger was the main character for the event's first year in 1988. He reappeared in his own haunted house, Freddy's Nightmare: The Haunted House on Elm Street, for the following two years. Freddy Krueger appeared alongside Jason Voorhees and Leatherface as minor icons during Halloween Horror Nights 17 and again with Jason during Halloween Horror Nights 25 at Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood . In 2016, Freddy Krueger returned to Halloween Horror Nights, along with Jason, in Hollywood. Freddy Krueger made different appearances in Robot Chicken voiced by Seth Green . In

10152-533: The entity and apparently destroys him; however, Krueger's creator reveals that it is again imprisoned in the fictitious world, indicated by the character's later appearances in films and other medias. In 2003, Freddy battled fellow horror icon Jason Voorhees ( Ken Kirzinger ) from the Friday the 13th film series in the theatrical release Freddy vs. Jason , a film which officially resurrected both characters from their respective deaths and subsequently sent them to Hell. As

10293-588: The episode "That Hurts Me", Freddy appears as a housemate of "Horror Movie Big Brother ", alongside other famous slasher movie killers such as Michael Myers , Jason Voorhees , Leatherface , Pinhead and Ghostface . In the Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror VI segment "A Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace", Groundskeeper Willie played the Freddy Krueger role, with his backstory being toned down to him accidentally setting himself on fire thanks to Homer turning up

10434-447: The episodes, but he did show up occasionally to influence the plot of particular episodes. Further, a consistent theme in each episode was characters having disturbing dreams. The series ran for 44 episodes over two seasons, ending on March 10, 1990. Although a bulk of the episodes did not feature Freddy taking a major role in the plot, the pilot episode, "No More, Mr. Nice Guy", depicts the events of his trial, and his subsequent death at

10575-458: The film begins, Krueger is frustrated at his current inability to kill as knowledge of him has been hidden in Springwood, prompting him to manipulate Jason into killing in his place in the hope that the resulting fear will remind others of him so that he can resume his own murder spree. However, Freddy's plan proves too effective when Jason starts killing people before Freddy can do it, culminating in

10716-401: The film crew constructed a whole sleeping place for Freddy, showing that he was quite a hobo , an outcast and reject from society, living and sleeping where he worked, and surrounding himself with naked Barbie dolls and other things as a showcase of his fantasies and perversions. This place was supposed to be where he forged his glove and abducted and murdered his victims. The scene where Nancy

10857-540: The film is 1428 Elm Street ; in real life this house is a private home located in Los Angeles at 1428 North Genesee Avenue. The Lantz' family home was at 1419 North Genesee Avenue on the other side of the road. The boiler room scenes and police station interior were shot in the Lincoln Heights Jail (closed since 1965) building, while the exterior used for the police station was Cahuenga Branch Library . Rod's burial

10998-467: The film picture and sound restored (DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, and original mono audio track) and another DVD with special features. Along with the restored version of the film, DVD one also had two commentaries, and other nightmares (if not all) from the film's sequels (two through seven and Freddy Vs. Jason ). It also included additional, extended or alternate scenes of the film, such as one scene where Marge reveals to Nancy that she had another sibling who

11139-473: The film series since the third film, Dream Warriors . New Nightmare coincides with the approaching anniversary of the release of the first film. Robert Englund, who portrayed Krueger throughout the film series and its television spin-off, also took the role as a fictional version of himself in New Nightmare ; it is implied that Englund was stalked by his character, who is an ancient demonic entity that took on

11280-435: The film series, although small changes were made in subsequent films. He wears a striped red-and-green sweater (solid red sleeves in the original film), a dark brown fedora , his bladed glove , loose black trousers (brown in the original film), and worn work boots , in keeping with his blue collar background. The choice to have Freddy wear a fedora was reportedly Craven's idea. In a 2018 interview, Englund stated: The fedora

11421-459: The film within—or at least close to—the horror genre, while at the same time encouraging the audience to laugh instead of scream". Freddy Krueger Freddy Krueger ( / ˈ k r uː ɡ ər / ) is a fictional character and the antagonist of the A Nightmare on Elm Street horror film franchise. Created by Wes Craven , he made his debut in Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as

11562-404: The fledgling and independent New Line Cinema corporation, which had up to that point only distributed films, agreed to produce the film. During filming, New Line's distribution deal for the film fell through and for two weeks it was unable to pay its cast and crew.Although New Line has gone on to make bigger and more profitable films, A Nightmare on Elm Street was its first commercial success and

11703-486: The form of Wes Craven's creation and has come to life from the film franchise's fictitious world. Having been in various manifestations throughout the ages as the entity can be captured through storytelling, it is hinted that it was once in the form of the old witch from Brothers Grimm 's fairy tale Hansel and Gretel when it was held prisoner in this allegory based on actions. Englund describes to his former co-star and friend Heather Langenkamp that this embodiment of Freddy

11844-445: The franchise soundtracks excluding the remake and again in 2016 in the 12-CD box Little Box of Horror with various other horror film scores. Bernstein's film score was also re-released in 2017, along with the soundtracks of the first seven films, on the label Death Waltz Recording Company in another 8-LP vinyl box set named A Nightmare On Elm Street: Box Of Souls . In 2017 and 2019, the label also released standalone extended versions of

11985-469: The game, "Over the years, we've certainly had a number of conversations about guest characters. At one point, we had a conversation about having a group—imagine Freddy, Jason , Michael Myers , Leatherface from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre . We never got a grip on how we would do it, whether they'd be DLC characters or what. We also wanted to introduce a character who was unexpected. This DLC thing opens

12126-400: The hands of the parents of Elm Street after his acquittal . In "No More, Mr. Nice Guy", though Freddy's case seems open and shut, a mistrial is declared based on the arresting officer, Lt. Tim Blocker (Ian Patrick Williams), not reading Krueger his Miranda rights , which is different from the original Nightmare , which stated he was released because someone forgot to sign the search warrant in

12267-417: The house and grabs Krueger out of her dream and into the real world. The booby traps allow her to light him on fire and lock him in the basement. The police arrive to find that Krueger has escaped from the basement. Nancy and Don find a burning Krueger smothering Marge in her bedroom. After Don extinguishes the fire, Krueger and Marge vanish into the bed before Krueger rises behind Nancy. Realizing that Krueger

12408-413: The imaginary and real", toying with audience perceptions. A Nightmare on Elm Street was released on November 9, 1984, in limited theaters until its nationwide theatrical release on November 16, 1984, and grossed $ 57.1 million worldwide. The film received critical acclaim upon its release, and has since been considered to be one of the greatest horror films ever made . In 2021, A Nightmare on Elm Street

12549-475: The inspiration for the film to be a 1968 student film project made by Craven's students at Clarkson University . The student film parodied contemporary horror films, and was filmed along Elm Street in Potsdam, New York . The film's villain, Freddy Krueger, is drawn from Craven's early life. One night, a young Craven saw an elderly man walking on the sidepath outside the window of his home. The man stopped to glance at

12690-410: The killer should use something other than a knife because it was too common. "So I thought, 'How about a glove with steak knives?' I gave the idea to our special effects guy, Jim Doyle." Ultimately two models of the glove were built: the hero glove that was only used whenever anything needed to be cut, and the stunt glove that was less likely to cause injury. For a time, Craven had considered a sickle as

12831-414: The malevolent spirit of a child killer who had been burned to death by his victims' parents after evading prison. Krueger goes on to murder his victims in their dreams, causing their deaths in the real world as well. In the dream world, he is a powerful force and seemingly invulnerable. However, whenever Freddy is pulled back into the real world, he has normal human vulnerabilities and can be destroyed. He

12972-466: The men died in their sleep soon after. Medical authorities called the phenomenon Asian Death Syndrome. The condition afflicted men between the ages of 19 and 57 and was believed to be sudden unexplained death syndrome or Brugada syndrome or both. Craven stated, "It was a series of articles in the LA Times ; three small articles about men from South East Asia, who were from immigrant families and had died in

13113-424: The middle of nightmares—and the paper never correlated them, never said, 'Hey, we've had another story like this." The 1970s pop song " Dream Weaver " by Gary Wright sealed the story for Craven, giving him not only an artistic setting to jump off from, but a synthesizer riff for the movie soundtrack. Craven has also stated that he drew some inspiration for the film from Eastern religions . Other sources attribute

13254-473: The middle of watching the movie, Keshka wakes up in the cultural center alone, being haunted by strange images and sounds from all over. Wandering around the cultural center, Keshka arrives in the basement of the cultural center, where he meets Freddy Krueger when he cuts his way through a film poster to approach the boy. Asking him if he speaks English, Keshka can not answer Freddy correctly, onto which Freddy replies that he will "teach him English", before chasing

13395-415: The newspaper, they're not big, hulking men, but weasels. I thought he should go in and play it like that. And it worked!". Englund had darkened his lower eyelids with cigarette ash on his way to the audition and slicked his hair back. "I looked strange. I sat there and listened to Wes talk. He was tall and preppy and erudite. I posed a bit, like Klaus Kinski , and that was the audition," he said later. He took

13536-403: The original budget. Four weeks before production began, the English investor who had contributed 40% backed out, but Media Home Entertainment added in another 40% to the budget. Among the backers were also Heron Communications and Smart Egg Pictures. According to producer Robert Shaye , all the film's original investors backed out at one point or another during pre-production. The original budget

13677-399: The part because it was the only project that fit his schedule during the hiatus between the V miniseries and series. Craven said he wanted someone very non-Hollywood for the role of Nancy, and he believed Langenkamp met this quality. Langenkamp, who had appeared in several commercials and a TV film, had taken time off from her studies at Stanford to continue acting. Eventually she landed

13818-628: The part, but I do think Wes made the right choice". Hodder would in a way eventually play Freddy, as the hand that grabs Jason's mask at the epilogue in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993). Wes Craven explains that: "I couldn't find an actor to play Freddy Krueger with the sense of ferocity I was seeking", Craven recalled on the film's 30th anniversary. "Everyone was too quiet, too compassionate towards children. Then Robert Englund auditioned. [He] wasn't as tall I'd hoped, and he had baby fat on his face, but he impressed me with his willingness to go to

13959-450: The point that he sees future events related to Krueger's actions and then writes them down as a movie script. Krueger sees Langenkamp as his primary foe because her character Nancy Thompson was the first to defeat him. Krueger's attempts to cross over to reality cause a series of earthquakes throughout Los Angeles County , including the 1994 Northridge earthquake . Langenkamp, with help from her son Dylan ( Miko Hughes ), succeeds in defeating

14100-399: The real world. The injured Krueger arms himself with two razor claws to continue to battle Kahn. Upon defeating him, Krueger is sent back to the Dream Realm by Nightwolf , where he continues to haunt the dreams of his human prey. In an interview with PlayStation.Blog , Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon cited the character's violent nature and iconic status as reasoning for the inclusion in

14241-447: The red water poured out in an unexpected way and caused the rotating room to spin. Much of the water spilled out of the bedroom window covering Craven and Langenkamp. Earth's gravity was also used to film another take for the TV version in which a skeleton shoots out from the hollowed out bed and smashes into the "ceiling". More work was done for Freddy's boiler room than made it into the film;

14382-478: The remains of the film's villain Chucky , the chainsaw of Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , and the masks of Michael Myers from Halloween and Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th . At the end of the film Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday , the mask of the title character, Jason Voorhees, played by Kane Hodder , is dragged under the earth by Freddy's gloved hand. Freddy's gloved hand, in

14523-437: The right place. The episode also reveals that Krueger used an ice cream van to lure children close enough so that he could kidnap and kill them. After the town's parents burn Freddy to death he returns to haunt Blocker in his dreams. Freddy gets his revenge when Blocker is put under anesthesia at the dentist's office, and Freddy shows up and kills him. The episode "Sister's Keeper" was a "sequel" to this episode, even though it

14664-552: The role but allegedly wanted too much money. Anette Benson states that they did in fact offer the part to Sheen but he passed on it due to his agent demanding twice the weekly wage of $ 1,142 for Sheen, which New Line Cinema did not consider themselves to have the budget for. Sheen himself objects to the sentiment that he turned down the role for the reason of money, saying: I didn't price myself out of it because I didn't get greedy until years later. That came much later. I just didn't get it, and I've never been more wrong about interpreting

14805-459: The role of Glen Lantz and claimed that the auditioners had been winnowed down to him and Johnny Depp before Depp got the role. Other actors like John Cusack , Jon Cryer , Brad Pitt , Kiefer Sutherland , Nicolas Cage , and C. Thomas Howell have been mentioned over the years, but Anette Benson has failed to definitely recall those actors as having been among the auditioners. Though Cage had probably not auditioned for A Nightmare on Elm Street , he

14946-449: The role of Glen was originally written as a "big, blond, beach-jock, football-player guy", far from his own appearance, but Wes Craven's daughters picked Depp's headshot from the set he showed them. Depp got his own nod in a cameo role in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare as a man on TV and later in the Freddy vs. Jason intro, in clips from earlier films. Charlie Sheen was considered for

15087-663: The role of Nancy Thompson after an open audition, beating out more than 200 actresses. Langenkamp was already known to Anette Benson as she had auditioned for Night of the Comet and The Last Starfighter previously, losing out to Catherine Mary Stewart at both occasions. Demi Moore , Courteney Cox , Tracey Gold , and Jennifer Grey have all been rumoured to have auditioned for A Nightmare on Elm Street , but Benson definitely ruled out Moore and Cox while also being unsure of Gold and Grey. Langenkamp returned as Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and also played

15228-402: The room with the criminals over a holiday weekend. They managed to keep her hidden for days, raping her repeatedly. When she was finally discovered, she was barely alive and pregnant, with the result that Krueger was regarded as "the bastard son of a hundred maniacs" due to it being impossible to determine which of the rapists was his biological father. In Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare , it

15369-490: The same decade, ultimately eclipsing supernatural horror. The few supernatural horror films that were produced in the 1950s were often set in haunted houses , a continuation of haunted-house films prevalent in the 1940s. In the 1960s, horror films like The Innocents (1961), The Haunting (1963), and Rosemary's Baby (1968) used supernatural elements but were not directly about the paranormal. Other horror films used supernatural themes to code elements being censored by

15510-407: The scene where his face and hands that stretch through the wall and reach out for Nancy when she dreams; the wall was built by Doyle out of spandex . In the scene where Freddy walks through the prison bars to threaten Rod as seen by Nancy, Wes Craven explains that, "we took triangulations of the camera so we knew exactly the height of it from the floor and the angle towards the point where the killer

15651-406: The scenes, the cameraman and Craven himself were mounted in fixed seats taken from a Datsun B-210 car while the set rotated. The film crew inverted the set and attached the camera so that it looked like the room was right side up, then they poured the red water into the room. They used dyed water because the special effects blood did not have the right look for a geyser. During filming of this scene,

15792-402: The shadows and under lower light much longer than he does in the later pictures. In the second film, there are some scenes where Freddy is shown without his bladed glove, and instead with the blades protruding from the tips of his fingers. As the films began to emphasize the comedic, wise-cracking aspect of the character, he began to don various costumes and take on other forms, such as dressing as

15933-419: The soundtrack with many snippets that were left out of the original releases. The lyrics for Freddy's theme song, sung by the jumprope children throughout the series and based on " One, Two, Buckle My Shoe ", was already written and included in the script when Bernstein started writing the soundtrack, while the melody for it was not set by Bernstein, but by Heather Langenkamp's boyfriend and soon-to-be husband at

16074-493: The spate of highly publicized child molestation cases in California around the time A Nightmare on Elm Street went into production. Craven's inspirations for the character included a bully from his school during his youth, a disfigured homeless man who had frightened him when he was 12, and the 1970s pop song " Dream Weaver " by Gary Wright . In an interview, Craven said of the disfigured stranger: When I looked down there

16215-491: The studio is often referred to as "The House That Freddy Built". New Line Cinema lacked the financial resources for the production themselves and so had to turn to external financiers. They found two investors in England who each contributed 40% and 30% respectively to the necessary funds; one of the producers of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre contributed 10%, and home video distributor Media Home Entertainment contributed 20% of

16356-428: The supernatural group one could fit all the monsters and horrors that are somehow involved with religions and ritual," highlighting witchcraft, Egyptology and reincarnation, and zombies. Aaron Smuts considers horror "to be a genre with two main sub-types, supernatural horror and realist horror" and that they "have different charms". While fictional horror-themed literature, theatre, and other visual culture had existed,

16497-459: The supernatural such as The Gray Ghost (1917) with no actual narratives involving supernatural events. The supernatural horror film had what author Paul Meehan described as "its genesis" in early German expressionism in the 1920s and early 1930s with films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu . During the Universal Studios first horror film cycle, supernatural horror was

16638-417: The terms "horror film" and "horror movie" as known in a contemporary term did not become common place until 1931 and 1932. Film serials became popular in the United States in 1913. Supernatural events and characters in 1910s film serials were rare. Only two serials explored the supernatural at length, with The Mysteries of Myra (1916) and The Screaming Shadow (1920) while most serials which suggested

16779-511: The time, Alan Pasqua , who was a musician himself. Bernstein integrated Pasqua's contribution into his soundtrack as he saw fit. One of the three girls who recorded the vocal part of the theme was Robert Shaye's then-14-year-old daughter. Freddy exclusively attacks teenagers and his actions have been interpreted as symbolic of the often traumatic experiences of adolescence. Nancy, like the archetypal teenager, experiences social anxiety and her relationship with her parents becomes strained. Sexuality

16920-574: The town's memories and fear of him and empowered by a trio of 'dream demons' to be their willing instrument of evil. He is apparently destroyed at the end of the film by protagonist Nancy Thompson ( Heather Langenkamp ), but the last scene reveals that he has survived. He goes on to antagonize the teenage protagonists of the film's sequels, including Jesse Walsh ( Mark Patton ), Kristen Parker ( Patricia Arquette ), Alice Johnson ( Lisa Wilcox ), and Lori Campbell ( Monica Keena ). In A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors , more of Freddy's backstory

17061-436: The twist ending. As a result, Craven who never wanted the film to be an ongoing franchise, did not work on the first sequel, Freddy's Revenge (1985). Filming wrapped at the end of July, and the film was rushed to get ready for its November release. The film score was written by composer Charles Bernstein and first released in 1984 on label Varèse Sarabande . The label re-released the soundtrack in 2015 in an 8-CD box for

17202-406: The weapon of choice for the killer, but around the third or fourth drafts of the script, the iconic glove had become his final choice. Wes Craven began writing the screenplay for A Nightmare on Elm Street around 1981, after he had finished production on Swamp Thing (1982). He pitched it to several studios, but each one of them rejected it for different reasons. The first studio to show interest

17343-488: Was Sam Raimi 's response to Wes Craven showing footage of The Evil Dead in A Nightmare on Elm Street , which was a response to Raimi putting a poster of Craven's 1977 film The Hills Have Eyes in The Evil Dead . This, in turn, was a response to a ripped-up Jaws poster in The Hills Have Eyes . The glove also appears in the 1998 horror-comedy Bride of Chucky in an evidence locker room that also contains

17484-442: Was Walt Disney Productions , although they wanted Craven to tone down the content to make it suitable for children and preteens as a family-friendly PG-13 film; Craven declined. Another studio Craven pitched to was Paramount Pictures , which passed on the project due to its similarity to Dreamscape (1984). Universal Studios also passed; Craven, who was in desperate personal and financial straits during this period, later framed

17625-403: Was $ 700,000. "It ended up at $ 1.1 million ... half the funding came from a Yugoslavian guy who had a girlfriend he wanted in movies." Actor David Warner was originally cast to play Freddy. Make-up tests were done, but he had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Replacing him was difficult at first. Kane Hodder , who would later be best known for playing fellow slasher icon Jason Voorhees ,

17766-422: Was Wes's idea. But he'd been talked into maybe trying some other hats. And they had this box of hats, and we're sitting on the floor—kind of uncomfortably, both of these grown men on this futon—and [they're] telling me to put on all of these different hats. I'm sitting there in makeup going, "Guys, please, the fedora is right." And they kept putting on like, paperboy hats , and baseball hats, and God, one looked like

17907-486: Was a man very much like Freddy walking along the sidewalk. He must have sensed that someone was looking at him and stopped and looked right into my face. He scared the living daylights out of me, so I jumped back into the shadows. I waited and waited to hear him walk away. Finally I thought he must have gone, so I stepped back to the window. The guy was not only still looking at me but he thrust his head forward as if to say, 'Yes, I'm still looking at you.' The man walked towards

18048-553: Was among those who Wes Craven talked with about the role of Freddy. According to Hodder, "I had a meeting with Wes Craven about playing a character he was developing called Freddy Krueger. At the time, Wes wasn't sure what kind of person he wanted for the role of Freddy, so I had as good a shot as anybody else. He was initially thinking of a big guy for the part, and he was also thinking of somebody who had real burn scars. But obviously, he changed his whole line of thinking and went with Robert Englund, who's smaller. I would have loved to play

18189-420: Was an objective goal to make the character memorable, since it seems that every character that has been successful has had some kind of unique weapon, whether it be a chain saw or a machete , etc. I was also looking for a primal fear which is embedded in the subconscious of people of all cultures. One of those is the fear of teeth being broken, which I used in my first film. Another is the claw of an animal, like

18330-495: Was consistently portrayed by Robert Englund in the original film series as well as in the television spin-off Freddy's Nightmares . The reboot portrays him as an undead groundskeeper accused of molesting the students. The character quickly became a pop culture icon going on to appear in toy lines, comic books , books, sneakers, costumes, and video games since his debut. In 2003, Krueger appeared alongside fellow horror icon Jason Voorhees in Freddy vs. Jason . In 2010,

18471-536: Was edited to an M rating , but the VHS home video was released uncut in 1985 with an Australian R rating. The uncut version would not see a release in the United States until the 1996 Elite Entertainment Laserdisc release. All DVD, digital, and Blu-ray releases use the R-rated theatrical version; the uncut version would not be released on a digital format until 2024, though six seconds had previously been restored for home video and

18612-462: Was eventually released on Laserdisc . It has since been released on DVD , first in 1999 in the United States as part of the Nightmare on Elm Street Collection box set (along with the other six sequels), and once again in a restored Infinifilm special edition in 2006, containing various special features with contributions from Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon and the director of photography. The special edition consisted of two DVDs, one with

18753-514: Was filmed at Evergreen Cemetery . The American Jewish University on 15600 Mulholland Drive was used for the Katja Institute for the Study of Sleep Disorders visited by Marge and Nancy. During production, over 500 gallons of fake blood were used for special effects production. For the blood geyser sequence, the filmmakers used the same revolving room set that was used for Tina's death. While filming

18894-461: Was going to walk through", and then "we put the camera again at the exact height and walked the actor through that space. Then those two images were married and a rotoscope artist went through and matted out the bars so it appeared they were going straight through his body." Jsu Garcia , who was cast as Rod and credited as Nick Corri, says the production was difficult for him. He was dealing with depression due to recent homelessness by snorting heroin in

19035-406: Was gone before they had the opportunity to film the intendedly foggy scene. Though several variants of an end scene were considered and filmed, Heather Langenkamp states that "there always was this sense that Freddy was the car", while according to Sara Risher, "it was always Wes' idea to pan to the little girls' jumping rope". Both a happy ending and a twist ending were filmed, but the final film used

19176-540: Was in fact involved in introducing Johnny Depp to acting, through Cage's own agent who introduced Benson to him, resulting in an audition for the film. Principal photography began on June 11, 1984, and lasted a total of 32 days, in and around Los Angeles, California. The high school the protagonists attend was filmed at John Marshall High School , where many other productions such as Grease and Pretty in Pink have been filmed. The fictional street address of Nancy's house in

19317-615: Was killed by Freddy. These unused clips and scenes were not included or added to the DVD film but could be viewed separately from the DVD's menus. Supernatural horror film For such films and other media, critics distinguish supernatural horror from psychological horror . Mathias Clasen writes in Why Horror Seduces , "Supernatural horror involves some kind of suspension or breach of physical law, usually embodied in or caused by some kind of supernatural agency such as an uncanny monster or

19458-428: Was married to a woman named Loretta (Lindsey Fields), whom he also murdered after she discovers his secret. He also had a daughter, Katherine/Maggie ( Lisa Zane ), who seeks to end her father's horrific legacy once and for all, killing him at the end of the movie. After a hiatus following the release of The Final Nightmare , Krueger was brought back in Wes Craven's New Nightmare by Wes Craven , who had not worked on

19599-457: Was one of the first films produced by New Line Cinema , who by that point mostly distributed films, leading the company to become a successful mini-major film studio and earning it the nickname "The House that Freddy Built". The film is credited with carrying on many tropes found in low-budget horror films of the 1970s and 1980s, originating in John Carpenter 's Halloween (1978), including

19740-593: Was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film spawned a franchise consisting of six sequels, a television series, a crossover with Friday the 13th , various other merchandise, and a remake of the same name . The film was followed by A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985). Teenager Tina Gray awakens from

19881-421: Was the seventh episode of the series. The episode follows Krueger as he terrorizes Blocker's identical twin daughters and frames one sister for the other's murder. Season two's "It's My Party And You'll Die If I Want You To" featured Freddy attacking a high school prom date who stood him up 20 years earlier. He gets his revenge with his desire being fulfilled in the process. Wes Craven said his inspiration for

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