Posted by A Nightmare on Elm Street is the 1984 film written and directed by Wes Craven, starring Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger and Johnny Depp in his debut. Made for about $1.1 million, it grossed $57 million worldwide and turned New Line Cinema into a successful studio. In 2021 it was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is definitely a cult film that has terrified generations of teenagers and adults. Born from the genius of Wes Craven, with an incredible performance by Robert Englund, here are 7 things you (maybe) do not know about this masterpiece.
7 things you don’t know about “A Nightmare on Elm Street”
1) The idea of a man who kills in nightmares came to Wes Craven after reading, in the 1970s, some Los Angeles Times articles about Hmong refugees who had fled to the United States from the wars in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Many of them suffered terrible nightmares and even refused to sleep. Some of the men, once asleep, died in their sleep soon after. At the time nobody could explain these deaths, now known as “sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome” and linked to heart rhythm problems. That is where Wes Craven got the idea for Freddy Krueger.
2) Freddy Krueger’s backstory in the early drafts of the script was different from the one we see in the film. Craven changed it to avoid being accused of exploiting some news stories that filled California papers at the time. In the film Freddy thus became a child murderer, released on a technicality and then burned alive by his victims’ parents.
3) The film used over 500 gallons of fake blood, almost 1,900 liters. Much of it went into the famous blood geyser erupting from Glen’s bed, shot in the same revolving room used for Tina’s death.
4) The part of Glen is played by Johnny Depp, who made his film debut in this role. Depp had gone along with a friend to the audition, Jackie Earle Haley, who would become Freddy in the 2010 remake, and it was Craven’s daughters who picked his headshot. The part had been offered to Charlie Sheen, but according to casting director Anette Benson his agent asked for twice the weekly wage of $1,142. Over the years John Cusack, Brad Pitt and Nicolas Cage have also been mentioned, but Benson never confirmed it. It was also said that Nancy could have gone to Demi Moore or Courteney Cox, but Benson ruled that out: the part went to Heather Langenkamp, chosen from over 200 actresses.
5) The movie was shot in just 32 days, starting on June 11, 1984, in Los Angeles, on a budget of about $1.1 million. It grossed $57.1 million worldwide and saved New Line Cinema, which until then had mostly distributed other people’s films and was struggling. From then on the company was nicknamed “The House that Freddy Built”.
6) In the first scene, when Freddy makes the glove, the hands we see are not Robert Englund’s, but those of a special effects technician: he was the only one who knew how to assemble the glove.
7) Freddy appears in the movie for less than 7 minutes. Yet that was enough to make him a horror icon, so much so that in 2021 the film was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry.
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