A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is Wes Craven’s supernatural slasher that introduced Freddy Krueger.

At a glance

Overview

In Springwood, Ohio, a group of teenagers discovers they are all dreaming about the same man: horribly burned, wearing a glove fitted with razor blades. When Tina Gray is murdered in her sleep by an unseen force — in front of her boyfriend, Rod, who is arrested for it — her best friend Nancy Thompson realises the man in the dreams can kill for real.

Investigating, Nancy pulls the man’s hat out of a dream at a sleep clinic. Inside it is a name: Fred Krueger. Her mother, Marge, finally tells her the truth. Krueger was a child murderer who killed at least twenty children and walked free on a legal technicality — so the parents of Elm Street burned him alive in his boiler room. Marge has kept his glove hidden in the family furnace ever since. Now Krueger is taking his revenge on the children of the people who killed him, in the one place they cannot be protected: their dreams.

After Krueger kills Rod in his cell and then Glen — dragged down into his own bed in the film’s most famous effect — Nancy booby-traps her house, drags Krueger out of the dream world and into reality, and sets him alight. When he survives even that, she understands his power comes from fear itself, turns her back on him, and he evaporates. The next morning everything looks restored: her friends are alive, her mother is waving from the porch. Then the convertible’s striped top snaps shut, the car speeds away on its own, children chant Krueger’s jump-rope rhyme — and Marge is yanked through the front door window.

Production

Wes Craven began writing the film around 1981, inspired by a series of Los Angeles Times articles about Hmong refugees who, after fleeing war in Southeast Asia, suffered terrifying nightmares, refused to sleep — and in some cases died in the night anyway. Doctors called the phenomenon Asian Death Syndrome. Gary Wright’s song “Dream Weaver” helped Craven lock the concept, right down to the synthesizer score. Every major studio passed: Disney wanted a toned-down family version, Paramount and Universal declined, and Craven later framed Universal’s rejection letter on his office wall. The film was finally produced by New Line Cinema, until then mostly a distributor — which nearly collapsed making it, losing its distribution deal mid-shoot and going two weeks unable to pay cast and crew. The film’s success built the studio instead, earning New Line its nickname: “the house that Freddy built.”

Krueger came from Craven’s own childhood: a frightening old man who stopped to stare at the young Craven from the sidewalk outside his window, and the name of the boy who had bullied him at school — Fred Krueger. The red-and-green striped sweater was chosen after Craven read that the two colours are the most clashing combination for the human retina. Makeup artist David B. Miller designed Krueger’s burned face from medical photographs of burn victims, and effects artist Jim Doyle built the glove in two versions — a “hero” glove used whenever anything had to be cut, and a safer stunt glove. Tina’s death across the ceiling and Glen’s eruption of blood were both achieved with a rotating room set, turned upside down. The film was made for about $1.1 million.

Cast and characters

• Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson, the teenager who fights back.
• Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, the burned dream killer.
• Johnny Depp as Glen Lantz, Nancy’s boyfriend — Depp’s film debut.
• John Saxon as Lt. Don Thompson, Nancy’s father.
• Ronee Blakley as Marge Thompson, keeper of the Elm Street secret.
• Amanda Wyss as Tina Gray, Freddy’s first victim.
• Nick Corri as Rod Lane, Tina’s boyfriend.

Reception and legacy

The film grossed $57.1 million worldwide against its $1.1 million budget and holds a 94% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. In 2021 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as culturally, historically and aesthetically significant. It launched one of horror’s defining franchises — six sequels, a television series, the crossover Freddy vs. Jason and a 2010 remake — and made Freddy Krueger one of the most recognisable villains in film history: a slasher who talked, taunted and killed somewhere no victim could stay awake to escape.

Trivia

• Johnny Depp’s film debut.
• The glove was designed by Craven.
• New Line Cinema was nearly bankrupt before the film’s success.
• The dream sequences remain influential in horror.

Read Harper’s review