A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - Movie Review
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
- John's Channel: / theflickpick
Patreon: / chrisstuckmann
Chris Stuckmann and John Flickinger review A Nightmare on Elm Street, starring Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund. Directed by Wes Craven.
Welcome to primetime!
Does that include sex? Prime is a condom brand in my country
This is it Flickenger your big break in TV
Welcome to Prime Time critics
Chris Stuckmann, theFlickPick and Fanboy Flicks would be Gold.
Thanks!
BITCH!!
The first NOES is a master example of excellent storytelling. In the first 20-ish minutes you established a false protagonist Tina and killed her off in a creative way, defies all expectations. Act 2 then plays like a detective story blended with horror that the main plot slowly reveals itself to the audience and eventually you come to the realization the killer is a dream stalker and curious about what kind of monster he actually was. Then the parents eventually reveal a truly disturbing backstory in the third act! 👏 RIP Wes Craven, thank you for this amazing film.
Nicholas Chen you just described Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho...
And also Scream
@@TheSHARPY1234 They are kinda similar
It really is, and it's such a tight script. No fat whatsoever. It really is perfect storytelling.
Sleep deprivation is one of the most terrifying forms of torture to me. The thought of having to deprive yourself of sleep in order to stay alive is absolutely horrifying!! You physically cannot fight sleep forever. Such a genius concept of horror.
You are so right.
I love that it touches on so many of the questions/fears we have around dreams when we are kids like "can people be in each others dreams", "can something from a dream be brought into the real world", "if you die in your dream can you die in real life", "what if you couldn't wake up from a dream", "what if you couldn't really tell when you were dreaming or awake"
Yeah, it's pretty brilliant.
Also, that you'd be in danger, at any moment you fall asleep.
Even if you doze of for a second and your head bobs, that's enough to be in danger.
Amazing film
That TV edit for die hard 2 is cringeworthy
I didn;t even know about it til I saw this trailer - love this channel so much!
Yippie ka yah mr. Falcon
Wait that was real? I thought it was something Chris made to be funny.
Akın Ay Chris would’ve done something funnier. That was plain awful
I remember having watched it with the Mr. Falcon line. Still joke about it with my family to this day
You hit the nail on the head about the psychological effects regarding sleep. Sleep is a comforting thing, and to have a premise where sleep is a weapon, it makes for a very anxious and paranoid experience. It's what I love most about Nightmare on Elm Street.
Candyman also has a great score that nobody really talks about.
Dude yes. Half of the horror in Candyman comes from the soundtrack alone.
@@TheSlammurai Absolutely.
@@KryptKicker5 Agreed!
That soundtrack definitely set the tone for the movie
Neither does anyone mention Jerry Goldsmith’s work on The Omen’s score
The true story is actually worse. It was a kid who told his parents that his nightmare were going to kill him. His parents made him sleep and when he finally did, he died. They found secret coffee pots in his closet that he had been sneaking and no one could explain how he died.
Yeah, he said it in the video
Wasn't it in Cambodia where it happened? Regardless. Crazy shit.
Probably overdosed on coffee, lack of sleep wouldn’t help too
This is easily my all-time favorite horror movie.
The original movie, Dream Warriors and New Nightmare are my favorites in the entire franchise.
This movie and Return of the Living Dead (1985) had the 2 psychological things that scared the living shit out of me. With Nightmare, it was the fact that you couldn't escape sleep and thus you couldn't escape Freddy and death. With Return of the Living Dead, the idea of still having consciousness while being dead and that consciousness was a physical torturous hell that could only be temporarily relieved by eating 'live brains' was freaky AF. Tales From the Crypt had a similar idea with one of their episodes of a guy still having consciousness while dead and could still feel things while dead, but he couldn't move. He was basically in a coma state. That idea was one of the scariest things I had ever seen as a kid, and there wasn't any blood or guts in it.
That is the most terrifying thing I have ever heard, still having consciousness well being dead, and just not being able to move, as if death didn't scare me enough.
" Send more paramedics " is one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in a movie. Horror or not!
Stars Die what was the name of that takes from the crypt episode
Yeah that movie was funny af. It was the Freddy and his boss part of the movie that really freaked me out the most though.
@@KomodoVenomX I haven't been able to find out the name of the episode whenever I've gone looking for it. I just remember seeing it back in like 1995 or something.
Sometimes I miss walking up and down the aisles of Blockbuster Video, even though I'd spend a few hours there and find nothing.
We basically do that scrolling through Netflix now
Blockbuster Video was an old wives tell. That never happened.
I loved it as well. For me blockbuster meant Friday night.
@@pablo-zn1mg Same
I kind of feel bad for people whose only memory of video stores is Blockbuster. The mom and pop video stores were so much better.
What, Chris wasnt allowed to grow up with Freddy?? How blasphemous!
He's been reading our comments haha
I can't imagine growing up with out a nightmare on elm street
I didn’t. Watched it in later high school when one of my younger sisters and I stopped trick or treating (we got an extension on it, had three siblings younger than us, and we liked to dress up anyhow). We laughed while watching it, but then we’re messed up for the rest of the following week. Turns out it scared us more than we thought!
I was allowed to watch any horror movie at the age of 3.
It makes more sense now
there’s more to the story than that… it was actually a group of children all originally from the same place (i think a country in south america) who died in their sleep after all describing a similar boogeyman in their dreams… but the appearance, is based on a creep Wes saw looking up at him late night from out his window as a kid ! The name was based on Wes’s childhood bully…
I was a little girl when I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street. The scene that I remember most is Nancy's nightmare during class. I was traumatized, I hid my eyes everytime the New Line Cinema intro came on. I love the series. I love 1 and 3 the most.
I saw the movie when I was about 12. And that is the scene that terrified me the most as well as a kid. Most people pointto Tina’s death or Glenn’s death.
My memories of watching A Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time (on VHS in '85) are forever linked with my older brothers, some friends, and me going to TP another friend's house. Here I am, as a 12 year old kid, running through orange groves in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night right after watching one of the scarier movies of its time. I miss those days.
I went to a showing of the Director’s Cut of A Nightmare on Elm Street in New Rock City, NY around 2006. Everyone dressed as Freddy and the movie’s deleted scenes were pretty much all of the mom swigging her hidden vodka bottle in the hallway closet. The entire theater was cracking up the whole time. One of my favorite theater experiences ever.
One of my all time favorite movies!
As a 70’s and 80’s kid Nightmare was truly scary because their was no place that you were safe. Also Robert Englund, created the voice, the laugh, his face was very present in the makeup and many of the adlibs we love “Welcome to Primetime Bitch” were his. Robert Englund to me made Freddy into character with some level of comedic style. As an adult, I’ve met Robert a few times and he’s truly great guy that appreciates his fans and loves to share insight and stories.
I’ve always enjoyed Freddie Krueger,he’s always impressed me as a funny,witty villain.Whereas Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees always struck me as big,lumbering hunks of meat,lacking any real personality,Krueger was charismatic (due in no small part to the fact that he could talk)and had a certain pizzazz.I find Mr. Krueger to be a more memorable and impressive villain.
John is finally back regularly - this is awesome! Loving this review btw! :D
Pooj Revies did you try and do the same thing as John for your profile pic? Yellow background, big smile, blue shirt. yeah you pretty much copied him
@@KD-cd2ck you're right, I did! I'm a new reviewer and looked to the pro's for hints on branding so I could concentrate on reviewing :)
Pooj's Variety Hour hey man your taking inspiration not stealing
@@colasplosion797 Thanks Flash!
"What are you 90?!"
"yes"
"what are we doing here"
"I don't know"
"Alright"
Fun thing is...Wes Craven never wanted to work with horror films,he always wanted to make Romances
Pretty sure Roman Bridger said the same thing in Scream 3 xD
Wait isn't "A Nightmare on Elm Street" a romance? I heard Craven originally wanted Fabio for Kruger but scheduling conflicts didn't allow.
beginning of Red Eye was kind of a romance
@@Crunch_Buttsteakreally? I know it was almost a disney film
Yes, a disney film!
But, Wes craven declined Disney's offer
Is anyone else slowly realising that Chris’ Halloween videos are starting to become part of their yearly Halloween traditions? 🎃 I just love this content, awesome work Chris
I loved this movie. My dad let me watch it when I was 13. What really made me love it was the fact that unlike all the other slashers of his generation, Freddy talked. And talked a lot. Robert was clearly having fun with the character and it really gave a new type of slasher that Wes Craven would give more of with Ghostface and Djinn(yes, Djinn from Wishmaster is a slasher in my eyes) in the 90s.
Definitely a favorite horror movie of mine. Just the premise alone of a killer invading your sleep is scary alone, and Wes Craven delivered on all levels of terror.
In order to review this one, it's time to go past... back to the past.
Yo Justin do you eat swedish meatballs? Yum
Courage the cowardly dog
Why do I keep seeing this guy, he’s like the mysterious stranger from fallout
Why are you everywhere?
@@Super_User_Dont agreed
A Nightmare On Elm Street is a classic. One of the scariest movies ever made.
The dark tones of the mood, the cinematograpy, the colors, the onirism of the atmosphere, the black humor mixed with the horror and violence....damn, Craven was a master of the visuals and the performance of Englund is just memorable (try to find that creepy eyes in another killer...). And a moment to remember for centuries:
TINA: Please, God...
KRUEGER: This...is God.
Is not strange that A Nightmare on Elm Street (only the 1st one) was a revolution on the slasher genre.
I saw this movie when I was about 6 or seven when it came out on VHS. My cousin rented it when she was babysitting me and she told me I couldn't watch it. I crept out of bed and stayed motionless behind her chair and watched the entire thing. It was so awesome!
Just a question, are you gonna review Suspiria? That movie has my complete attention.
"Yippee kayeah mr falcon" - PMSL
I legit lmao when that came up
I just love how he gives every Halloween classic an "A"
I would like to hear his thought on the Friday the 13th franchise since Chris mentioned that he don't think that the first one is all that great.
@@nicenameyougotthere.5021 First Friday is trash tbh
Especially some of them which have aged poorly. Like honestly this is definitely not the best Nightmare movie.
@@knightmayor1703 this is definitely the best one
I don't blame him!
Halloween films are very creative!
Hope Hollywood gives Nightmare on Elm Street the same treatment as Halloween. Kill off those god awful sequels, spin-offs and the remake.
They should, but Robert Englund did say they want yet another reboot... I'm actually writing a novel called NOES: Homecoming about Springwood after 40 something years but I doubt they'd give it a shot lol
@@Nicholas_Chen_
You're writing a novel on it on your own ?
Will it be sort of a direct continuation of the first movie ?
@@adnanasif9538 Yeah man I wrote to the second act rightnow. But I'm also writing other stuff so who knows when i'd finish it! It's kinda like what The Force Awakens is to the Original SW Trilogy. A re-introduction if you'd like. The backstory is Springwood got rebuilt by the US government after Freddy killed everyone (as said in Part 6) and nothing happened for decades until Freddy resurfaced again and all hell breaks loose!
Alice (main girl in 4 and 5) is a major character in this and her husband Robert is the sheriff of the Springwood city. The main character is their daughter Katherine and her friends in school. Its central theme about family and friendship which is quite stretched from the horror bit. But there's quite a bit of killing!
@@Nicholas_Chen_
Nice
Wish you luck, would definitely love to read it.
yeah a direct sequel like halloween 2018 one that retcons the other movies but is a direct sequel.
"If you would've moved your fat feet" 🤣🤣🤣 TV edit Die Hard took me out 😭😭
The moment I wasn't scared of Freddy is when he fell down the stairs and from there I looked forward to the dark comedy woven in the sequels.. When he pulled Nancy mom thru the door window and the credit music had me dying😂
I love Johnny Depp's character in this.
The rubber doll of the mom being pulled through the door at the end is hilarious!
The haunting of hill house
Yes
I did one but I wanna know what these guys thought!
ori heller I watched that I didn’t really think it was that scary, just creepy
My nightmare was not watching Chris Stuckmann
Make Stuff Great comeback. 10/10
Go back to just2goods comment section
A little corny...
My nightmare was watching bad Chris Stuckmann reviews(which nowdays most of them are).
Finally getting John on for a good horror movie
It's about time and good to see him back regularly
Dan Hughes ha true!
Another Wes Craven horror movie from the 80s I remember was 'Chiller' (1985). About a guy who's cryogenically frozen who comes back with no soul.
Always remember that one.
i would also recomend the documenary Never Sleep Again, its great
Will def check it out
great reviews! you can tell yall are super passionate and I get a lot from watching these reviews. Thx!
Chris
Grew up on Elm Street.
Cringe
4:45 - 4:53
Challenge accepted.
the first r rated movie i ever saw & has become my all time favorite horror movie. a+
1:30 LMAO!!!!!
I know you said you don't want to talk it about it, Chris, but Nightmare on Elm Street 2 would make for an excellent Hilariocity review. Also, would you consider reviewing the new season of Daredevil or The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina? I look forward to your Suspiria review too. Thank you providing excellent entertainment. Happy Halloween to you and your lovely wife.
Aww 1984 the year I graduated high school. I want to go back!
I’m pretty sure (from what Wes said) the story was about a group of kids who had all immigrated to the US separately from the same town & started dying in their sleep after being afraid of something they were dreaming of & trying to fight their sleep…
Review Daredevil Season 3 🙌🏼🙏🏼
*yes*
Yes!!!!
Man I love the onslaught of reviews for older horror movies. Great stuff. Appropriate for the time of year and keeps the channel fresh.
I love Shocker, it's such a great, cheesy 80s film, great music. Mitch Pileggi is great as Horace Pinker, he's so psycho.. then he'd go on to be so calm on the X-Files.
A Nightmare On Elm Street is still so scary, it's really unnerving. As you guys said all the visuals are amazing, gotta love practical effects.
Where's the review for Daredevil season 3?
Well he didnn't even do a review of Luke Cage Season 2.
It’s under your mustache
Jhon D Luke Cage season 2 was better than some of the other seasons he has reviewed though
Jhon D I agree on dd being overwhelmingly better, but jessica jones season 1 and the first half of luke cage season 1 are really good as well. And I still would love to hear Chris' thoughts on Luke Cage and Iron Fist season 2
No doubt 10/10
This was the first horror movie I watched as a child. It premiered on HBO and I snuck around the corner into the living room. Cause I wasn't allowed to watch it. It gave me nightmares my whole childhood lol. Still my favorite horror movie of all time.
It's always great seeing John talk about A Nightmare on Elm Street, such a great film. You guys should review the rest of the series, definitely some good hilariocity material for some of them.
Oh God, those Die Hard dubs were hilarious!
I recall seeing alterations to films here in the UK as a kid, but nothing on that level.
Wes Craven also directed an awesome movie called Deadly Friend (1986) which no one ever talks about. If you haven't seen it Chris you so should. Would make a good Hilariocity review.
My grades on the Nightmare on Elm Street are as follows:
Nightmare on Elm Street - 4.5/5
Nightmare on Elm Street 2 - 2/5
Nightmare on Elm Street 3 - 4/5
Nightmare on Elm Street 4 - 1.5/5
Nightmare on Elm Street 5 - 1.5/5
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare - 0.5/5
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare - 4.5/5
@Jerry Smith For me, 4 & 5 are equally unremarkable and forgettable. At least I remember 2.
New Nightmare is so overrated!!!.. 2 n 4 are underrated!!...
@@2682shark Don't forget 5...
Nicholas Chen 5 and 6 don’t exist to me!!.. This franchise ends at 4
@@2682shark hehe yeah 4 is my personal favourite! Tho i really like 5, personally.
I love when you guys co-review! I can only imagine how epic your combined t-shirt collections must be
I first watched this movie when I was 6. I had a great childhood.
I got Robert Englund's autograph at a comic con. He is awesome to meet.
The sexual tension is off the roof
Definitely. We only see the girls nightmares. Also they're usually wearing their pjs and in their bedroom in bed when he attacks. The sequel also has sexuality in it but in a different way. A lot of audiences think there's a gay subtext to part 2.
I think he might have been referring to the tension between Chris and..guy lol
they didn't liked Elm Street 2 tho
The "you can't go to sleep" aspect of Freddy also creeped me out in the old Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Similar vibe
the only NOES films i like is the first one, which i love, the third on, some of it, and New Nightmare, some of it too, which all were made by Wes Craven
Just give something, anything an A+
For me at this point I really don't care about the A+ rating. An A is enough for me to go watch a movie, as Chris is known to sometimes have small nitpicks that would cause the A instead of an A+
I think he gave the shining an A+
@@IVUSER Bs and As are usually a good sign in my book
You should review all of the Elm Street films. There's some great ones (Part 3 and New Nightmr) and some hilariocity material (Part 5, 6)
I'd replace part 5 with 2 and FvJ from the hilariocity category ;)
Part 6 isn't even hilarious (except for some parts), it's just boring, which is a shame
I hope 🤞
Dream master is pretty good too. I think it has the best freddy krueger death scene out of all of them but invisble freddy killing the kid doing karate might be one the worst kills in the series.
Would also like him to review Chucky movies, and the first 4 Hellraiser movies
The Silence of the Lambs review please
Oh that'd be a god one!
The original Nightmare will always be my favorite horror film.
Holy hell that editing for Die Hard is glorious. My favorite editing is Half Baked when Chappelle said " a box of condoms and what's that stuff, used to eat it all the time? What is it? Oh yeah. Pudding"
By far the best horror concept ever and its pure brilliance.
That scene when the corpse of Nancy's dead friend shows up in her dream at school, is arguably the only genuinely
scary part in the entire franchise (Depp on the bed is great, but too familiar by now).
Part of me wishes the sequels would've kept the horror aspect of the original, but I can understand how difficult it
would've been to sustain the audience's fear of Freddy over a long series of films.
It's the unknown we fear the most, after all. And by the end of the first film, we pretty much knew who Freddy was
and what he was capable of. His powers had been established, and any future installments could only present
creative variations on that theme, to varying degrees of success.
So making him funny and likable was probably a smart move, for it allowed the audience to cheer him on, instead
of being supposed to be afraid of the same old.
Still, how you go from throwing a girl around a room while tearing her flesh apart, to Freddy relaxing with drinks and
babes on a beach, is fucking beyond me. They may have changed the franchise'sdirection, but they took it WAY too far!
Really? I found countless scary scenes in the series. Contrary to Halloween which mostly bored me
@@captainhaddock6435 The Halloween films are unintentional comedies, in my opinion.
At least the first Nightmare was genuinely disturbing. It was only later that the franchise went in a more deliberately comedic direction.
I love most Freddy movies - New Nightmare is a favorite tbh. The first Nightmare movie is just so insanely good.
I also love FvJ though. What the hell do I know
What makes this film a classic is the genuine scares included in this one. It's way better than the 2010 remake. By the way, I've got a board game & video game from this film. Wes Craven also directed Swamp Thing (1982).
My theatre was Re-releasing this film last saturday...But instead i chose to work with my taxi. At least I'm not late for Rosemary's Baby!
My theater is playing it tomorrow and as someone who was born in 99 I have never had the chance to see Freddy on the big screen so I'm doing a double feature of Halloween and NOES.
Freddy was a revelation as a horror icon at the time. Unlike masked killers like Leatherface, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees who never spoke, Freddy showed his face and never stopped talking to his victims.
This film caused my sleep paralysis to come back.
Freddy Krueger was the OG sleep paralysis demon.
Dream Warriors is by far my favorite Nightmare On Elm Street movie. Has a great backstory, character development, and balance of horror and comedy.
Such a clever and well made slasher. The casting was great Nancy and Glen actually looked like high school kids, the casting in the later movies had actors in their late 20s trying to play 'teenagers.' Freddy is smartly used sparingly. There's like a 30 minute stretch of the film towards the end where we don't see him which raises the tension for the final fight. Freddy is horrific in his design and portrayal. The writing is really strong too, Nancy has internal conflict to deal with, "am I crazy?"conflict with her parents who don't believe her as well as conflict with the antagonist. The practical effects are also great and still hold up. There's definitely sexual undertones too, we only see the girls nightmares with Freddy and Nancy & Tina are usually in their pjs in their bed when he appears and attacks them.
FINALLY, I'VE BEEN WANTING YOU TO REVIEW THIS FILM FOR A LONG TIME!!!!!!!!!!!! And you and John work magic together, this just how I wanted it to be!
I personally prefer the Friday the 13th theme over nightmare on elm street theme but Halloween is by far the best
Happy to see you back Chris. Hope you can have John on more often. You two work well together
The Chris/John collabs are always great!
Pretty awesome guys. A Nightmare On Elm Street scared me as a teen back when I watched it on VHS in the 80's. It's a great film
Love your Halloween specials! Nice work with John
Great review! I always found it interesting how Freddy was vulnerable to the standard religious tropes (crucifixes, being buried in holy ground, etc.). It gave some suspense to the films because you thought the heroes maybe had a chance of defeating Freddy, whereas Jason and Michael Myers basically had no weaknesses and there was no way to stop them.
His mum is a nun so probably that? NOES sequels tend to get increasingly gothic
Hey Chris! You should totally review predator 2 and predators, they are the only ones left that you haven't reviewed out of the alien and predator movies!
Freddy’s one of my favorite horror antagonists because he isn’t simply a faceless killer whose one character trait is *KILL.* (Though no hate to those kinds of killers, they’re pretty good as well.)
He plays with his prey like they’re food and taunts them relentlessly, and actively enjoys doing so, until he either kills them or they wish they were dead.
I love this movie. Still genuinely creepy even more than 30 years later. Great review!!
You've reviewed my 4 favourite horror movies now! Elm street,exorcist,Friday part 6 and Halloween
Freddy vs Jason review? I think that movie was so damn great.
Lol The film is trash but admittedly I enjoyed it enough.
It's truly garbage. Wrong director, cheesy dialogue and hollow characters played by terrible actors. They also gave Kane Hodder a total raw deal when he kept the idea hyped and relevant for years while it was still in development hell.
@@LoganWood121 agree but happened with Kane Hodder?
This is the movie that made me interested in horror movies. The children's rhyming song fucking terrified me then and still haunts me to this day. Also, Robert Englund does a great job with Freddy Krueger. It would become more cheesy later on, but in this movie, freaking scary.
I have to agree that the concept of Krueger is more horrifying than Freddy himself. I mean, not being able to sleep because if you do you will get killed? Fucking terrifying.
I recently watched this movie for the first time and I wasn't scared at all. There were a few creepy sequences that were shot very well like the school hallway and the part where Freddy is coming through the wall and the wall turns into this liquid metal T-1000 type thing.
But as soon as they showed Freddie, I started laughing. Seeing Freddy took away all the tension and it became hilarious to watch him awkwardly chase people, sometimes stumbling over stuff LoL
I felt the same way, glad I’m not alone.
Mr flick pick is so much calmer here ! I really enjoyed that aspect of this review 👍 nice work gents
1:58 Chris *didn’t* grow up with Nightmare on Elmstreet
My terrifying start to horror films was 'The Ring' at about 9 years old and I am still horrified by static TV. That movie fucked me up on a level no other film has. I wish I could see it again as a kid to relive the fear.
Nightmare on Elm St is my favourite franchise, Freddy is just so iconic.
Chris grew up with Freddy Kruger
All of the boiler room footage in the film was shot in the basement of the Lincoln Heights Jail in Los Angeles, which was condemned shortly after production wrapped, due to high levels of asbestos.
The scene where Freddy's arms elongate were achieved by having men with fishing poles on each side of the alley operating a set of puppet arms attached to Robert Englund.
Alan Pasqua, Heather Langenkamp's boyfriend at the time of the shooting, is credited for creating Freddy's nursery rhyme.
Heather Langenkamp beat over 200 actresses for the role of Nancy Thompson, among them Jennifer Grey, Demi Moore, Courteney Cox, Tracey Gold, and Claudia Wells.
The original glove was later used in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) and was also seen hanging on the wall of the work shed in Evil Dead II (1987). This was in response to the use of The Evil Dead (1981) on a television screen in this film, and part of a continued banter between directors Wes Craven and Sam Raimi. However, when Wes Craven loaned the glove to the A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) set it got lost, and it is rumored to be in possession of Robert Englund's agent.
The inspiration for the character of Freddy came from several sources in Wes Craven's childhood. Fred Krueger was a schoolmate of his, with whom he had shared a paper route and who had bullied him for several years. In The Last House on the Left (1972), Craven also used this experience as inspiration, calling the villain Krug. Freddy's burns came from a man with severe burn scars by whom Craven had once been terrified as a child, and Freddy's attire (especially the dirty clothes and hat) was inspired by an alcoholic hobo that Craven saw staring at him through his window one day when he was 10 years old.
Wes Craven's original concept for Freddy Krueger was considerably more gruesome, with teeth showing through the flesh over the jaw, pus running from the sores, and a part of the skull showing through the head. Make-up artist David B. Miller argued that an actor couldn't be convincingly made up that way, and a puppet would be hard to film and wouldn't blend well with live actors, so these ideas were eventually abandoned.
Film debut of Johnny Depp
It would take about three hours to get Robert Englund into his Freddy make-up.
The very first time Freddy is seen in the movie, he isn't being played by Robert Englund but by special effects man Charles Belardinelli, as Belardinelli was the only one who knew exactly how to cut the glove and insert the blades.
Amanda Wyss was handing out candy at her mom's house on the Halloween following the film's release and was surprised to see so many trick-or-treaters dressed as Freddy. She eventually told one of them that she played Tina in the movie, but he didn't believe her.
One of the main reasons Johnny Depp was chosen was because Wes Craven's daughter thought he was "dreamy," and threatened to run away from home if he wasn't cast in the movie.
According to Wes Craven, Robert Englund was not the first choice for the role of Fred Krueger. Craven had initially wanted a stuntman to play the part, but upon testing several stuntmen, he realized he needed a real actor. Other ideas was to cast a elderly actor but he feared they would be too soft for the way he would've wanted the character to act. Englund eventually got the part by showing up at his audition with ash smeared under his eyes to sink them, greasing his hair back with a dipstick from under the hood of his car, and blinking as little as possible.
According to Robert Englund, he based the physicality of Freddy on Klaus Kinski's performance in Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979). Englund also says on his DVD commentary that in his mind, the backstory for Freddy was based on something from his own childhood. On Valentine's Day when Englund was in school, everyone in the class made Valentine cards for one another, but there was one boy who received no cards from anyone. Englund theorized that this boy went on to become Freddy.
The sparking glove effect seen throughout the movie was achieved by attaching the glove to a car battery. The famous scraping noise was created by scratching a steak knife on the underside of a metal chair.
In the original script, Freddy's famous red-and-green sweater was red and yellow (based on the colors worn by Plastic Man, who, like Freddy, could change his form; the idea was that whatever Freddy changed into would be yellow and red). However, when Wes Craven read an article in "Scientific American" in 1982 that said the two most contrasting colors to the human retina were red and green, he decided to alter the colors.
The idea behind the glove was a practical one on Wes Craven's part, as he wanted to give the character a unique weapon, but also something that could be made cheaply and wouldn't be difficult to use or transport. At the time he was studying primal fears embedded in the subconscious of people of all cultures, and discovered that one of those fears is attack by animal claws. Around the same time, he saw his cat unsheathe its claws, and the two concepts merged, although in the original script the blades were fishing knives, not steak knives, as in the finished film.
Freddy Krueger was designed by Wes Craven to be the typical "silent" serial killer, such as Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. However, in the sequels, Freddy developed a cheeky persona that enabled him to be the black-humored villain.
The fictional address of the house in the film is 1428 Elm Street. The actual house where filming took place is located in Los Angeles, California, on 1428 North Genesee Avenue. The numbers "1428" on the side of the house were stolen and never returned according to the house's present owner, Angie Hill, who was quite upset over it. This is shown on the second disc of the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010).
The words "Elm Street" are not spoken at all during the movie.
The little girl skipping rope was the daughter of the couple whose home was used as Tina's house.
Elm Street was named after Elm Street in Wheaton, Illinois, where Wes Craven went to college.
Glen was supposed to rise from the bed after the bed bloodbath scene, but that was cut.
The scene where Freddy presses through the wall above Nancy was shot by stretching a sheet of spandex across a hole in the wall and pressing against it. In the shot, Freddy is played by special effects designer Jim Doyle.
Although the character is credited as "Freddy" Krueger in the sequels and is more well-known by that name, he is credited as Fred Krueger in this film.
In this movie, Nancy is shown watching Raimi's The Evil Dead (1981) as she struggles to stay awake watching it. Craven decided to include the scene because Raimi had featured a poster of Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977) in that film as a jab to show audiences the movie they're watching is scarier than Craven's. As a response to Craven's in-joke, Raimi showed Freddy Krueger's glove in the tool shed scene of Evil Dead II (1987), and later in Ash vs Evil Dead (2015) in honor of his passing
Special make-up effects artist David B. Miller based Freddy's disfigurement on photographs of burn victims he saw at UCLA Medical Center.
Nancy's house has a blue door in this movie. In all of the sequels, it has the iconic red door.
The only "Nightmare on Elm Street" film where Freddy does not have stripes on the sleeves of his infamous sweater.
In the opening dream, Tina sees and hears lambs. This is a play on the phrase "Like a lamb to the slaughter," a phrase originating in the Bible. It means an innocent and helpless creatures that is unknowingly in danger, an apt description of Tina and her friends.
Charlie Sheen, John Cusack, Brad Pitt, Kiefer Sutherland, Nicolas Cage, and C. Thomas Howell were considered for the role of Glen.
Prior to making the film, Amanda Wyss had never seen a horror movie, and Heather Langenkamp had only ever seen Burnt Offerings (1976).
Heather Langenkamp's favorite of her performances.
Over 500 gallons of fake blood were used during filming.
Freddy Krueger has less than seven minutes of screen time.
Robert Englund cut himself the first time when he tried on the infamous Freddy glove.
An omen that Johnny Depp's character is about to die occurs as he is lying in bed listening to his radio. The broadcaster announces, "It's midnight, and you're listening to station KRGR." KRGR is "Krueger" without the vowels.
The poster above Glen's bed in his death scene is the "Grace Under Pressure" album cover by Canadian rock trio Rush.
Body count: 4
In his room, Glen has a stuffed vulture doll just behind his bed that looks down on him, an omen of his impending fate since vultures are known to feast on dead animals.
One of my favorite horror movies! Watched it when I was like 11 years old. Nightmares for weeks haha
This is the first scary movie i ever watch as a child and its still the scariest. Best scary movie to this day
And great to see u back John
Thank you for showing those TBS clips of Die Hard. I haven't seen them since I was a kid, and still say the Mr. Falcon line.