A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Wes Craven
Produced by	Robert Shaye
Written by	Wes Craven
Starring	John Saxon Ronee Blakley Heather Langenkamp Amanda Wyss Nick Corri Johnny Depp Robert Englund
Music by	Charles Bernstein
Cinematography	Jacques Haitkin
Edited by	Patrick McMahon Rick Shaine
Production companies	New Line Cinema Media Home Entertainment Smart Egg Pictures[1]
Distributed by	New Line Cinema1
Release dates	November 9, 1984 (1984-11-09)
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.8 million
Box office	$25.5 million[2]

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American supernatural slasher horror film written and directed by Wes Craven, and the first film of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film stars Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund, and Johnny Depp in his feature film debut. Set in the fictional Midwestern town of Springwood, Ohio, the plot revolves around several teenagers who are stalked and killed in their dreams (and thus killed in reality) by Freddy Krueger. The teenagers are unaware of the cause of this strange phenomenon, but their parents hold a dark secret from long ago.

Craven produced A Nightmare on Elm Street on an estimated budget of just $1.8 million,^[3] a sum the film earned back during its first week.^[2] An instant commercial success, the film went on to gross over $25 million at the United States box office.^[2] A Nightmare on Elm Street was met with rave critical reviews and went on to make a very significant impact on the horror genre, spawning a franchise consisting of a line of sequels, a television series, a crossover with Friday the 13th, beyond various other works of imitation; a remake of the same name was released in 2010.^[4][5]

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 1978 horror film Halloween, including the morality play that revolves around sexual promiscuity in teenagers resulting in their eventual death, leading to the term "slasher film".^[5][6] Critics and film historians argue 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.^[7] Critics today praise the film's ability to transgress "the boundaries between the imaginary and real",^[8] toying with audience perceptions.^[9]

Plot

Tina Gray, dressed in a nightgown, walks through a boiler room at night. She is stalked and attacked by a disfigured man wearing gloves attached with claw-like blades. She awakens from a nightmare, but her mother points out four mysterious slashes in her gown.

The following morning, Tina is consoled by her friend Nancy and Glen, Nancy's boyfriend. That night, Nancy and Glen show up to keep Tina company while her mother is out of town. The sleepover is interrupted by Tina's boyfriend Rod, who takes Tina to have sex and to make up for an argument the two had prior. When she falls asleep, she sees the disfigured man again in the alley behind her house and is chased by him. Awakened by Tina's thrashing, Rod witnesses her being dragged up the wall and slashed to death by an unseen force. He flees as Nancy and Glen discover Tina's body, implicating Rod in her death. Nancy tells her father, Lieutenant Don Thompson, of Tina's death.

The next day, Rod meets Nancy, proclaiming his innocence, but Don arrests him. At school, Nancy falls asleep during class. In a massive boiler room, the scarred man, calling himself Freddy comes after her. Nancy burns her arm on a pipe and awakens in the middle of class. She excuses herself for the day. She notices a burn mark on her arm and becomes concerned for her safety. At home, Nancy falls asleep in the bathtub and almost get drowned by Freddy. Nancy goes to Rod, who tells her what happened in Tina's house, and Nancy believes the scarred man is responsible for Tina's death.

Nancy has Glen watch over her as she falls asleep. She tries to find Freddy and see him readying to kill Rod. He turns his attention on her; she runs and wakes up when her alarm clock goes off. Nancy and Glen go to the jail and find out Rod has been hanged in his cell by his bed sheet in an apparent suicide. At Rod's funeral, Nancy's parents become worried when she describes the man in her dreams. Her mother Marge takes her to a dream clinic. In her dream, Nancy is attacked again and manages to grab Freddy's dark brimmed hat. When the staff wake her up, she has a gash in her arm and somehow has Freddy's hat with her.

At home, Marge bars up the house windows and begins drinking heavily. Eventually, she tells Nancy of Freddy's origin. He was a child murderer released on a technicality. In a form of vigilante justice, the parents in the neighborhood burned him alive. Realizing that Freddy is after them for revenge, Nancy convinces Glen to help her. She plans to take Freddy into the real world, and set up booby traps in her house. Glen's parents become concerned over her influence and prevent the two from meeting. Glen falls asleep at the appointed hour they were planning, and Freddy kills him.

Alone, Nancy puts her drunken mother to bed and convinces her father across the street to break into the house in twenty minutes. In her sleep, she locates Freddy at the last second and pulls him out of the dream. In the real world, Nancy runs from Freddy, who trips on the booby traps Nancy set earlier. She then lights him on fire, locks him in the basement and rushes to the door for help. The police arrive, and they realize Freddy has escaped the basement. In Marge's bedroom, they see a still burning Freddy smothering her. After Don puts out the fire, Freddy and Marge have vanished. Despite her father's words, Nancy believes she is still in danger.

Freddy goes after Nancy once again. Realizing he is powered by his victim's fear, she calmly turns her back on him, reducing him to nothingness. She steps outside into a bright morning where all of her friends and mother are still alive. She gets into Glen's car to go to school when the top comes down and suddenly locks them in. As the car is driven uncontrollably down the street, Marge is grabbed through the window of their front door and is dragged through it to her apparent death, and the screen fades to black.

Cast

The cast of A Nightmare on Elm Street included a crew of veteran actors such as Robert Englund and John Saxon, as well as several aspiring young actors including Johnny Depp and Heather Langenkamp.

• Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson
• Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger
• John Saxon as Lt. Don Thompson
• Johnny Depp as Glen Lantz
• Ronee Blakley as Marge Thompson
• Leslie Hoffman as Hall Guard
• Amanda Wyss as Christina “Tina” Gray
• Nick Corri as Rod Lane
• Joe Unger as Sgt. Garcia
• Charles Fleischer as Dr. King
• Joseph Whipp as Sgt. Parker
• Lin Shaye as Teacher
• Mimi Craven as Nurse
• Jack Shea as Minister
• Ed Call as Mr. Lantz
• Sandy Lipton as Mrs. Lantz
• David Andrews as Foreman
• Jeff Levine as Coroner
• Donna Woodrum as Mrs. Gray
• Paul Grenier as Boyfriend
• Ash Adams and Don Hannah as Surfers
• Shashawnee Hall, Brian Reise and Carol Pritikin as Cops
• Kathi Gibbs, John Richard Peterson, Chris Tashima and Antonia Yannouli as Kids

The task of creating Krueger's disfigured face fell to makeup man David Miller, who based his creation on photographs of burn victims he obtained from the UCLA Medical Center.^[10]

Production

Development

"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 the middle of nightmares—and the paper never correlated them, never said, ‘Hey, we’ve had another story like this."

— Wes Craven on the film's creation[11]

A Nightmare on Elm Street contains many biographical elements, taking inspiration from director Wes Craven's childhood.^[12] The basis of the film was inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the LA Times in the 1970s on a group of Khmer refugees, who, after fleeing to the United States from the results of American bombing in Cambodia, were suffering disturbing nightmares, after which they refused to sleep. Some of the men died in their sleep soon after. Medical authorities called the phenomenon Asian Death Syndrome. The condition itself afflicted only men between the ages of 19 and 57 and is believed to be sudden unexplained death syndrome or Brugada syndrome, or both.^[13] 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 from the Elm Street soundtrack as well.^[14] Craven has also stated that he drew some inspiration for the film from Eastern religions.^[15]

Other sources also attribute the inspiration for the film to be a 1968 student film project made by students of Craven's at Clarkson University. The student film parodied contemporary horror films, and was filmed along Elm Street in Potsdam, New York^[16][17] (the town in the film was named Madstop—Potsdam spelled backwards).^[18]

The film's villain, Freddy Krueger, draws heavily 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 a startled Craven, and then walked off. This served as the inspiration for Krueger.^[12] Initially, Fred Krueger was intended to be a child molester, but Craven eventually decided to characterize 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 production of the film.^[10]

By Craven's account, his own adolescent experiences led to the naming of Freddy Krueger. He had been bullied at school by a child named Fred Krueger, and named his villain accordingly.^[10] In addition, Craven had done the same in his earlier film The Last House on the Left (1972), where the villain's name was shortened to "Krug". The colored sweater he chose for his villain was based on the DC Comics character Plastic Man, and Craven chose to make Krueger's sweater red and green, after reading an article in Scientific American in 1982 that said the two most clashing colors to the human retina were this particular combination.^[11]

Craven strove to make Krueger different from other horror-film villains of the era. "A lot of the killers were wearing masks: Leatherface, Michael Myers, Jason," he recalled in 2014. "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 felt the killer should use something other than a knife, which 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: one called the "hero glove" used only whenever anything needs to be cut, and the other a stunt glove less likely to cause injury.^[19]

Writing

Wes Craven began writing A Nightmare on Elm Street's screenplay 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 was Walt Disney Productions, although they wanted Craven to tone down the content to make it suitable for children and pre-teens. Craven declined.^[10][11] Another early suitor was Paramount Pictures; however the studios passed on the project due to Nightmare on Elm Street's similarity to Dreamscape (1984), a film they were producing at the time. Universal Studios also passed; Craven, who was in desperate personal and financial straits during this period, later framed their rejection letter on the wall of his office.^[19]

Finally, the fledgling and independent New Line Cinema corporation—which had up to that point only distributed films, rather than making its own—gave the project the go-ahead.^[10] 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 much bigger and more profitable films, Nightmare holds such an important place in the company's history that the studio is often referred to as "The House That Freddy Built".^[20] In fact, much of the successful application filed by producer Robert Shaye for a public offering of New Line's stock centered around the Nightmare franchise, because it provided a Hollywood rarity of large profits that could also be regularly counted on by the company.

Casting

Actor David Warner was originally slated to play Freddy.^[21] Make-up tests were done,^[22] but he had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Replacing him was difficult at first. "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 the dark places in his mind. Robert understood Freddy."^[19]

To get that understanding, 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 the part because it was the only project that fit his schedule during the hiatus between the V miniseries and series.^[19]

Craven claimed he wanted someone very "non-Hollywood" for the role of Nancy, and he believed Langenkamp met this quality.^[12] Langenkamp, before becoming an actress, worked as a newspaper copy girl, and saw an advertisement for extras needed on The Outsiders earlier that year, which was being shot in Tulsa. She did not get the part, but it encouraged her to take time off from her studies at Stanford and continue acting.^[19] Eventually she landed the role of Nancy Thompson after an open audition, beating out more than 200 actresses including Demi Moore, Courteney Cox, Tracey Gold and Jennifer Grey.^[23] Langenkamp returned as Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and also played herself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994).

Johnny Depp was another unknown when he was cast; and initially went to accompany a friend (Jackie Earle Haley, who went on to play Freddy in the 2010 remake) so he could audition, yet eventually got the part of Glen.^[12] Glen Lantz's epic death in this movie is paid homage to by a flashback in Freddy vs. Jason and Depp gets his own nod in a cameo role in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare as a guy on TV.^[24] Craven's daughters picked Depp's headshot from the set he showed them.^[19] Other actors such as Charlie Sheen (who wanted too much money^[19]), John Cusack, Kiefer Sutherland, Nicolas Cage and C. Thomas Howell were considered.

Filming

According to Shaye, all the film's original investors backed out at one point or another during pre-production. The original budget was merely $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."^[19]

Principal photography began in June 1984 and wrapped in July. The fictional address of the house that appears in the film is 1428 Elm Street in Springwood, Ohio. The actual house is a private home located in Los Angeles, California on 1428 North Genesee Avenue.^[25] During production, over 500 gallons of fake blood were used for the special effects production.^[26] For the famous blood geyser sequence, the filmmakers used the same revolving room set that was used for Tina's death.

They put the set so that it was upside down and attached the camera so that it looked like the room was right side up, then they poured gallons of red water into the room, because the normal film blood would not make the right effect for the geyser. During the filming of this scene, the blood poured in an unexpected way causing the rotating room to spin. Much of the blood spilled out of the bedroom window covering Craven and Langenkamp.^[27] The scene where Nancy 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" as seen in Nancy's dream was Robert Shaye's idea; it was created using pancake mix.^[27]

Jsu Garcia, who was credited as Rod under the name "Nick Corri", says the production was difficult for him. He had recently come off a period of homelessness, and was still dealing with the depression from that by snorting heroin in the bathroom between takes. In 2014, he revealed that he was high on that drug during the scene between him and Langenkamp in his 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."^[19]

Wes Craven originally planned for the film to have a more evocative ending: Nancy kills Krueger by ceasing to believe in him, then awakes to discover that everything that happened in the film was an elongated nightmare. However, New Line leader Robert Shaye demanded a twist ending, in which Krueger disappears and the film all appears to have been a dream, only for the audience to discover that they are watching a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream, where Fred reappears as a car that "kidnaps" Nancy and her friends, followed by Fred reaching through a window on the front door to pull Nancy's mother inside.^[27] Both a happy ending and a twist ending were filmed, but the final film used the twist ending. As a result, Craven (who never wanted the film to be an ongoing franchise), dropped out of working on the first sequel, Freddy's Revenge (1985).^[27] Production wrapped in July, and was rushed to get it ready for its November release.

Themes

Coming of Age

Freddy exclusively attacks teenagers and his actions have been interpreted as symbolic of the often traumatic experiences of adolescence.^[28] Nancy, like the archetypal teenager, experiences social anxiety and her relationships with her parents becomes very strained. Sexuality 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 actually called for Krueger to be a child molester, rather than a child killer, before being murdered.^[29]

"In Nightmare, all the adults are damaged: They're alcoholic, they're on pills, they're not around," Englund has observed. Blakely says the parents in the film "verge on being villains." Englund adds that "[t]he adolescents have to wade through that, and Heather is the last girl standing. She lives. She defeats Freddy." Langenkamp agrees. "Nightmare is a feminist movie, but I look at it more as a 'youth power' film."^[19]

Distribution

Home media

The film was first introduced to the home video market by Media Home Entertainment in early 1985 and 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 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 2 DVDs, one with 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 1 also had 2 commentaries, other nightmares (if not all) from the film's sequels (2–7 & 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 that was killed by Freddy. These unused clips/scenes were not included/added in the film but could be viewed separately from the DVD's Menus.

On April 13, 2010, the film was released on Blu-ray Disc by Warner Home Video,^[30] with all the same extras from the 2006 Special Edition included on the Blu-ray release.^[31] A new DVD box set containing all of the films up to that point was released on the same day.^[32]

Reception

Box office

A Nightmare on Elm Street premiered in the United States with a limited theatrical release on November 9, 1984, opening in 165 cinemas across the country.^[2] Grossing $1,271,000 during its opening weekend, the film was considered an instant commercial success. The film eventually earned a total of $25,504,513 at the American box office.^[2] Additionally, A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in Europe, Canada and Australia.^[33]

The A Nightmare on Elm Street remake was released on April 30, 2010 in the United States grossing $63,075,011 domestically, $52,589,026 in foreign areas for a total of $115,664,037 worldwide. During its opening weekend, it grossed in $32,902,299 in 3,332 theaters, while on its first week it grossed $39,360,171 in the United States. On foreign countries, it was released a week later on May 6, 2010 grossing in a total of $6,121,186 on its opening weekend and $52,589,026 as total gross until December 9, 2010. ^[34]

Critical reception

In a contemporary review, Kim Newman wrote in the Monthly Film Bulletin that A Nightmare on Elm Street was closer to a Stephen King adaptation with it's small-town setting, and "invented monster myth".^[1] Newman concluded that the film found "Craven emerging from the his recent career slump (Swamp Thing, The Hills Have Eyes Part 2, Invitation to Hell) with a fine, perhaps definitive bogeyman to back him up." and that the film was "a superior example of an over-worked genre".^[1] Paul Attanasio of the Washington Post praised the film, stating that "for such a low-budget movie, Nightmare on Elm Street is extraordinarily polished. The script is consistently witty, the camera work (by cinematographer Jacques Haitkin) is crisp and expressive."^[35] The review stated praised it as superior work in the slasher film, noting that "the genre has built-in limitations [...] but Craven faces the challenge admirably; "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is half-way between an exploitation flick and classic surrealism". The review also commented on Freddy Kruger, calling him "the most chilling figure in the genre since "The Shape" made his debut in "Halloween"."^[35] Variety commented that the film was "a highly imaginative horror film" praising the special effects while finding that the film "fails to tie up his thematic threads satisfyingly at the conclusion.".^[36]

The review commented negatively on some of the scenes involving Nancy's family, noting that "the movie's worst scenes involve Nancy and her alcoholic mother"^[35] Newman also noted on the character development stating that "the impression that about two hundred pages worth of characterisation has been compressed into cliché details like boozy Ronee Blakley demonstrating her renewed self-respect by throwing away a half-full bottle."^[1] Newman noted that the nightmares in the film worked against itself, stating that "while the kissing telephone and bottomless bathtub are disorienting in the [David] Cronenberg spirit, they get in the way of the relentless, pursuing-monster aspect that Carpenter manages so well."^[1]

Later reception

Since its initial release, the film has received universal critical acclaim. Critics have praised the film's ability to rupture "the boundaries between the imaginary and real,"^[37] toying with audience perceptions.^[9] Some film historians interpreted this overriding theme as a social subtext, "the struggles of adolescents in American society".^[38]

The film has a 94% approval rating based on 47 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes^[39] and is widely considered one of the best films of 1984.^[40][41][42] It ranked at #17 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004), a five-hour program that selected cinema's scariest moments. In 2003, Freddy Krueger was named the 40th greatest film villain on American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains.^[43] In 2008, Empire ranked A Nightmare on Elm Street 162nd on their list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.^[44] It also was selected by The New York Times as one of The Best 1000 Movies Ever Made.^[45]

American Film Institute recognition

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills—Nominated^[46]
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains—#40, Freddy Krueger, Villain
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: "One, two, Freddy's coming for you..."—Nominated^[47]

Accolades

• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films – Best Horror Film (1985) (Nomination)
• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films – Best Performance by a Young Actor – Jsu Garcia (Nomination)
• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films – Best DVD Classic Film Release (2007) (Nomination)
• Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival – Critic Award 1985 – Wes Craven (won)
• Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival – Special Mention for Acting 1985 – Heather Langenkamp (Won)

Remakes

In 2010, a remake was released, also titled A Nightmare on Elm Street, starring Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger. The film was produced by Michael Bay, and directed by Samuel Bayer and written by the team of Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer. The film is also a reboot to the franchise.

On August 7, 2015, it was reported that New Line Cinema are developing a remake with Orphan writer David Leslie Johnson.^[48]

See also

• List of ghost films
• List of monster movies

Footnotes

References

Further reading

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: A Nightmare on Elm Street

• A Nightmare on Elm Street at the Internet Movie Database
• A Nightmare on Elm Street at AllMovie
• A Nightmare on Elm Street at Box Office Mojo
• A Nightmare on Elm Street at Rotten Tomatoes
• A Nightmare on Elm Street at Metacritic
• A Nightmare on Elm Street at Nightmare on Elm Street Companion

A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise Films A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Freddy's Revenge Dream Warriors The Dream Master The Dream Child Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare Wes Craven's New Nightmare Freddy vs. Jason A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Cast and characters Freddy Krueger Nancy Thompson Cast list Character list Comics Comics Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash The Nightmare Warriors Music "Dream Warriors" "Are You Ready for Freddy" "Nightmare" "A Nightmare on My Street" "I'm Awake Now" "How Can I Live" Freddy's Favorites: The Best of A Nightmare on Elm Street Other media A Nightmare on Elm Street NES game Freddy's Nightmares list of episodes Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy I Am Nancy Related topics Friday the 13th franchise "Freddy Kreuger" (song) Book Category Portal

Films directed by Wes Craven The Last House on the Left (1972) The Hills Have Eyes (1977) Stranger in Our House (1978) Deadly Blessing (1981) Swamp Thing (1982) Invitation to Hell (1984) A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Chiller (1985) The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985) Deadly Friend (1986) The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) Shocker (1989) The People Under the Stairs (1991) Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) Vampire in Brooklyn (1995) Scream (1996) Scream 2 (1997) Music of the Heart (1999) Scream 3 (2000) Cursed (2005) Red Eye (2005) My Soul to Take (2010) Scream 4 (2011)

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