ON THIS DAY ON HORROR - November 9th
"A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET"
premiered in 1984
premiered in 1984
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Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss), a teenager, is stalked through a boiler room and attacked by a disfigured man wearing a blade-fixed glove (Robert Englund). She awakens from the nightmare, but her mother points out four mysterious slashes in her nightgown. The following morning, Tina is consoled by her friend Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) and her boyfriend Glen (Johnny Depp). Later, Nancy and Glen sleep at Tina's following her mother's out-of-town departure; the sleepover is interrupted by Tina's boyfriend Rod (Nick Corri). Falling asleep, Tina sees the man and runs. Awakened by Tina's thrashing, Rod witnesses her being fatally slashed by an unseen force. He flees as Nancy and Glen find Tina, mistakenly blaming Rod. Nancy tells her father, Lieutenant Don Thompson (John Saxon), of Tina's death.
Top: Freddy (Robert Englund) fashions his iconic bladed-glove!
The next day, Rod is arrested by Don, despite his pleas of innocence. At school, Nancy falls asleep in class and finds the man, calling himself Freddy Krueger, chasing her in the boiler room. Nancy burns her arm on a pipe and then awakens. She notices the burn mark on her arm and is concerned. At home, Nancy falls asleep in the bathtub and nearly gets drowned by Freddy. Nancy goes to Rod, who tells her what happened to Tina, and Nancy believes Freddy is responsible for Tina's death. Nancy has Glen watch over her as she falls asleep. She tries to find Freddy and sees him preparing 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 discover Rod dead in his cell in an apparent suicide. At Rod's funeral, Nancy's parents become worried when she describes the man in her dreams. Her mother Marge (Ronee Blakley) takes her to a dream clinic. In her dream, Nancy is attacked again and grabs Freddy's hat. When the staff wake her up, she has a gash in her arm and Freddy's hat in her possession.
At home, Marge bars the windows and begins drinking heavily. She tells Nancy that Freddy 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 desires revenge, Nancy convinces Glen to help her. She plans to take Freddy into the real world, and sets up booby traps in her house. Concerned over her influence, Glen's parents prevent the two from meeting. Glen falls asleep at their appointed hour, and Freddy kills him and releases his blood in a large fountain in his room, which is witnessed by Glen's mother. With her friends now gone, Nancy prepares to face Freddy alone in her dreams and eventually comes to realize that it's his victims fear that truly gives Freddy his power - if only Nancy has the strength to confront her fears and defeat the monster forever!
At home, Marge bars the windows and begins drinking heavily. She tells Nancy that Freddy 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 desires revenge, Nancy convinces Glen to help her. She plans to take Freddy into the real world, and sets up booby traps in her house. Concerned over her influence, Glen's parents prevent the two from meeting. Glen falls asleep at their appointed hour, and Freddy kills him and releases his blood in a large fountain in his room, which is witnessed by Glen's mother. With her friends now gone, Nancy prepares to face Freddy alone in her dreams and eventually comes to realize that it's his victims fear that truly gives Freddy his power - if only Nancy has the strength to confront her fears and defeat the monster forever!
[girls singing while skipping rope]
Children: One, two, Freddy's coming for you. / Three, four, better lock your door. / Five, six, grab your crucifix. / Seven, eight, gonna stay up late. / Nine, ten, never sleep again.
Top and Above: Friends Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) and Tina (Amanda Wyss) start to experience similar nightmares
In the 1970's, the LA Times printed a series of articles about a group of Southeast Asian refugees from the Hmong tribe, several of whom died in the throes of horrific nightmares. The group had come to America to escape the reign of Pol Pot, and within a year of arriving, three men had died, with the situation the same in each cases; the young, otherwise healthy, man would have a nightmare, then refuse to sleep for as long as possible. Upon finally falling asleep from exhaustion, the man awoke screaming, then died. Autopsy results revealed that they had not died because of heart failure, they had simply died. Medical authorities have since called the phenomenon Asian Death Syndrome, a variant of Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome (SUDS) and Brugada Syndrome. But it was concept that intrigued filmmaker Wes Craven, and acted as the inspiration for one of horror's most enduring horror franchises, A Nightmare on Elm Street!
With a basic story-line in place, Craven turned to multiple sources of inspiration from his own youth and experiences when creating his villain, the ubiquitous Freddy Krueger. 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 walked off, thus serving the inspiration for Freddy's appearance, combined with Freddy's name being taken from a school bully who tormented Craven in grade school. The colored sweater he chose for his villain was based on the DC Comics character Plastic Man, with Craven choosing 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. 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.
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. And in the original script, Freddy was a child molester, however the decision was made to change him into being a child murderer to avoid accusations of exploiting a series of child molestations in California around the time of production (Freddy was, however, rewritten as a child molester in the 2010 remake starring Jackie Earle Haley). To emphasize this point - and Freddy's desire to kill the remaining children of Elm street - there was an extended scene in the screenplay when Marge shows Nancy Freddy's glove, where she explains in more detail the events following Freddy's mistrial, describing; Freddy did not die immediately in the fire but burst from his basement on fire, and, as the flames consumed him, swore revenge on all those present. And then Marge confesses to Nancy it was actually herself who took a gun and shot Freddy, delivering the coup de grace.
With a basic story-line in place, Craven turned to multiple sources of inspiration from his own youth and experiences when creating his villain, the ubiquitous Freddy Krueger. 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 walked off, thus serving the inspiration for Freddy's appearance, combined with Freddy's name being taken from a school bully who tormented Craven in grade school. The colored sweater he chose for his villain was based on the DC Comics character Plastic Man, with Craven choosing 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. 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.
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. And in the original script, Freddy was a child molester, however the decision was made to change him into being a child murderer to avoid accusations of exploiting a series of child molestations in California around the time of production (Freddy was, however, rewritten as a child molester in the 2010 remake starring Jackie Earle Haley). To emphasize this point - and Freddy's desire to kill the remaining children of Elm street - there was an extended scene in the screenplay when Marge shows Nancy Freddy's glove, where she explains in more detail the events following Freddy's mistrial, describing; Freddy did not die immediately in the fire but burst from his basement on fire, and, as the flames consumed him, swore revenge on all those present. And then Marge confesses to Nancy it was actually herself who took a gun and shot Freddy, delivering the coup de grace.
TRIVIA: All of the boiler room footage in the film was shot in the basement of the Lincoln Heights Jail, which was condemned shortly after production wrapped, due to the high levels of asbestos.
Top and Above: Tina and Nancy's boyfriends, Rod (Nick Corri) and Glen (Johnny Depp)
With the screenplay completed in 1981, Craven presented the script to almost every major studio, who rejected the script for various 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, to which Craven declined. 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. 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, with a relatively low budget of $1.8 million (almost $4.2 million in 2016 dollars).
Craven said he wanted someone very "non-Hollywood" for the role of Nancy, and he believed Langenkamp met this quality. 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. 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. Veteran actors John Saxon and Ronee Blakley were cast as Nancy's parents, Lt. Don Thompson and Marge Thompson, and were joined by upcoming actors Amanda Wyss (who had never actually seen a horror at that time!), and Nick Corri also joined the cast as Nancy's friends Tina, and her boyfriend Rod. Johnny Depp was another unknown when he was cast; he initially went to accompany a friend (Jackie Earle Haley, who went on to play Freddy in the 2010 remake) so he could audition, with Craven's daughters picking Depp's headshot from the set he showed them (apparently telling their father that he had to cast Depp in the film because he was so "beautiful"). And although other actors such as Charlie Sheen (who reportedly wanted too much money), John Cusack, Kiefer Sutherland, Nicolas Cage, and C. Thomas Howell were considered, Depp eventually got the part of Nancy's boyfriend, Glen.
According to Craven, Robert Englund was not the first choice for the role of Fred Krueger; he had initially wanted a stunt man to play the part, but upon testing several stunt men, he realized he needed an actor. David Warner was then originally slated to play Freddy Krueger, even as far as having make-up tests done, but Warner had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Then Englund auditioned, and according to Craven, "[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". According to 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 back-story for Freddy was based on something from his own childhood, when 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. Englund would end up shooting A Nightmare on Elm Street while on hiatus from filming the miniseries V and the subsequent TV series.
Craven said he wanted someone very "non-Hollywood" for the role of Nancy, and he believed Langenkamp met this quality. 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. 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. Veteran actors John Saxon and Ronee Blakley were cast as Nancy's parents, Lt. Don Thompson and Marge Thompson, and were joined by upcoming actors Amanda Wyss (who had never actually seen a horror at that time!), and Nick Corri also joined the cast as Nancy's friends Tina, and her boyfriend Rod. Johnny Depp was another unknown when he was cast; he initially went to accompany a friend (Jackie Earle Haley, who went on to play Freddy in the 2010 remake) so he could audition, with Craven's daughters picking Depp's headshot from the set he showed them (apparently telling their father that he had to cast Depp in the film because he was so "beautiful"). And although other actors such as Charlie Sheen (who reportedly wanted too much money), John Cusack, Kiefer Sutherland, Nicolas Cage, and C. Thomas Howell were considered, Depp eventually got the part of Nancy's boyfriend, Glen.
According to Craven, Robert Englund was not the first choice for the role of Fred Krueger; he had initially wanted a stunt man to play the part, but upon testing several stunt men, he realized he needed an actor. David Warner was then originally slated to play Freddy Krueger, even as far as having make-up tests done, but Warner had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Then Englund auditioned, and according to Craven, "[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". According to 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 back-story for Freddy was based on something from his own childhood, when 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. Englund would end up shooting A Nightmare on Elm Street while on hiatus from filming the miniseries V and the subsequent TV series.
TRIVIA: Robert Englund cut himself the first time that he tried on the infamous Freddy glove, while his iconic character Freddy Krueger has under 7 minutes of total screen time!
Top: Dream killer, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund);
Above: Nancy discovers she can pull objects out of her dreams and into the real world
Production for A Nightmare on Elm Street almost folded before it had even begun. Initially, Smart Egg productions were supposed to put $1 million into the movie, but they dropped out several days before filming was scheduled to start, and producer Robert Shaye had to try to raise money elsewhere. New Line Cinema eventually raised $700,000 to start filming in June 1984. However, two weeks into shooting, the production had no money left to pay the crew, so line producer John H. Burrows used his credit card. Eventually, Shaye brokered a deal with a European company called Media Home Entertainment and subsequently persuaded Smart Egg to put up the final $200,000 needed to complete the film. According to Shaye, "Half the funding came from a Yugoslavian guy who had a girlfriend he wanted in movies."
One of the most imaginative death scenes in Nightmare, was Tina's being dragged across the ceiling of her bedroom. The scene was achieved by using a rotating room set which was slowly spun to allow her to roll into position. The camera was bolted to the wall, and the cameraman strapped into a chair beside it, which turned in tandem with the room. For the two shots where Rod and Tina reach for one other as Tina is on the ceiling, she is really lying on the floor and Garcia is upside down with his hair pasted down to stay flat. The effect was so good that just before shooting began, Amanda Wyss got a bad case of vertigo. The same set was reused for the "blood geyser" effect during Glen's deaths scene; the filmmakers 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 (normal movie blood couldn't create the right effect for the geyser) into the room by pumping it down through the bed. The room itself was to be turned as the blood flowed, but it was turned in the wrong direction so instead of the blood gushing out of the bed and then splashing down the walls, the blood gushed out of the bed and out of the room through the open door where the camera and equipment was, with exposed wires and electrical sockets. The power on the set went, but no one was injured. On the DVD commentary, Craven remarks that the room spinning the wrong way was like a "Ferris Wheel from hell!"
The scene where Nancy is attacked by Freddy in her bathtub was shot using a bottomless tub, which was put in a bathroom set that had been built over a swimming pool. During the underwater sequence, Langenkamp was replaced with stuntwoman Christina Johnson, although Langenkamp spent 12 hours in the bath during filming. In a later scene where Nancy attempts to warn Glen that Freddy is coming after him and looks down to discover Freddy's mouth and tongue have taken form of the bottom half of the phone, this effect was made with cheap rubber and prosthetic. The effects team also reportedly stated Langenkamp wanted to take the prop home after shooting, which they thought was unusual.
One of the most imaginative death scenes in Nightmare, was Tina's being dragged across the ceiling of her bedroom. The scene was achieved by using a rotating room set which was slowly spun to allow her to roll into position. The camera was bolted to the wall, and the cameraman strapped into a chair beside it, which turned in tandem with the room. For the two shots where Rod and Tina reach for one other as Tina is on the ceiling, she is really lying on the floor and Garcia is upside down with his hair pasted down to stay flat. The effect was so good that just before shooting began, Amanda Wyss got a bad case of vertigo. The same set was reused for the "blood geyser" effect during Glen's deaths scene; the filmmakers 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 (normal movie blood couldn't create the right effect for the geyser) into the room by pumping it down through the bed. The room itself was to be turned as the blood flowed, but it was turned in the wrong direction so instead of the blood gushing out of the bed and then splashing down the walls, the blood gushed out of the bed and out of the room through the open door where the camera and equipment was, with exposed wires and electrical sockets. The power on the set went, but no one was injured. On the DVD commentary, Craven remarks that the room spinning the wrong way was like a "Ferris Wheel from hell!"
The scene where Nancy is attacked by Freddy in her bathtub was shot using a bottomless tub, which was put in a bathroom set that had been built over a swimming pool. During the underwater sequence, Langenkamp was replaced with stuntwoman Christina Johnson, although Langenkamp spent 12 hours in the bath during filming. In a later scene where Nancy attempts to warn Glen that Freddy is coming after him and looks down to discover Freddy's mouth and tongue have taken form of the bottom half of the phone, this effect was made with cheap rubber and prosthetic. The effects team also reportedly stated Langenkamp wanted to take the prop home after shooting, which they thought was unusual.
Above: Nancy's mother Marge (Ronee Blakley) meets a gruesome end!
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. 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). Production wrapped in July, and was rushed to get it ready for its November release. However, with just a few days before the film was to go on general release, the processing lab which had the negative informed New Line that they wouldn't be releasing it as they hadn't been paid. At the last minute however, producer Robert Shaye was able to negotiate a deal.
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, but ended by grossing $1,271,000 during its opening weekend - making it an instant commercial success. Another horror film, Silent Night, Deadly Night was also released at the same time and had even grossed more than Nightmare at the box office ($2,491,460 at the box office!), before the film was pulled from theaters amid numerous protests that objected to the significant emphasis on the killer being dressed as Santa Claus (although a similar themed movie, Christmas Evil, was released unnoticed the year before!). A Nightmare on Elm Street would eventually gross over $25 million at the box office by the end of its theatrical run.
Contemporary reviews for Nightmare greatly varied, with Kim Newman of the Monthly Film Bulletin writing,"Craven emerges 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". 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." 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 halfway between an exploitation flick and classic surrealism". The review also commented on Freddy Krueger, calling him "the most chilling figure in the genre since "The Shape" made his debut in Halloween."
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, but ended by grossing $1,271,000 during its opening weekend - making it an instant commercial success. Another horror film, Silent Night, Deadly Night was also released at the same time and had even grossed more than Nightmare at the box office ($2,491,460 at the box office!), before the film was pulled from theaters amid numerous protests that objected to the significant emphasis on the killer being dressed as Santa Claus (although a similar themed movie, Christmas Evil, was released unnoticed the year before!). A Nightmare on Elm Street would eventually gross over $25 million at the box office by the end of its theatrical run.
Contemporary reviews for Nightmare greatly varied, with Kim Newman of the Monthly Film Bulletin writing,"Craven emerges 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". 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." 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 halfway between an exploitation flick and classic surrealism". The review also commented on Freddy Krueger, calling him "the most chilling figure in the genre since "The Shape" made his debut in Halloween."
TRIVIA: Cinematographer Jacques Haitkin wore an eyepatch during filming so as not to be distracted by anything else on set.
Top: Star Robert Englund on set with writer/director Wes Craven
Above: The cast of A Nightmare on Elm Street
The success of the first Nightmare movie almost guaranteed a sequel, and less than a year later, new Line released A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. Although producer Shaye intially replaced Englund in the role of Freddy Krueger, they quickly reconsidered when they realized that the character (and specifically, Englund's portrayal) were the cornerstone of what would become one of the most successful horror franchises in cinema history, and continued with further sequels; A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991). In 1994, original Nightmare creator Wes Craven returned to write and direct New Nightmare (1994), and in 2003, New Line and Friday the 13th producer and creator Sean S. Cunningham joined forces to release the horror mash-up, Freddy vs Jason. With the end of the series all but confirmed, Michael Bay's production company, Platinum Dunes announced the production of a remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), this time with Jackie Earle Haley replacing Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. The remake was not as successful (both critically and commercially) than it's predossesor, and on August 7, 2015, it was reported that New Line Cinema was developing a second remake/reboot with Orphan writer David Leslie Johnson.
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 94%
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