Wes Craven was a visionary horror director and writer who delivered some of the scariest and most creative movies in the genre. He made viewers squirm with the all-too-real grittiness of The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, deconstructed the genre in Scream, and created a villain who attacked when we are most vulnerable.
Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street starring one of the horror genres greatest villains, premiered in theaters 40 years ago on November 9, 1984. The groundbreaking movie introduced Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), a monster who attacks and kills victims in their dreams. He stalks a group of teenagers, played by Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss, Nick Corri, and Johnny Depp in an early role. He picks them off one by one until final girl Nancy Thompson (Langenkamp) discovers the key to stopping him.
Craven pulled a lot from his personal experiences and news of the time. In the 1970s the Los Angeles Times was reporting on Hmong refugees who had fled the war in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, but suffered from nightmares because of their experiences, so they didn’t want to sleep. They were so traumatized that some of the people died in their sleep while having nightmares.
Freddy’s origin traces back to Craven’s childhood. One night he looked out the window and saw a creepy old man on the sidewalk who seemed to sense the boy’s attention, and stopped to look back at him. Craven named his villain after a boy who had bullied him at school.
He later stated that Freddy was meant to embody terrible parenting – the abusive kind who want to hurt children. He was supposed to be a figure that hates children and attacks when they are asleep and unprotected, making him the ultimate boogeyman. Craven chose to give Freddy a red and green sweater because he read an article stating that those two colors clashed the most.
Craven wanted to differentiate his killer from similar slashers of the period. Michael Myers in Halloween movies, Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th franchise, and Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series all wore masks and were silent. Craven wanted his killer to show emotion, so instead of a mask, he made Freddy’s face look menacing with exaggerated burn scars. Instead of being a quiet killer, Freddy taunts and threatens his victims by talking to them in their nightmares. He also avoided using a standard knife or machete, choosing to create Freddy’s unique glove with razor blades extending from the fingers.
All of these factors combined to make Freddy and A Nightmare on Elm Street a great, scary horror movie.
