A Nightmare on Elm Street
If Nancy doesn't wake up screaming, she won't wake up at all.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Production
Budget
$1 800 000
Revenue
$57 004 513
Director
Scenario
Composer
Charles Bernstein
Producer
Actors
Heather Langenkamp
Nancy Thompson
Robert Englund
Fred Krueger
Johnny Depp
Glen Lantz
Amanda Wyss
Tina Gray
Jsu Garcia
Rod Lane
John Saxon
Lt. Thompson
Ronee Blakley
Marge Thompson
Charles Fleischer
Dr. King
Short description
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a horror film about teenagers in a small town who are haunted by the same dream, in which a scarred man with knives on his hand chases and kills them. The victims die in their sleep for real. The killings are traced back to Fred Krueger, a child murderer whom the local parents burned alive years earlier after the courts set him free. Now he reaches the children of those parents through their dreams, taking revenge. Nancy Thompson, whose father is a police lieutenant, and her boyfriend Glen try to pull Krueger out of the dream world and into reality so they can fight him.
Wes Craven wrote and directed the film, the sixth of the twenty-five features listed for him in chronological order, following Swamp Thing and preceding Invitation to Hell. Heather Langenkamp plays Nancy, Johnny Depp appears as Glen, Robert Englund plays Krueger, and the cast includes Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia and John Saxon, with thirty credited performers and fifty-eight credited crew members.
Released in November 1984, the film was made for about two million dollars and went on to earn roughly fifty-seven million worldwide, a return that far outweighed its cost. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.4 from about 289,000 votes, and on TMDB a rating of 7.4 from roughly 6,000 votes. A critics' rating of 7.9 from seventy reviews places it slightly above those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ was the first film shot at New Line Cinema. Before that, New Line was a distributor of films from other studios.
- Filming the scene where Nancy takes a bath lasted twelve hours.
- The film sequence where Nancy Thompson fights Freddy Krueger in the real world ranked third in Play.com's Japanese edition's "Scariest Moments in Cinema" ranking.
- Around 200 actresses auditioned for the role of Nancy Thompson, including Jennifer Grey, Demi Moore, Courteney Cox, and Tracy Gold.
- In the scene where Glen (Johnny Depp) dies, a poster of the band "Rush's" album "Grace Under Pressure" hangs above his bed.
- Wes Craven's wife, Mimi Craven, played the nurse who is present during the "examination" of Nancy's dreams.
- During filming, the film's distributor terminated its contract with New Line. As a result, the crew worked for two weeks without pay until a new distributor was found. Throughout this period of financial uncertainty, no one left the project.
- The actor credited as Rod Lane in the film's credits is named Nick Corri. However, this actor is widely known as Hsu Garcia.
- "A Nightmare on Elm Street" was Johnny Depp's film debut.
- Nancy's bathtub was hermetically sealed on top of a special tank built into the floor, with a section cut out for the tub.
- Joseph Wipp, who played Sergeant Parker, later portrayed Sheriff Burke in Wes Craven's 'Scream' (1996).
- Johnny Depp stumbled into the film's audition completely by chance, accompanying a friend. Seeing Johnny, Craven offered him to read for the role of Glen.
- On April 4, 2007, a British man, Jason Moore, was sentenced to prison after attacking his friend with a clawed glove very similar to the one worn by Freddy. According to psychiatrists, the thirty-seven-year-old Moore was simply obsessed with Freddy and his bloody deeds. He had watched the film many times, even immediately before the attack. The detective investigating the case stated that Moore's weapon was "the most terrifying weapon he had ever seen."
- In the series “Just the Ten of Us” (1988-1990), Heather Langenkamp speaks about a rusty knife on a cutting board: “It looks like something out of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street.’”
- The original Freddy glove was also used in the second film, but was then lost. According to DVD commentary, the original glove can be spotted in "Evil Dead 2" (1987).
- According to Wes Craven, he named Freddy Krueger after a boy who bullied him in school. Wes created Freddy's appearance based on a disfigured homeless man who frightened him as a child.
- Viewers may notice the words "Elm Street" only in the opening and closing credits. The phrase is never spoken throughout the film.
- According to Wes Craven, the idea for the film came to him after he read several newspaper articles about a group of young Cambodians who died from terrible nightmares. The young people suffered from nightmares and refused to sleep for as long as possible. When they finally fell asleep from exhaustion, they woke up with wild screams and died of a heart attack.
- When Freddy Krueger pursues Nancy, she tries to escape him up the stairs, but steps into some viscous substance. According to Wes Craven, it was oatmeal; according to Jacques Etkin – whipped pancake batter; according to Heather Langenkamp, it was something rubbery.
- Wes Craven helped Sean S. Cunningham shoot some footage for "Friday the 13th" (1980). In turn, Sean shot some footage for Wes's film.
- The film's script was ready as early as 1981, but no film studio was interested in producing it.
- Over 2000 liters of fake blood were used during the filming of the movie.
- In her room, after nearly being killed in the bathroom, Nancy looks at her reflection in the mirror and exclaims, "Oh my God, I look twenty years old." Many critics found this line quite amusing, noting that Heather Langenkamp was twenty at the time of filming. However, according to commentary on the DVD, Heather says she was 18 or 19 years old then.
- In the final scene, the car's sunroof fell too quickly and unexpectedly for the actors, so the reaction on their faces is genuine.
- To stay awake, Nancy watches "The Evil Dead" (1981). However, she isn't watching the film itself, but rather, most likely, a theatrical trailer.
- This film saved New Line Cinema from bankruptcy. Subsequently, the studio was jokingly referred to as "the house that Freddy built."
- According to Englund, he was inspired by the performances of actors such as Klaus Kinski and James Cagney when creating the image of Freddy.
- A torn poster for "The Evil Dead" (1981) can be spotted in the film.
- Wes Craven specifically chose a red and green striped sweater for Freddy because he had read somewhere that the human eye finds it difficult to perceive these colors together.
- Approximately 500 gallons of fake blood were used during the filming of the movie.
- To film the scene with the geyser of blood, filmmakers used the same rotating set that had been used for Tina's death. The room was flipped upside down, as was the camera, creating the effect of a normally positioned room. Then, several gallons of red-dyed water were poured into the room. Regular fake blood wasn't suitable for this scene, as it was impossible to create a blood geyser with it. During the filming of this scene, the room began to be flipped in the wrong direction, causing fake blood to splatter all over the set and general chaos. In addition, the electricity went out in the pavilion, and, according to Craven, the crew, covered head-to-toe in blood, spent some time in complete darkness.
- A deleted scene reveals that Nancy and her other friends were not the only children in their families; they had siblings who also died at the hands of Freddy.
- Wes Craven originally conceived Freddy Krueger as a 'silent' serial killer similar to Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. However, during the development of the project, and thanks to numerous sequels, Freddy transformed into a maniac with a very dark sense of humor who loves to chat.
- Initially, Freddy Krueger's appearance was intended to be even more gruesome and repulsive. For example, his teeth could be seen through the thin skin of his jaw, and the bones of his skull were supposed to be visible… However, the filmmakers had to abandon this concept because such an appearance could not be created with makeup, and the technology of the time did not allow for the use of believable special effects.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
