70 Fun Facts About A Nightmare on Elm Street

The original A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in which year?

It opened on November 9 and made back its budget in the first weekend, then went on to earn more than fifty times what it cost.

Who played Freddy Krueger in the original film and every sequel through 2003?

He took the job because it was the only project that fit into the gap between the V miniseries and its weekly series.

Which actress played Nancy Thompson, the teenager who fights Freddy in the original?

She won the part at an open audition over more than 200 other actresses and later returned as Nancy in Dream Warriors and New Nightmare.

Which future star made his film debut in the original as Nancy's boyfriend Glen?

He was rejected after a poor audition, but Craven's daughters picked his headshot out of the pile and he got the part.

What is the house number of Nancy's home on Elm Street?

The real house is a private home at 1428 North Genesee Avenue in Los Angeles, and fans still turn up to photograph it.

In which real city is the private house used as Nancy's home?

The whole film was shot in and around the city in the summer of 1984, in just over a month.

The fictional town of Springwood, where the series is set, is in which state?

Craven himself grew up in Cleveland, and Freddy's alias in the series is the Springwood Slasher.

What two colours are the stripes on Freddy's sweater?

Craven picked the pairing after reading a 1982 Scientific American article that called them the two colours most clashing to the human eye.

Craven chose Freddy's sweater colours after reading an article in which magazine?

The 1982 article said the two colours were the hardest for the human retina to look at together, which suited a villain meant to be uncomfortable to see.

What kind of hat does Freddy Krueger wear?

In the original, Nancy pulls the hat out of her dream and finds the name Fred Krueger written inside it.

According to Craven, where did the name Krueger come from?

Craven had used the name before for the villain in The Last House on the Left, drawing on the same childhood tormentor.

What real-world source gave Craven the seed of the original story?

The pieces ran in a California newspaper in the 1970s and described young men from Southeast Asian immigrant families who died during nightmares.

Craven has said which 1970s pop song 'sealed the story' and gave him a synth riff for the soundtrack?

Charles Bernstein's synthesizer score for the film grew out of that riff.

Which British actor was originally cast as Freddy before dropping out?

He was best known to horror fans at the time for The Omen and Time After Time.

Which actor was considered for Glen but reportedly wanted too much money?

The part went instead to an unknown whose audition had gone badly, and the rest is Pirates of the Caribbean history.

Which studio showed interest first but wanted the script toned down into a family-friendly film?

Craven refused; Paramount then passed because the script resembled Dreamscape and Universal sent a rejection letter he later framed.

Paramount passed on the script because it was too similar to which 1984 film?

That film starred Dennis Quaid as a psychic who enters other people's dreams, and beat Craven's movie to cinemas by a few months.

What did Craven do with the rejection letter Universal sent him?

He was in serious financial trouble at the time, which made the studio's eventual $57 million gross all the sweeter.

Which independent studio agreed to make the film, becoming 'The House That Freddy Built'?

The company later financed The Lord of the Rings trilogy and became a division of Warner Bros. in 2008.

Which producer, founder of the studio behind the series, wanted the original to end with Freddy driving the car?

Craven wanted a happier ending; the compromise left the sequel-friendly ambiguity that kept the franchise going for decades.

The original film's estimated budget was roughly how much?

It grossed about $57 million worldwide, and the studio it saved was later nicknamed after its villain.

How many days did principal photography on the original film take?

Shooting began on June 11, 1984, and the film was in cinemas less than five months later.

The rotating-room scenes were shot with Craven and the cameraman strapped into seats taken from what?

The set itself turned while camera and director stayed fixed, so the fake blood appeared to gush up the walls and across the ceiling.

The melting staircase in Nancy's dream was created using what?

The idea came from producer Robert Shaye's own recurring nightmares.

How does Nancy finally make Freddy vanish at the end of the original?

She works out that he is fuelled by fear, so she calmly withdraws it; the ambiguous coda that follows was the producer's idea.

In which year was the original selected for the US National Film Registry?

The Library of Congress added it as 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant', 37 years after its release.

In Freddy's Revenge (1985), which teenager moves into Nancy's old house and is possessed by Freddy?

Mark Patton, who played him, later made the 2019 documentary Scream, Queen! about the film's much-discussed gay subtext.

Jack Sholder cast Kim Myers in Freddy's Revenge because she resembled a young version of which actress?

Sholder had no particular interest in horror but took the film because he thought it would help his career.

Which actress made her film debut as Kristen Parker in Dream Warriors (1987)?

Kristen can pull other people into her dreams, and the actress appears throughout the music video for the film's theme song.

Dream Warriors is largely set in which psychiatric hospital?

The same hospital returns in Freddy vs. Jason, where dreamers are dosed with a sleep-suppressing drug.

Which future Shawshank Redemption director co-wrote Dream Warriors?

He shared the screenplay credit with director Chuck Russell, Wes Craven and Bruce Wagner.

Which heavy metal band wrote and performed the theme song for Dream Warriors?

Guitarist George Lynch and bassist Jeff Pilson wrote it, and it reached number 22 on the Mainstream Rock chart.

The metal band's title song for Dream Warriors also closed which of its albums?

It was the band's fourth album, released later in 1987, and the video mixed film clips with Freddy himself.

In Dream Warriors, Freddy's mother Amanda Krueger is revealed to have been what?

She worked at the hospital and was accidentally locked in with the patients over a holiday, which is how Freddy came to be called the bastard son of a hundred maniacs.

In The Dream Master (1988), who replaced the original actress as Kristen?

She also sang the song that plays over the film's opening credits.

In The Dream Master, Freddy is resurrected when what urinates fire on his grave?

Director Renny Harlin explained the resurrection to a bemused James Cameron with the words 'a dog pisses fire'.

Which finnish director made The Dream Master before going on to Die Hard 2?

The film grossed more than $49 million in the US, the franchise record until the crossover with Jason 15 years later.

Which hip-hop group's song 'Are You Ready for Freddy' plays over the end credits of The Dream Master?

Freddy also appears in the song's music video, one of several times he crossed over into late-1980s pop music.

In The Dream Child (1989), Freddy reaches his victims through the dreams of whom?

Lisa Wilcox returned as Alice because director Stephen Hopkins felt her story from the previous film was unfinished.

In Freddy's Dead (1991), Lisa Zane's character Maggie discovers she is Freddy's what?

Her birth name is Katherine Krueger, and she finishes him off with a pipe bomb in the film's 3D climax.

Roughly how many minutes at the end of Freddy's Dead were presented in 3D?

Maggie puts on a pair of 3D glasses on screen to cue the audience to do the same.

Which rock star cameos in Freddy's Dead as Freddy's abusive stepfather?

He is credited as Edward Underwood; Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold also pop up as a childless couple.

In Freddy's Dead, a returning star of the original cameoed under which pseudonym?

The name belongs to Johnny Depp, who plays a teen in a TV public-service spot seven years after his debut on Elm Street.

In Freddy's Dead, Freddy controls a video-game-obsessed teen using a version of which real accessory?

The scene doubles as a joke about the studio's own 1989 NES game, which was made by LJN and programmed by Rare.

Which real event during production was written into Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)?

The Northridge quake hit Los Angeles during filming, and real footage of the damage ended up in the movie.

New Nightmare's self-referential style was pushed further in which later Craven film?

New Nightmare, in which Craven, Langenkamp and Englund play themselves, remains the lowest-grossing entry in the series.

In Freddy vs. Jason (2003), what dream-suppressing drug do Springwood's adults give to teenagers?

The adults have erased every trace of Freddy from the town, so he resurrects Jason to make people fear him again.

Which Canadian stuntman played Jason in Freddy vs. Jason instead of series regular Kane Hodder?

Director Ronny Yu wanted a taller, slower Jason; the crossover took over a decade to reach cinemas.

Which member of Destiny's Child was in the cast of Freddy vs. Jason?

Her casting was revealed by Entertainment Weekly in August 2002, a month before filming began in Vancouver.

Freddy vs. Jason grossed roughly how much worldwide, the most of any film in the series?

It cost about $30 million and remains the highest-grossing entry in the Friday the 13th series too.

Who played Freddy in the 2010 remake?

His make-up was designed to look like an actual burn victim rather than the more theatrical original look.

The remake's Freddy actor had played the masked vigilante Rorschach in which 2009 film?

He had also been Oscar-nominated for Little Children a few years earlier, capping a comeback after years directing commercials.

Which actress played Nancy in the 2010 remake, a year before The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?

Her character is renamed Nancy Holbrook, and she was contracted for a sequel that never happened.

Which blockbuster director's company Platinum Dunes produced the 2010 remake?

The same outfit had already remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th.

What was the title of the syndicated TV anthology series that Krueger hosted from 1988 to 1990?

It ran 44 episodes, most of them split into two separate stories, and a young Brad Pitt turned up in one.

Which Texas Chain Saw Massacre director helmed the TV series pilot, which shows Freddy's trial?

The pilot opens with Krueger's prosecution on child-murder charges and shows how the parents took justice into their own hands.

How many films are in the franchise, counting the crossover and the remake?

Together they have grossed about $472 million worldwide, and only the remake recast the man under the hat.

Freddy became a downloadable fighter in the 2011 reboot of which fighting game?

The remake version of Freddy later joined the survival game Dead by Daylight in 2017.

Before Freddy, the actor who played him was best known as the alien Willie in which 1983 miniseries?

He also directed his own horror film, 976-EVIL, in 1988 while the sequels were still rolling.

The original Nancy actress narrated which four-hour 2010 documentary about the series?

She also fronted I Am Nancy in 2011, a shorter film about what the character means to horror fans.

Before making films, Wes Craven worked as what?

He taught at Clarkson College of Technology and was raised in a strict Baptist family in Cleveland.

In its Heroes & Villains list, the American Film Institute ranked Freddy at what position among villains?

Wizard magazine went further and rated him the 14th-greatest villain of all time.

Which weapon did Craven consider for Freddy before settling on the bladed glove?

Craven wanted something less common than a knife, and by the third or fourth draft the glove of steak knives had won out.

Which special effects artist did Craven hand his 'glove with steak knives' idea to?

Two gloves were built: a 'hero' glove for anything that actually needed cutting and a safer stunt glove.

Which Sam Raimi film plays on Nancy's TV as she tries to stay awake?

It was a return favour for Raimi putting a Hills Have Eyes poster in his film; Raimi later hid a Freddy glove in Evil Dead II.

Who composed the score for the original 1984 film?

Manfredini scored Friday the 13th and Young scored the sequels; Bernstein's work was later boxed up in a franchise vinyl set called Box of Souls.

Freddy's jump-rope rhyme is based on which nursery rhyme?

The words were already in the script before the composer started; one of the three girls who sang it was producer Robert Shaye's 14-year-old daughter.

Who set the melody for the children's jump-rope theme?

Alan Pasqua, who soon married Langenkamp, wrote the tune and the composer folded it into his score.

In how many US cinemas did the original film open on November 9, 1984?

Even in limited release it took $1,271,000 on its opening weekend and was considered an instant hit.

Roughly how much did the original film gross worldwide?

About $25.5 million of that came from the US and Canada, and early home video sales added another $8 million.