40 years ago, slashers took a terrifying turn, when Wes Craven suggested that we could not only be haunted by our nightmares, but also die from the creatures within them.

Craven's creation of Freddy Krueger stemmed from a haunting childhood memory that inspired the character - called Fred Krueger in this movie only - and the true unexplained deaths of Cambodian immigrants who randomly died in their sleep. While cinema was becoming saturated with cheap, clichéd knock-offs after Halloween and Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street would successfully reinvent the genre; blending supernatural slasher horror with innovative visual effects on a low budget.

Despite initial rejections from major studios, New Line Cinema took a chance on this unique horror concept, leading to huge success for the fledgling independent production company, and Robert Englund's portrayal of Freddy Krueger would become one of horror's most iconic villains, and make Englund synonymous with the character across the franchise.

But don't pour blood-coloured water on live electrics...

I would love to hear your thoughts on A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) !

Verbal Diorama is now an award-winning podcast! I won the Best Movie Podcast in the inaugural Ear Worthy Independent Podcast Awards recently. I am beyond thrilled, and hugely grateful to the Ear Worthy team. It means so much to me to be recognised by a fellow indie outlet, and congratulations to all the other winners!

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Should go. Hi, everyone. I'm Em. Welcome to Verbal Diorama, episode 275 a Nightmare on Elm street.

This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know, and movies you don't. And as always, welcome to Verbal Diorama.

Whether you are a brand new listener, whether you are a regular returning listener, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast, and I'm so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of Nightmare on Elm street.

And just so you know, I have a cold. My voice is not 100%, so apologies if it doesn't sound quite right, but I am completely bunged up at the moment.

And unfortunately, it is spooky season. But it's also the season where literally everything spreads around, and I've managed to catch something off someone.

And so I've dosed myself up on Lem sips. I'm not sure what they're called around the world, but it's basically just like a paracetamol drink with, like, honey and lemon.

I've dosed myself up just to record this episode, and hopefully I could get through it without coughing, spluttering, saying something weird. Oh, actually, I say something weird all the time, so scrap that one.

But I just wanted to let you know up front, if I sound a bit weird, it's because I've got this thing going on with my nose and my throat and all of that sort of stuff.

But huge thank you to everyone who is listening to this podcast, who has listened to this podcast, and who continues to listen to and support this podcast.

And over the time period that I've been doing this podcast, which is coming up to six years, would you believe in February next year it's going to be six years.

This is episode 275, which also means, ernie, next year is going to be the 300th episode of this podcast, and I have no idea what to do for the 300th episode. So if you do want to get in touch and you want to suggest a 300th episode, please feel free. Contact me on social media at verbaldiorama.

Contact me on my email address, verbaldioramail.com. let me know what you think would be a good 300th episode. That's not the movie 300 because I feel like that's a bit on the nose.

But as I say, thank you so much for your continued support. It means so much to me as an indie podcaster who does everything for this podcast on her own every week without fail.

Even when I'm sick, I still have to do this podcast and I still have to get this podcast out.

But genuinely, to hear such of the messages that I get on email, on social media, it really pushes me to keep going, regardless of the fact of whether I'm sick or not, to keep going on this podcast. So thank you so much, and especially for the recent episodes.

So Bill and Ted face the music came out recently, and also Child's play came out recently too. And obviously we're getting into spooky season, like I said, and I am always asked to cover more horror movies.

So this month I am delivering, and I'm delivering literally the crem de na creme of such a horror because I wanted to do a complete slasher season going through the seventies and the eighties, and I wanted to continue after child's play, coming back in time a little bit with a genuinely terrifying presence that haunts your dreams because we all dream. And so how do you hide from someone who can not only find you in dreams, but murder you in dreams?

And what if it was all because of the actions of your dear old mum and daddy?

The teens in Elm street have started to have nightmares about a creepy man with a striped sweater and a fedora with a knifed glove who haunts their dreams.

Slowly but surely, they realize that if he kills their friends in their dreams, they are killed in real life, Nancy Thompson witnesses the brutal deaths of her friends and boyfriend before discovering that the parents of Elm street murdered Fred Krueger in vigilante justice after he got off being jailed for child murders. Through a technicality, Kruger is now haunting the dreams of their children. Let's read through the cast.

We have Heather Langincamp as Nancy Thompson, Robert Englund as Fred Krugere, Johnny Depp as Glenn Lance, Ronnie Bakeley as Marge Thompson, John Saxon as Lieutenant Donald Thompson, Amanda Wiss as Tina Gray and Nick Corey as Rod Lane. A nightmare on Elm street was written and directed by Wes Craven.

And Wes Craven has the distinction, nay, the honour, of being responsible for not just the slasher renaissance of the mid eighties, but also the slasher renaissance of the mid nineties too. And I have done an episode on screen. That one is episode 64.

But this was a guy who had horror at the forefront of his mind and consistently reinvented the slasher genre.

A new era was beginning for Hollywood cinema, and Robert Shea, the creator of New Line cinema, aims to take advantage of those opportunities by creating a new kind of film.

After the huge successes of both Halloween and Friday the 13th the slasher genre was becoming saturated with cheap, cliched imitations. But really its no wonder that many other studios wanted a piece of that pie. And it wasn't just a few studios either.

But that was until Wes Craven entered the picture in the sixties. Craven was a humanities teacher at a college in upstate New York, but he wasn't happy with the direction his career was taking.

So he moved to New York City and got a job at a movie studio as a messenger. His friend Sean Cunningham suggested that Craven write a scary movie and use his Christian fundamentalist upbringing to tap into the horror.

He came across an article in the LA Times about a family that had made it out of the killing fields in Cambodia and immigrated to the United States. Everything was going well until the son started experiencing really unsettling nightmares.

He tried to stay awake for days at a time, telling his parents he was afraid the thing chasing him would get him if he fell asleep. When he did eventually nod off, his parents thought the problem was over. Then, in the middle of the night they heard screams.

The boy had passed away by the time they reached him. In the middle of a nightmare, this young man had just died. It wasn't an isolated incident either.

There were reports of men fleeing war and genocide in Laos and Vietnam, suffering terrible nightmares and refusing to sleep because of them. And when they did sleep, they would end up dying in the night.

It was suspected to be sudden, unexplained death syndrome, but the idea of being nightmare led to death was the central premise that awakened something in Wes craven. But he needed an idea to explain the deaths. And he would remember seeing a drunk, homeless man wearing a fedora when he was a child.

The man walked past his house and glanced directly at the young Wes craven, staring him half to death.

The man would walk off, but the image of the man and the feeling of terror that Wes Craven had would serve as inspiration for the character of Fred Krueger, not Freddy. He would become Freddy.

And because every horror villain, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees and Leatherface wore some sort of mask, Craven wanted Kruger to also have one, but also wanted his face to be seen so he could taunt and threaten his victims. So he came up with the idea that this man was burned and scarred. And as ill come to, he didn't just want to stunt man behind his horror icon.

He wanted a real actor and someone who could play the character almost continuously.

Shay loved it because everyone has experienced a nightmare and got excited about seeing a script, but Craven refused to share it. This was because Craven had already sent the script to all the big studios and all of them had passed on it.

Even Sean Cunningham had told him the script wouldn't work because everyone will know that it's really just a dream and he didn't think the audience would buy it as a premise.

The current crop of Sasha's were firmly based in reality, or at least a nightmare on Elm street, with its premise of a killer within your dreams was fantastical and supernatural.

Paramount would reject it due to similarities with Dreamscape, also popular in the eighties were family friendly fantasy movies with a bit of an edge. Think returned to Oz or Labyrinth, and Wes Cravens script had those elements within it.

Remarkably, Disney also showed an interest in the script as he was pedalling it around Hollywood, except they obviously wanted it to be pg 13 and for Craven to tone down his material to up the fantasy and reduce the horror. Craven declined, but Craven knew Bob Shea was interested and the fledgling independent new Line Cinema wanted to produce the film.

The problem was they didn't really have the money to do it.

They signed a co production deal with George Zetzewic of Smartech Pictures, which resulted in the production of A Nightmare on Elm street and all of its sequels, and relied on private investors to help raise the $700,000 initial budget, including media Home entertainment. But throughout production, investors would back out and Bob Shea would have to scramble to try and find alternative investment.

Media Home Entertainment would end up increasing their investment to 60%. After another investor, who'd invested 40% of the budget backed out unexpectedly.

Before Robert Englund personified Freddy Krueger, director Wes Craven auditioned hundreds of men for the part, both young and old, and originally chose veteran actor David Warner. Warner was lined up to star in the film and even took part in a makeup test before scheduling conflicts forced him to drop out of the role.

Quite late in the casting process, Craven met with Robert Englund on the advice of casting director Annek Benson. Englund was a character actor whod previously played a lot of good guy roles. He wasn't the sort of big, imposing guy they were looking for.

He was younger, smaller and more agile. But he wanted to play the role of someone older and evil and relish the possibility of playing a character like Freddy.

Craven saw the ferocity he was looking for for the character as well as England being classically trained, England had been in a lot of best friend roles and was best known for the V miniseries and series. That show was on hiatus and he needed something more distinctive and thought this little indie film called a nightmare on Elm street might be it.

His interpretation of Freddy was inspired by Klaus Kinskis loves Ferrar two, but also by the monsters that Lon Chaney created. The way Freddy stands with his legs far apart was something he admitted stealing from James Cagney.

Englund attended the audition with cigarette Ash under his eyes to sallow them.

Cravens creation would be somewhat diluted as the franchise continued into more of a comedy character, but he originally wanted someone who could portray that lack of compassion and the darkness associated with a child murderer. And the character needed a weapon. There were already horror villains who used knives.

So Craven thought of a glove with steak knives as fingers and passed the idea to mechanical special effects designer Jim Doyle, who fashioned a glove that was incredibly dangerous. He built a hero glove, the one glove that literally had sharp knives attached to the fingers, and the rest were stud gloves.

Literally every time someone wore the hero glove, they ended up cut and bleeding. Englund would spend three to 4 hours every day in makeup.

It was the experience of testing the makeup with special makeup effects artist David Miller in pre production that led to Krueger's signature vocal styles and profanity.

It would be England who fought to retain the signature fedora with the production, fearing he would look too much like Indiana Jones once the entire look came together. The striped sweater, dirty slacks, bladed glove, alpha dora. It was unmistakably Freddy Krueger. But you cant have a killer without a final girl.

And Craven wanted Nancy to be the girl next door and someone very non Hollywood. 200 actresses auditioned for the role of Nancy, with those being called back for either Nancy or the second female lead, Tina.

Helen Langincamp was 18 years old and was already known to casting director Annette Benson, as shed previously auditioned her twice for other movies. Lacincamp just had all of the qualities they wanted for Nancy. Amanda whiss had also read for Nancy, but she was called back for Tina and Lankin.

Camp and whiss were paired together.

Craven knew he had as Nancy and Tina and their boyfriends were then cast on the basis of the chemistry between them and the girls who had already been cast. This was how they found Nick Corrie for Rod and a young Johnny Depp for the role of Glenn.

Charlie Sheen was almost cast as Glenn, but Annette Benson would claim he wanted too much money, which Sheen himself has denied. Glenn was originally written as a big blonde, football playing jock until Depp was chosen. With his headshot catching the eye of Cravens daughter.

Nicolas Cage had introduced Depp to his own agent, who then introduced him to Benson, resulting in an audition for a nightmare on Elm street. And despite having no acting experience, he won the part of Glenn.

Veteran actors John Saxon and Roddy Blakeley's names alone also helped get some additional financing, which was vital during production. There were often occasions where people just couldn't get paid. This movie got made are a lot of ious and good faith.

And both Nancy and Glenns homes are private residences with just the exteriors used for filming.

But despite the financial issues, this movie invested heavily in its visual effects, including a rotating room which would pull double duty for both the death of Tina and the death of Glenn. The room cost $35,000 to rent, which was over half of Jim Doyle's visual effects budget.

Craven had seen the revolving room in royal wedding, where Fred Astaire dances up the walls and across the ceiling bear at night too. This was a small special effects team, only about half a dozen people, who improvised almost everything.

And this was on a production where both the actors and crew were only paid scale for Tedas death.

The room was dressed with everything glued down, the curtains starched and the cameraman, Jacques Haitkin and Nick Corey, who plays her boyfriend rod, strapped into chairs. The room was manually flipped by several crew members on either side and Amanda Wiss would have to barrel herself round as the room spun.

The terror is genuine. She was petrified of the scene and of the room. Whis also suffered from vertigo because of all of the blood.

They only had one take to do this scene and she managed it in just one take. Once Tina was dead, she showed up in a body bag at the school, but in a real body bag with some pinholes poked in it.

Once in, whis couldn't actually get out on her own. Twelve frames of blood had to be cut during Tina's death scene.

All the film probably would have been axed and they would come back to the same room to film glens death, mostly because they had to get their money's worth out of this one room. And again they had one take. They redressed the room as glens bedroom and flipped it upside down.

A sheet lying chute for the blood was carved out of the middle of the bed with crew members positioned above on the outside of the room poised to pour in gallons of blood coloured water.

Unfortunately, they were pouring blood coloured water onto a live electrical ceiling lamp which immediately electrified the water and everyone pouring got electrocuted. The water then started to slosh from side to side, throwing the weight off the room, and the room started to flip as crew members lost their grip.

Cables and ropes were ripped out of rigging and as the room rocked, the water flew out of the window, soaking everyone and everything. The electricity was still sparking too, so the lights would also eventually go out.

The roof finally stopped rocking once all the liquid was gone, leaving the crew still attached to the structure, suspended upside down for around 20 minutes in the dark, covered in not really blood, but blood coloured water. And this is why at the end of this one take in the movie, you can see the blood appearing to bend to the left.

Miraculously, no one was hurt when the out of control, electrified, rotating death box started to rock. And they got that one take they needed and it still looked great today. Over 500 gallons of blood coloured water was used for the special effects.

In the scene where Freddy walked through the prison bars to threaten rod, the camera was placed again at the exact height and walked Robert Englund through the space.

And then they took triangulations at the camera so they knew exactly the height of it from the floor and the angle towards the point where Freddy was going to walk through a rotoscope. Artist then matted out the bars in the first image so it looks like they are passing through his chest.

A specially modified bathtub was created for heather langencantes sitting on a two x four plank of wood, which had an extra section at the back just big enough for Jim Doyle in a scuba suit to hide under the water. When craven banned on the bathtub, Doyle was to stick the claw through Langenkamps legs.

It took a few takes to get right, as obviously Doyle couldn't see where the hand needed to be all the time. Langenkamp getting colder in the water, which they had to try to keep warm.

There was also a bottomless tub that sat over a swimming pool where a stuntwoman was pulled down under the water by Freddie.

And Jim Doyle really is the vip of this production because the version of Freddy that's trying to get Nancy through the wall wasn't actually Robert Englund, but Jim Doyle himself. He built this wall out of spandex and it's his face and hands that stretch through the wall to reach out for Nancy while she's dreaming.

And according to various sources on the Internet, the melting stairs were either pancake mix, porridge or mushroom soup, depending on who you speak to. But I think the general consensus is that it is pancake.

Nicks cinematographer, Jacques Haitkin, was tasked with creating an eerie look to both the reality and dream world, to make it look like both could be interspersed with each other. And the viewer is never sure if they're in the dream world or in real life.

At first, Wes Craven intended for the movie to have a more profound ending, in which Nancy kills Krueger by using belief in him. And when she wakes up, she realises the entire movie was a nightmare that had gone on for too long.

But Bob Shea insisted on a twist ending whereby Kruger vanishes and everything appears to have been a dream until the audiences realize it was actually a dream within a dream within a dream. Now, takes were shot with both a happy ending and a twist ending.

The twist ending was used in the finished film with Nancy driving up with her now alive friends in a car designed to look like Freddy and Freddie pulling her mother through the doorway. That particular ending amused everyone so much that they couldn't not use it. And then they had a breakthrough on this movie.

A potential deal with Paramount for distribution and marketing. And all they needed to do was screen them the movie. But during the showing they realised that the film had the wrong ending. It had the happy ending.

They didn't want to have the happy ending, they wanted to show the genuine twist ending. So editor Rich Shanes assistant had the correct ending and had 40 minutes to get a taxi to the screening.

She got there, but Shane needed a few minutes extra to change to the correct ending.

Bob Shea announced to the crowd there would be a slight pause, but it completely ruined the momentum of the screening and Paramount would end up passing on the movie. It meant new line committing to also distributing the movie as well.

And it's not really an ideal time to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference, but I'm gonna give it a go anyway. This is a part of the podcast where I try to link the movie that are featuring with Keanu Reeves.

Because Keanu Reeves would never be in anyone's nightmares. He is literally everyone's dream man.

And that is the way that I'm gonna link this movie with Keanu Reeves in that he would just never be in anyone's nightmares. I don't think it's possible. And also, he is the best of men. And that's why I like to do the obligatory Keanu Russians.

But I'm going to move on to the music because Wes Craven was introduced to Charles Bernstein via Bernstein's agent.

And when Craven elaborated on this idea that he had for a horror movie with a guy with Knives for fingers, Bernstein thought it was a little bit too out there to be a really big hit. The score for a nightmare on Elm street was recorded in Bernstein's home studio and Hope studios are commonplace now, but not really.

And this is the song that's sung by the children throughout the movie and is based on one, two, buckle my Shoe and he wrote them down and included them in the script. However, Hedden Langenkamps boyfriend Anne seemed to be husband.

Musician Alan Pasqua would end up composing the melody and Bernstein would include Pasquales contribution on the soundtrack.

It opened at 13th at the boxed office in its first week, which does the sound great till you factor in that it made its entire budget back in its first week. It would peak as 7th at the us box office in its fourth week but thanks to positive word of mouth just kept making similar money each week.

So it was an instant commercial success.

Its final budget was $1.1 million and by the end of its limited theatrical run it made $25 million in the US domestically and a third of $32 million internationally, making a total worldwide gross of $57 million, basically making over 50 times its budget. Those investors who backed out must have been kicking themselves and those that stuck with the production ended up reaping the benefits.

And not only was it a huge financial success but also a critical success too.

Robin Tomatoes has them either 95% rating stating Wes Cravens intelligent premise combined with the horrific vision appeal of Freddy Krueger still causes nightmares to this day. The movie was chosen as one of the 30 most imported independent films of the last 30 years by the Independent Film and Television alliance.

But of course we need to talk about the sequels and Wes Craven didn't want to direct a sequel and he didn't have any ongoing financial or contractual participation in sequels. And so Bob Shea and New Line cinema went ahead with a nightmare on Elm street two, Freddy's Revenge without Cravens participation.

The movie would be directed by Chuck Russell, but Craven had signed away his rights, and therefore his rights to any further compensation for sequels or merchandising. Three further sequels, a Nightmare on Ill street for the Dream Master, A Nightmare on Elm street five, the Dream Child and freddys.

Ten years after a nightmare on Elm Street, Bob Shea called Wes Craven offering to make one more Freddy film, even though the previous sequel was literally called Freddys the Final Nightmare.

Due to the fact that Freddy Krueger tends to murder a lot of people, new line cinema opted to not develop a television series with a regular cast of characters interacting with him because he would inevitably kill all of them. So they instead created an anthology series featuring a new cast of actors for each episode.

Wesley Strick and Eric Hesserer wrote the screenplay, Samuel Bayer directed and Michael Bay produced the movie. Despite being a commercial success, the movie had generally unfavourable reviews, so plans for a sequel never materialised.

The movie was supposed to be a relaunch of the franchise, but most reviews found the remake to lack Freddy's gleeful sadism and didn't like the character becoming a child molester because that was something that Craven had originally removed.

But if anything good came of the platinum Dunes remake of a Nightmare on Elm street, its that more attention shifted to the original film and its sequels.

Not only did fans get a nightmare on Elm street on Blu ray, they also got the documentary Never Sleep Again, the Elm Street Legacy, which has comprehensive interviews with cast, crew, fans and creators of each film in the series. Narrated by Heather Langenkamp.

New Line Cinema still owned the international rights to the franchise. There have been discussions about reboots, remakes and legacy sequels in the intervening years, but nothing has materialised yet.

A new learned cinema is often referred to as the house that Freddy built and its hard to believe what we wouldn't have without this tiny indie studio taking a punt on a supernatural slush of horror that they couldn't afford to make. Lets just go through a quick list of what we wouldn't have had. We wouldn't have had teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Okay hardly an Oscar winner but formative for many a millennial.

We wouldn't have evil dead, the non kiss Goodnight, Austin Powers final destination, elf wedding crushers, the conjuring Annabelle rush hour straight out of Compton and we wouldn't have the Lord of the Rings.

New Line cinema has come a long way from being a distributor to becoming a billion dollar production company with over 30 Academy Award nominations for one franchise. And all of that is thanks to this movie.

And I don't think a nightmare on Elm street gets enough credit for literally creating the behemoth that is new line cinema. And there's a lot of people to thank for the consistency of a nightmare on Elm street.

The late Wes craven of course, a pioneer in slasher horror and always willing to reinvent his own genre. He was the game changer, a horror pioneer, the thinking person's horror creator.

Also Bob Shea, the only man in Hollywood willing to give this idea a chance. Jim Doyle for literally thinking outside of the box for these innovative visual effects that still stand up to this day.

And also Robert Englund, a rare horror icon, pretty much always at the forefront. Unlike other villains with masks, Englund was front and centre and willing to continue in the role as long as possible.

Even now, his version is still the de facto Freddy. Jackie O'Hayley's version just couldn't compete.

Robert Englund is Freddy and it's probably part of the reason why we've not seen more in regards to a new version. Englund is 77 now, but the role is so synonymous with him, it's hard to see it with someone else.

It will happen though, because this franchise, like Krueger himself, will never truly die. Heather lending camps Nancy is more resourceful than your average final girl is proactive in stopping Freddy Krueger and also goes full home alone.

Or maybe home alone was inspired by this. She isn't running and hiding away. She faces her fears and faces Freddy full on, spilling their fight over into the real world.

And yet Lamgan camp has never really had the career that other final girls like Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, because yes, Ripley is technically the final girl, or Neff Campbell did. And that's a real shame. No one in this movie is going to win an acting award, but she is the standout and certainly not Johnny Depp.

Although each movie I'm covering in this spooky season going forward does have their own standout star celebrity in the cast. This is ultimately a slasher that isn't just a slasher, but also a commentary on suburbia and the curse of family sin.

The parents have taken vigilante justice into their own hands and its their children that suffer the consequences because its always the children that suffer most for the actions of adults.

But this movie is miraculous not just for birthing a horror icon, but also for doing it on such a low budget and making full use of some absolutely incredible visual effects. Thanks to Jim Doyle and his vision effects team, their ingenuity and tenacity, the effects and Freddy Krueger are the stars of this show.

And while on initial reflection the ending is a bit tame, it reminds us that Freddie is never truly dead, that you can forget the horrors of the world for only the briefest moment until they remind you that they are still there. And while Naofi thinks this was all just a bad dream, her friends are safe and her mother is no longer a raging alcoholic.

Actually, none of the above is true. Freddy has beat her again and trapped her in her own nightmares forever. Or at least until the nightmare on Elm street.

Three Dream warriors this year is also the 40th anniversary of this movie, and it has the distinction of being one of the select few horror films to be in the Library of Congress. It's deserving.

It's iconic for a reason, and while I've not seen the majority of the sequels, I have seen new Nightmare and I really like new Nightmare. So maybe I'll do that for next spooky season. But for now, sleep easy tonight.

But if your parents murdered a child murderer and incinerated his body at some point in the past, whatever you do, don't fall asleep. Thank you for listening.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Nightmare on Elm street, and thank you for your continued support of this podcast. If you want to get involved and help this podcast grow, there are a few ways that you can do that.

You could tell your friends and family about this episode or about this podcast, and encourage them to download a podcast app and subscribe. You can leave a rating or review wherever you found this episode, and you can also find me and follow me on social media.

You can share posts and like posts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram threads, Bluesky and letterboxdezenhe. I am at verbal diorama on all of those places. And the next episode spooky season continues.

And do you remember in scream when Ghostface is talking to Drew Barrymore's Casey Becker and is quizzing her about scary movies, he asks her to name the killer in Friday the 13th and Casey replies Jason because Jason Voorhees is the main antagonist in Friday the 13th. Right? But Jason, although right there at the end of the lake, doesn't show up until the sequel.

So I guess we need to talk about the history and legacy of Friday the 13th next, don't we? So join me next episode for that. And I always say this podcast is free and it always will be free.

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