One of my favorite horror films of all time has got to be A Nightmare On Elm Street. Between the fact that’s it’s just so damn gutsy and gory, and the fact that it really is jump-out-your-seat scary, it’s right up there with some of the best thriller chillers ever to have hit the large screen.
I also love (love love love!) the invention and ultimate fright-fest that comes from the central character … Freddy Kreuger. He’s terrible, he’s cold, he’s a murderer most wicked and he’s quite possibly one of the most terrifying screen characters ever to have graced the movie scene.
Kreuger, though massively demonised in the films, was supposedly based on a school-yard bully that director Wes Craven fell foul of during his school years. He apparently coupled the aggressor of his youth with a frightening encounter he experienced with a homeless man late one night.
So many years later, the two came together and Freddy Kreuger was birthed – albeit onto celluloid as opposed to manifested into reality (thankfully!). The film first hit our screens way back in 1984, and to date has spawned a whole series of spins offs, including sequels, TV shows, merchandise and even a unique ‘twinning’ with another cracking horror movie ‘Friday The 13th‘.
Back in the day, Nightmare certainly put the cat among the pigeons. Despite the fact that the likes of Jaws had already put in an appearance, as gore fest went, Nightmare really was close to the bone (pardon the pun). The film was pitched to several studio houses, some of whom were interested providing the director/creator Wes Craven toned down the gore.
Craven refused, preferring to keep his screenplay intact. It was eventually approved and given the go ahead by what was, back then, a very new production company, New Line Cinema. Filming commenced and eventually the classic that we’ve grown to love (or hate?!) was born.
These days the name Freddy Kreuger has become synonymous with the stuff of nightmares, and just a look at his gloved, bladed hand is enough to give even today’s teenage culture the creeps. Over the last 28 years, the Nightmare franchise has become as common a product as the likes of coffee, bowflex coupons or gasoline.
The ordinal budget was in the region of $1.8 million, and in the first week alone the film grossed in excess of $25 million – so you can imagine just how much money the franchise has amassed in almost 30 years of being a merchantable commodity. Let’s just say the Nightmare films are probably singularly responsible for delivering New Line Cinema’s initial financial vantage point in the movie world.
To date I have never loved a character as much as I have Freddy Kreuger, nor been as much of a fan on one single horror franchise. Does he give me nightmares? Yes! Would I love to meet him? Absolutely not! However I have met the actor who played him, Robert Englund, a couple of times and in the flesh well … he’s nothing like Mr Kreuger!
