A Nightmare on Elm Street

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Bob Italia

E.L. Flood

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A Nightmare on Elm Street
Official poster
Information
Released	November 9, 1984 (Original theatrical release) September 20, 2006 (Theatrical Rerelease)
Writer(s)	Wes Craven
Director(s)	Wes Craven
Producer(s)	Robert Shaye
Starring	Heather Langenkamp Johnny Depp Amanda Wyss Jsu Garcia John Saxon Ronee Blakley Robert Englund Leslie Hoffman
Runtime	91 minutes
Budget	$1,800,000
Gross	$25,504,513 (USA)
Next	A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 horror-fantasy film, and the first film in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. The film stars Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon , Leslie Hoffman, Ronee Blakley, as well as Johnny Depp in his feature film debut.

Set in the fictional Midwestern town of Springwood, Ohio, the plot revolves around four teenagers who are stalked and killed in their dreams by dead child murderer Freddy Krueger. The teenagers don't know why Krueger is trying to kill them, but their parents hold a dark secret from long ago.

Plot

A man is shown in a boiler room walking toward a worktable, picking a paper sack up off the floor on the way. Upon dumping the contents of the sack (which are several metal pieces) onto the worktable, which already has various items on it, he picks up one of the metal pieces with his right hand and then picked up a knife, which have already been on the table, from the table with his left hand. He then picks up an already existing glove, which becomes the basis of the glove he is making, with his left hand. He then starts cutting the glove with the knife. He then picked up a folding straight razor with his right hand. He then holds a metal piece with his left hand and hammers it with his right hand. He then holds a metal piece against the edge of the workbench with his left hand and files it with his right hand. A metal piece is then shown in a vice and he is welding a knife to it with a blowtorch. He is then shown hammering one of the metal pieces. He is then flexing a metal piece. He is then shown flexing a metal piece with a blade attached.

With the glove having been made and underside of the glove and his right hand both facing upward, he then puts his right hand into the glove for the first time. He is holding both his right hand and the glove with his left hand while doing this. He is then shown with the upperside of the glove and his right hand facing upward, with the four fingers, not includes his thumb, pulled in to his hand. He then quickly flexs the four fingers outward and then turns his glove and right hand over. He stabs through some fabric with the glove and right hand, and a scream is heard,

Tina screams in the Boiler Room before her nightgown is shredded at the front by the burned figure.

Teenager Tina Gray is first shown against a bright white background (which could be interpreted as the "strange white mist" described in the equivalent part of the novelization).

A hallway with pipes on the upper walls, spraying steam and leaking water, is then shown, with what is apparently the bright white background at one end, with Tina standing in front of it. There is water all over the floor.

Tina runs away from the bright white background, briefly turns around to look at it several times, then turns back around several times and continues running away from it. She suddenly hears her name and turns around. There is also a bright white background at the other end of the hallway, as well as a sheep.

Tina then turns and enters a boiler room, which appears to not be floor level. She appears to be on a catwalk.

A disfigured man is staring at her. When she sees him, the man proceeds to chase her, where she is then cornered at a furnace. Though she screams in fear of being killed, the man instead disappears. Tina then hears the crying of a baby and as she is about to see where it is coming from, the man suddenly appears from behind her and ambushes her.

Tina wakes up screaming in her bed, revealing it was all a nightmare. Her mother comes to the door and asks her daughter if she's ok, and Tina replies that it was only a dream. However, her mother points out four razor cuts in Tina's nightdress. Tina looks down at the cuts and examines them with her fingers. Her mother's boyfriend then comes to the door, and gets her mother to come back to bed. After they leave, Tina takes the crucifix off her room wall and clutches it to her chest.

The next morning, three girls in white dresses are shown playing jump rope while a fourth girl in a white dress holds a ball and watches in what is clearly in the physical world on the front lawn of Springwood High School. Glen Lantz, who is the boyfriend of her friend Nancy Thompson, drive both her and Tina to the school in a red convertible. When they reach the sidewalk and begin walking towards the high school, Tina tells Glen and Nancy about the dream and the latter tells Tina that she too had a bad dream herself. Rod Lane, who is Tina's boyfriend, then comes up behind them and tells Tina that he'd woken up with an erection. Tina then makes an unflattering comment about Rod's penis, which Rod doesn't appreciate. He then runs off to the school's front entrance.

Tina then tells Nancy and Glen that she couldn't go back to sleep after the nightmare she had. When she asks Nancy what she'd dreamt about. her friend refuses to answer. Glen implies that he'd had a nightmare as well and then runs off to school. When Tina yells out a question about whether he'd had a nightmare too, he either ignores the question or doesn't hear it.

Tina then says to Nancy that maybe they're about to have a big earthquake, saying that things had gotten weird before, before they go into the school to start class. That night, Nancy and Glen sleep over at Tina's house to make the her feel better, as she is still troubled and distraught by her nightmare. However, as Tina describes the man she encountered in her dream, this makes Nancy remember that she had also dreamt of the same person. She describes more details of the figure; he wore a red and green sweater and had large finger knives, to which Nancy assumes that he made himself, which he scratched over everything, which made a scary noise. Although he registers a look of recognition himself, Glen finds it impossible that they all dreamt about the same thing.

Nancy describing to Tina the similar dream she had about the burned man.

The three teenagers suddenly hear noises in the backyard of the house and they go outside to investigate, with Glen in the lead. After taking a few yards away from the backdoor, Rod suddenly tackles Glen and scares all three of them.

After a short conversation between all of them, Rod takes Tina upstairs to have sex in her mother's bed while Nancy and Glen stay downstairs to talk for a while before Nancy goes upstairs to Tina's room to sleep. Glen stays downstairs and sleeps on the couch. After Rod and Tina have sex, Rod reveals to Tina that he too had recent nightmares, although he doesn't discuss the context. He then rolls over and they go to sleep.

Meanwhile, while Nancy is sleeping in Tina's room, the same crucifix falls off the wall and onto the bed.

Later, Tina is apparently woken up by rocks being thrown at the window. When she tries to wake Rod up, he is sound asleep. She goes to the window alone and sees a rock hitting and breaking the glass. Back in Tina's room, the man tries to come through the wall, but Nancy wakes up, forcing him to hide again. She then puts the crucifix back on the wall and then knocks on it.

Tina goes outside and into an alley to investigate on who threw the rocks and she encounters the disfigured man again, who reveals himself. After chasing her down the alleyway and to the house, he catches up to her in her back yard. After scaring her by cutting off two of his own fingers with a knife on his glove, he finally gets a hold on her. As he scuffles with her, Rod wakes up to Tina's screams as she continue to scuffle with the man under the blanket. When Rod removes it from her he finds Tina violently shaking as four cuts appear on her chest. The latter is forced to watch as Tina is dragged out of bed and onto the wall before stopping on the ceiling. As Rod helplessly watches while at the same time screaming out to her, he reaches out to Tina before she falls onto the bed and tumbles to the floor dead. Nancy, who woke up to Tina's screams, tries to get Rod to open the door but she can only hear him calling out to the murderer, as he doesn't see who killed her. When Nancy and Glen manages to get inside the room, they find Tina's bloodied body, though Rod has escaped through the window.

Not too long later, at the police station, Nancy's father, Police Lt. Donald Thompson and a subordinate are discussing the incident and the murder that had occurred. Lt. Thompson then speaks to Nancy and her mother, as he is angry that Nancy was sleeping in the same house as Rod, who he refers to as a "lunatic delinquent," and believes that Rod is responsible for Tina's death. Nancy denies that Rod is a lunatic, but makes no attempt to deny that he is a delinquent. Donald asks Nancy if she has a sane explanation for what Rod did.

When Nancy insists that Rod and Tina's argument was not enough to warrant him for the murder, Marge comments to her daughter that perhaps she doesn't think murder is serious, which offends Nancy, who tells her parents on why she and Glen were at Tina's house. The next morning, after not sleeping, Nancy heads off to school despite the objections from her mother. As she walks past a house with the number 1622, Nancy sees a man very openly watching her. When she looks again a few seconds later, he had disappeared. Another second later, she is grabbed by Rod and dragged into the bushes. Rod tries to explain what he saw and that it wasn't him that killed Tina. Although somewhat receptive to Rod's claims, Rod gets angry at Nancy and stupidly threatens her. Donald suddenly appears in the bushes and pulls a gun on Rod, causing him to runs off into the street where he is arrested by other policemen. Nancy, angrily accusing her father of having used her as bait for Rod, leaves for school in anger.

During class, Nancy notices Tina's corpse in a body bag standing outside the classroom. Leaving class, she finds the body bag being dragged down the hall, leaving a trail of leaked blood. Turning the corner, Nancy knocks over a hall guard, who is wearing a familiar green and red striped sweater. She demands to see her pass which Nancy replies "Screw your pass!" and runs down the hal. However, the guard calls out "Hey, Nancy!" in a different voice. Looking back, Nancy sees her now wearing a glove with finger knives. The guard tells her "No running in the hallway..." before lauging a bit. Nancy continues to follow the trail of blood down a stairway and into Springwood High School's basement.

The basement is connected to the same boiler room Tina had went into. Going inside, Nancy is attacked by the same disfigured man, who tells her to "Come to Freddy." Realizing that she is dreaming, she burns her arm on the boiler pipes to force herself to wake up. Upon awakening, she screams in pain in the classroom, alarming the teacher and the class. Embarrassed and scared, Nancy elects to leave class and go home while her arm is still burned in the same spot as in the dream.

These nightmares cause her to talk to Rod in jail, who finishes telling her what he saw in Tina's mother's bedroom. He tells Nancy that he never saw anyone and when he first saw Tina being murdered, he assumed he was having another nightmare. When Rod mentions that all four slashes in Tina's chest happened simultaneously, she finally believes Rod is innocent.

Later at home, Nancy is taking a bath when she falls asleep, causing Freddy's glove to emerge in the water but was forced to submerge when Marge knocks on the door. She warns her daughter to not to fall asleep and offers her warm milk, to which Nancy rejects it calling it "gross." As Nancy drifts off in the tub again, Freddy pulls Nancy under the water, causing her to scream which causes her mother to come running into the bathroom after Nancy is able to wake up and get out of the tub.

That night, Glen climbs into Nancy's bedroom through the window and Nancy reveals her thoughts about Tina's murder. She asks Glen to watch over her while she sleeps. Nancy goes to sleep and in her dream, she leaves the house. As she walks into an area, she asks Glen if he is still watching and she hears a yes from what appears to be him, when he appears behind a bush, but one has to wonder if this is really him. If it was, it would pretty much have to mean that Glen fell asleep.

Nancy walks to the police station and looks through a window to see Freddy go into Rod's cell and begins pulling the bedsheet over him, Nancy starts to panic and begins screaming for Glen. When she looks back into the window, Freddy is gone. Nancy then notices an apparition of Tina, who calls out to Nancy in an eerie tone before she releases a centipede from her mouth. When Nancy calls out to Glen again, she hears Freddy answering "I'm here" before he suddenly appears from a bush, causing Nancy to run back to her house with Freddy chasing after her.

After going inside and locking the front door, she begins going up the staircase to her room only to discover that the carpet on the stairs appears to turn into marshmallow as Freddy Krueger breaks the window on the front door. As Nancy struggles to go up the stairs she hears her mother calling out to her for help. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, she hurries into her room where she find the lights off and a dozing Glen. When Nancy began telling herself in front of a mirror that everything is all a dream and not real, Freddy suddenly bursts through the mirror and pounces on her. During the struggle, Nancy tries to wake Glen up, to no avail. After breaking herself free of Freddy's grasp, she grabs her feather pillow to defend herself, but Freddy slashes it and throws it away, causing lots of feathers to fly everywhere. As Freddy continues to scuffle with her, Nancy's alarm clock goes off causing her to wake up.

Glen, who has indeed fallen asleep in the physical world, also wakes up to the noise of the alarm clock along with Nancy's screams. The latter proceeds to chastise him for having not stayed awake. As she scolds for him for falling asleep, Marge suddenly calls out to Nancy, causing Glen to immediately leave the room through the same window he went through, though Nancy tells him to not leave yet.

When Marge comes into the room in her nightgown, she asks her daughter if she's okay and Nancy convinces her that it was just a dream and that she is going back to bed. After Marge turns off the light and leaves the room, Nancy calls out to Glen, only to discover that he has left. After finding him, they both go to the police station to see Rod. Meanwhile, in Rod's cell, an the bedsheets tie into a noose and proceeded to quietly wrap around Rod's neck while he is asleep. After Nancy manages to convince her father to let her and Glen visit Rod, the sheets proceed to drag the latter by the noose and hang him from the cell's ceiling, making it look like he's committed suicide. When Donald and his subordinate notice Rod being hanged, they immediately untie the noose around his neck. Upon checking for a heartbeat, they realize that Rod has died, leaving Nancy devastated. With the cops of course unaware that Freddy was responsible, Rod's death is deemed a suicide.

The next day, a graveside service is being held for Rod at Evergreen Cemetery. After the funeral, Nancy tells her parents that Rod was not the killer and describes said killer as a horribly burned man who wears a dirty red and green sweater, a weird hat and has razors on his fingers. This causes the color to drain out of both of her parent's faces, indicating recognition. Marge decides to take her to the Katja Institute for the Study of Sleep Disorders to ensure she gets some sleep. As Nancy goes through a comprehensive test, she once again has another nightmare. after Marge and the doctors manage to keep her under control, they discover a white streak in her hair and a cut on her arm. Nancy then reveals that she has brought something out from her dream: Freddy's battered hat. Upon seeing the hat, this arouses concern, but also other feelings, in Marge, who is clearly hiding a secret.

Nancy confronts Marge about the hat and points out that the name "Fred Krueger" is written into the hat. She demands if she knows who he is. Although Marge reveals almost nothing, she insists to Nancy that no one is trying to kill her, and all Nancy needs is to get some sleep. This causes her daughter to argue back at her, which makes Marge slap her in the face. She reassures Nancy that Fred Krueger won't come after her as he is "dead." When Nancy confronts her over knowing who he is all along, Marge insists that she is sick and is just imagining things, and that she'll feel better when she gets some sleep. This makes Nancy snap, angrily smashing her bottle of liquor, and leaving the house.

Meeting up with Glen again, Nancy reveals she hasn't slept in over seven days. Glen tells her about the Balinese way of sleeping, stating that when the Balinese see a monster in their dreams they turn their back on said monster, robbing it of all its power and it will disappear. He then notices that Nancy has a book on booby traps, which she claims is for survival.

Upon returning home, Nancy notices that bars have been places on all the windows in the house. Enraged by this, Nancy, upon entering the house, proceeds to call out to her mother on why she had installed bars on all the windows. Marge then takes her daughter down to the basement of the house, where she finally reveals the truth about Fred Krueger.

Krueger was a child murderer who killed at least twenty children over a decade earlier. When he was released from jail on a technicality due to an improperly signed warrant, the parents of the victims, Marge being among them, decided to track Krueger down to an abandoned boiler room. They poured gasoline all over the boiler room, poured a trail of gasoline out the door, lit the end of the trail, and watched the boiler room burn until the fire went out. When she reassures Nancy that Krueger cannot hurt anyone, she reveals his bladed glove, which she takes from a hiding place in the furnace, as proof. (It should be noted here that this glove can't possibly be the same glove Krueger has been using in the dream world.)

Later that night, Nancy calls Glen and makes a deal with him. She tells him that he is going to go into her dreams and pull Freddy out. She requests Glen that he be there to knock him out when she pulls Freddy into the physical world When Glen insists that nothing will happen, Nancy assures him that he then has nothing to lose. Finally, before hanging up she instructs him to not fall asleep. A few minutes later, she begins to put her plan into motion. However, she is unaware that Glen's father is watching her. He tells his wife that he believes that Nancy is a lunatic and doesn't want his son hanging out with her anymore. When Nancy tries to call Glen, his mother picks up instead, and relays it to her husband, who reaches the end of his tether and refuses to let Nancy speak to his son. He then takes the phone off the hook. Because of this, Nancy unsuccessfully tries to call Glen and is frustrated that he might fall asleep again.

When the phone rings, Nancy proceeds to answer it, and upon hearing nothing but an apparent eerie high-pitch laugh, she screams in frustration and pulls on the phone cord before deciding to go to Glen's house in secrecy. However, before she can fully leave her room, the phone rings again. When she picks it up once again, Freddy Krueger's voice tells her "I'm your boyfriend now, Nancy." before a mouth appears on the phone's bottom speaker and the tongue tries to lick her face, causing her to freak out and stomp on the phone. Knowing that Glen is in trouble, she hurries downstairs to go to his house but discovers that the front door is locked. When Marge, who is laying on the couch, tells her that it is locked and that she is going to get "some sleep," Nancy demands the key, but her mother refuses, causing a frustrated Nancy to scream in anger.

Meanwhile, in his room, Glen is watching TV, when Freddy's arm comes out of the bed and pull Glen into it. Krueger then sends a torrent of blood, which, along with Glen's corpse, shoots out of the bed and drenches the room. Mrs. Lantz, who comes to check on her son, sees this and begins screaming in horror. The police, Donald among them, and an ambulance are soon called in.

With Glen dead, an emotionally distraught and mentally drained Nancy decides to take on Krueger herself. She calls her father and asks him to be ready when she finds the killer. He tells her he will, making it clear that he is just humoring his overly tired daughter and tells his deputy to watch the house. Nancy then sets her watch, says a prayer, and goes to sleep to find Freddy.

Nancy bravely pursues Krueger and going down the basement, she finds herself back in the old boiler room. When she encounters Freddy again another chase ensues. As they began scuffling with each other, Nancy's alarm clock goes off, causing her to wake up in her bed, seemingly alone. In frustration and dismay, Nancy assures that she herself is crazy and wrong before Freddy jumps on her before trying to kill her. Having prepared beforehand, Nancy proves more than a match for Freddy, leading him through a barrage of booby traps. Nancy continuously calls out for her father, and the officer watching her gets him. Freddy then chases Nancy down to the basement where she sets him on fire.

Donald and Nancy happen upon Marge's incinerated corpse as it descends into the bed

Nancy locks him in the basement and finally gets her father and the rest of the police to help. After discovering that he has escaped and finding fiery footsteps leading upstairs, Nancy witness a burnt Krueger smothering Marge in her bed with his flaming body. In a desperate attempt to save her mother, Nancy takes a wooden chair and knocks Krueger out with it. Upon arriving at the scene, Donald immediately uses a blanket to smother Freddy's burning body. Upon him taking it off, Freddy disappeareds, with only Marge's charred corpse on the bed. Nancy and her father then watch as the corpse sinks and disappears into the bed. Devastated over the loss of her mother, Nancy embraces her father, who is also heartbroken over Marge's death. After sending her father away, Nancy goes to face Freddy on her own.

As Freddy emerges from the bed, Nancy coldly tells him that she now knows him well, causing him to threateningly tell her that she'll die. Unfazed, she tells him that it is too late for that and that she now knows a secret: Everything is just a dream and that he is not alive. Turning towards Freddy, she wishes her mother and friends back, which angers him. Now clearly done, Nancy declares that she'll take back every energy that she gave him and that he is nothing. When she turns her back on Freddy, he attempts to kill her, only to suddenly disappear, seemingly destroyed.

When Nancy walks out of her bedroom, the scene outside changes to the next morning, and Marge also appears, looking much alive. As Nancy gets in a car with Glen and the rest of her friends, who also seem to be fine, they get ready to go to school. However, the car roof, colored in green and red stripes, suddenly comes down, just before Nancy and her friends drive off. The car then drives away as Nancy's mother watches and waves. As the convertible continues to drive away, the same three little girls who were seen earlier, are playing jump-rope, though the fourth girl is not seen, as they sing Freddy's song. While Marge is watching them, Freddy's arm then grabs and pulls her through the window of the front door while the three girls, who seemed to have switched places and are ignorant of what happened, continue playing.

Cast

• John Saxon as Lt. Donald Thompson
• Ronee Blakley as Marge Thompson
• Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson
• Amanda Wyss as Tina Gray
• Jsu Garcia as Rod Lane
• Johnny Depp as Glen Lantz
• Robert Englund as Fred Krueger
• Charles Fleischer as Dr. King
• Joseph Whipp as Sergeant Parker
• Lin Shaye as Teacher
• Joe Unger as Sergeant Garcia
• Mimi Craven as Nurse
• Jack Shea as Minister
• Ed Call as Mr. Lantz
• Sandy Lipton as Mrs. Lantz
• David Andrews as Foreman
• Jeff Levine as Coroner
• Donna Woodrum as Tina's Mom
• Shashawnee Hall as Cop #1
• Carol Pritikin as Cop #2
• Brian Reise as Cop #3
• Ash Adams as Surfer #1
• Don Hannah as Surfer #2
• Leslie Hoffman as Hall Guard
• Paul Grenier as Tina's Mom's Boyfriend
• John Richard Petersen as John. Kid In Classroom
• Antonia Yannouli as Girl In Nancy's English Class

Box Office

A Nightmare on Elm Street premiered in the United States on a limited theatrical release on November 9, 1984, opening in 165 cinemas across the country. The film performed moderately well commercially with little advertising — relying mostly on commercial advertisements and word-of-mouth. Grossing US$1,271,000 during its opening weekend, the film was considered an instant commercial success. The film eventually earned a total of $26.5 million at the American box office. Additionally, A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in Europe, India, Canada and Australia.

New Line Cinema is sometimes referred to as "the house that Freddy built," due to the success of the film and its sequels. New Line had previously gone through a serious financial slump and was in danger of going out of business.

Reception

The ever famous bathtub scene.

Since its initial release, critics have praised the film's ability to rupture "the boundaries between the imaginary and real," toying with audience perceptions. Some film historians interpreted this overriding theme as a social subtext, "the struggles of adolescents in American society". Variety said the film was "A highly imaginative horror film that provides the requisite shocks to keep fans of the genre happy".

The film has a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1984. It ranked at #17 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004), a five-hour program that selected cinema's scariest moments. In 2003, Freddy Krueger was named the 40th greatest film villain on American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains. In 2008, Empire ranked A Nightmare on Elm Street 162nd on their list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. It also was selected by The New York Times as one of The Best 1000 Movies Ever Made.

Sequels

The 1984 classic A Nightmare on Elm Street's huge success also brought up several high quality sequels, and some of them even received higher reception than the original. In 1985, one year after the first film's release, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge was released, grossed over $29.9 million domestically and received very negative reviews. Two years later, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors was released and grossed more than $44.2 million in North America, and received mixed to positive reviews, some of the critics believe the third film saved the series.

After the success of Dream Warriors, the fourth film A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master was released in 1988, and grossed more than $49.9 million at domestic box office, becoming the highest grossing horror film of that year, and was well received with overall mixed to positive reviews from critics, and it is also one of the fan favorites. In 1989, New Line Cinema then released A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. It box office performance was mediocre, but still grossed $22.2 domestically. Its plot, more Gothic and darker than previous installments, was praised by critics for its film style, and the reception was generally mixed.

In 1991, New Line released Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, in a decision to end the franchise, with the ending in 3D. It grossed $34.5 million, but the reception was very negative. Three years later, Wes Craven's New Nightmare was released. Its story is set in the "real" world relative to the original six films. Though it didn't do well on box office, only grossing $18.3 million in North America, it received mixed to positive reviews, and became a reference of another hugely successful horror series: Scream.

New Line released Freddy vs. Jason, which is part of both the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series and the Friday the 13th film series, in 2003, crossing over Jason Voorhees (from the Friday the 13th film series) with Freddy Krueger.

It was a box office success of $82.3 million domestically, however, it received mixed reviews.

In 2010, a A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot was released. The North American box office performance of the film was $63.5 million, and it received very negative reviews. Most audiences believe it is one of the worst A Nightmare on Elm Street films, with many people believing it is the worst A Nightmare on Elm Street film.

Censorship

The original cut was rated X, and the MPAA forced Wes Craven to remove 5 seconds from Tina's death and 8 seconds from Glen's death before giving the film an R rating. Glen's death was gradually restored to Craven's original version, with 6 seconds restored for the initial home video release and the remaining 2 seconds for the DVD release, but Tina's death remains censored to this day. The uncut X-rated version was only available outside of the United States, mostly on VHS, though a rare DVD of this cut was issued in Turkey.

Trivia

• The scene where the blood shoots out of Glen's bed was actually filmed upside down.
  • At the time it was the most fake blood ever used in one scene.
  • When Glen's mother opened the door at the end of that scene you can actually see blood running horizontal and diagonal which was caused by them flipping the room back over. (Mentioned on directors’ commentary)
  • The room was the same room as was used for Tina's death at the beginning of the film.
• The confusing ending of the movie was due to producer Robert Shaye wanting a scary ending. Wes Craven intended the movie to have a happy ending that when Nancy wakes up after defeating Freddy, she realizes the entire movie was just a dream. Shaye wanted the ending scene to actually be a nightmare. The ending the movie actually received was a compromise of the two endings.
• This movie was filmed from 11th June to 13th July 1984.

• This film is the only one in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise to be selected by the United States National Film Registry for preservation in the Library of Congress.
• Only film where Freddy's Sweater has solid red sleeves.
• Three iconic lines, "Where's your Pass?" "Screw your Pass!" " Hey Nancy, No running in the Hallway!"