From Freddy Krueger's fashionable fedora to his laughter and humorous quotes, he is definitely a slasher villain with staying power, and Wes Craven will always be acclaimed for creating this iconic character in A Nightmare On Elm Street. Thanks to the late horror writer/director's brilliant storytelling and Robert Englund's strong performance, Freddy stands out against many others in the subgenre and will always continue to do so.
Wes Craven found some real life inspiration for Freddy Krueger and the deadly dream world that he creates in Springwood, Ohio, and it's fascinating to learn about what he based this character on and what he was thinking about when working on the first A Nightmare On Elm Street.
Wes Craven Was Inspired By Seemingly Shared Nightmares
Freddy Krueger's power to enter dreams is his most interesting and most defining quality, and Wes Craven was inspired by people who had terrible and upsetting nightmares. There were many refugees from Laos, South Asia who actually passed away while having bad dreams, which made the writer/director take pause. He was also reading The L.A. Times when he found a story about a Cambodian genocide refugee who was only a child and who didn't want to fall asleep as his dreams were so horrible.
According to History.com, Craven said, “When he finally fell asleep, his parents thought this crisis was over. Then they heard screams in the middle of the night. By the time they got to him, he was dead. He died in the middle of a nightmare." Whenever someone died this way, doctors couldn't find something wrong with them health-wise, and although they had been affected by chemical nerve agents, that doesn't appear to be the reason why they died, either.
It makes sense that Craven would be so affected by these real-life stories and would create the world of the A Nightmare On Elm Street dreams as a result. It's definitely unnerving and shocking watching the memorable final girl Nancy Thompson (Heather Langekamp) and the rest of Freddy's victims be tormented while fast asleep, as this is a time when people are innocent, powerless, and at risk of being harmed.
This is different from what some originally thought: that Freddy Krueger was inspired by an actual killer. According to USA Today, Lamaur Foster shared on social media that there was a real person named Frederick Kruger and posted a photo of a grave. He then said that it wasn't true and that he posted that because it was Halloween season.
Freddy Krueger can't be recast because Robert Englund's mannerisms and powerful performance work so well for the famous character, who also has a look that can't be ignored or forgotten. Craven also made sure that Krueger's famous look came from an experience that he had. According to NY Post, when he was a kid growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, he looked outside the window of his house and saw a man in the hat that his iconic villain would wear in the franchise. Craven said, “It was a man in an overcoat and a sort of fedora hat. Somehow he sensed that someone was watching, and he looked right up and into my eyes.”
Craven Wanted Freddy To Be Totally Different From Other Killers
Freddy Krueger's glove is part of what makes him so iconic, and Wes Craven came up with this part of his famous villain's costume because he wanted him to be unique. Craven told Vulture, "A lot of the killers were wearing masks: Leatherface, Michael Myers, Jason. I wanted my villain to have a 'mask,' but be able to talk and taunt and threaten. So I thought of him being burned and scarred." He also said, "A lot of horror villains used knives as weapons, and I didn’t want to duplicate that. So I thought, How about a glove with steak knives?"
This was a great idea, as Freddy's gloves are impressively shocking and terrifying, and this gives him an advantage in every fight scene that he's part of. His sharp gloves are why Freddy has a high A Nightmare On Elm Street kill count throughout the franchise. The fact that his greatest weapons are literally part of his body is clever and powerful, and this ensures that he is never without the ability to kill the other characters throughout the franchise, which is why they are so frightened of him.
Craven also achieved his goal of ensuring that Freddy stands out, as although Michael Myers wears a mask in the Halloween franchise and Ghostface from Scream has a mask and black cape, Freddy has a hat, striped sweater, and creepy gloves. He will always stand out as one of the best slasher villains and his look is one part of that.