Episode 61 - The History of A Nightmare on Elm Street

Abby and Alan explore the true story that inspired Wes Craven to write A Nightmare on Elm Street and the fascinating story of the film's production. A film that helped to define the slasher villain horror sub-genre.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:19

[inaudible]

Speaker 2 0:19

Disclaimer for everyone listening. This episode will have copious amounts of spoilers from movies that are decades old, but that's no excuse. That's why we're telling you right now. We're really sorry, but we also really want to talk about these movies because they're fun. And we don't want to tiptoe around the fact that you might not have seen nightmare down the street. Shame on you also just a quick warning that we talk a little bit about sexual assault and related trauma, and this episode, welcome to the lunatics radio hour. I'm Abby Brinker. This is Alan Kadin. Hello. And today we are talking about the history of the nightmare on Elm street. It's actually called a nightmare on Elm street. If we want to get really technical, is it really? Yeah, no, I think so. I mean, we just were watching the SQL and on HBO max, it says that the nightmare on Elm street or a nightmare on Elm street, maybe one of them is the remake that they made. I have no, I have no idea. I've always just assumed it was just nightmare on Elm street. Let's let hope we should start this off with the facts right with this is, this is lunatics radio hour here with hard-hitting news, a nightmare on Elm street, which is ridiculous because there's multiple nightmares throughout the film before we get into Freddie. Should we talk about your AirFryer? Uh, sure. What, what would you, yeah, I was, wasn't expecting to talk about the AirFryer. I just feel like it's been a big part of our lives the past few days and we should share it. It, you know, it really has. So in my ever growing crusade to try to eat more vegetables, I purchased an air fry. I just want to pause so that everyone has a sense of the baseline, which is, uh, in January Alan's new year's resolution was to try to eat one vegetable at least a day. So it's starting, it says eat vegetables every day. Yeah. But you go days where you don't eat vegetables. That's not true. I have yet to do not in January. That's right. That's why it has become a resolution because you would not eat vegetables, which is a ridiculous way to live. Well, you can go back to their fire. Sorry. I just wanted people to understand where w where we are. Is that Howard we're starting hours. Just Narcan on each other. Yeah. All right. Well, Abby, nice picks a lot of responsible decisions. Exactly showed me. Give me a minute. I mean, I don't really think I should just be sitting here waiting for you to say some action

Speaker 3 3:11

That has not boomed a single feature film.

Speaker 2 3:15

Okay. Bam. Wow. I've been roasted. Okay, go ahead. Go on with your air fryer. So got this air fryer

Speaker 3 3:24

Looking up a whole bunch of recipes. Usually they, the, it turns out that the simplest ones are best top three in no particular order, roasted carrots or air fried carrots, if you will, air fried brussel sprouts. And what I think was the Ray of sunshine for me was the Buffalo cauliflower.

Speaker 2 3:44

Yeah. Alan, for some reason, thought cauliflower is awful. And I guess he's never had it at a restaurant.

Speaker 3 3:50

I have I've ordered at restaurants before and I did not enjoy it.

Speaker 2 3:53

Tastes to me like restaurant cauliflower.

Speaker 3 3:56

Oh, maybe. I mean, I've had it sparingly. I mean,

Speaker 2 3:59

Great. It makes vegetables like roasted and crispy very fast. So we've, we've had a lot of vegetables in it, which is good. It's delicious. And we've had a few, uh, like we did mozzarella sticks, which wasn't really worth it. No, it wasn't. They tasted the same.

Speaker 3 4:15

I mean, it, it just wasn't that great. Those are just the mozzarella sticks. I think. I think it was. Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:21

Anyway, so that's been a fun thing. If anyone out there has air fire ideas, let us know because it's been, it's been a cool little quarantine project.

Speaker 3 4:30

It's true. So do you or a loved one need to eat more vegetables, get an air fryer,

Speaker 2 4:35

Getting their fryer. It's healthy. It's fast. It's efficient and it's fun. It is fun. It dings the one you have like dings at the end, like a fifties housewife. Yeah.

Speaker 3 4:47

Yeah. It's cute. Let's you know, when the job is done

Speaker 2 4:51

Well anyway, should we transition sharply into hard? I didn't

Speaker 3 4:54

Even want to start. I just

Speaker 2 4:56

Feel like it's been taking up. I dunno, 60% of our time and we should talk about it. I think

Speaker 3 5:01

It's an overgenerous estimation. Okay. 45 taps. All right. So, uh, one of the things that was really fun the other day was we were watching another movie for horror movie club. Uh, and we were just constantly air frying. Every vegetable we could find.

Speaker 2 5:20

Yeah. We were going to like make dinner after and we ended up just eating so many vegetables during the movie

Speaker 3 5:26

We didn't. And we saw some good movies in the process.

Speaker 2 5:28

Yeah, we did. Those are fun movies.

Speaker 3 5:31

If you want to hear about them, check out horror movie club.

Speaker 2 5:33

So horror movie club, for those who may not know is the bonus episode part of this podcast and it's available through our Patriots.

Speaker 3 5:42

Right. Cause it's, it's probably the best content we put out there.

Speaker 2 5:45

I mean, it we're still, yeah, it is fun because we get to watch a bunch of movies and we actually, for next month for beBee wary, we just got a bunch of cool suggestions from one of the patrons. So do we really? Yeah. We're gonna, we're gonna have come up with a time to like sit down and watch some weird, but I'm excited.

Speaker 3 6:01

Cause usually I'm just picking like, Oh, this looks fun.

Speaker 2 6:03

Yeah. We ended up watching like kind of weird combinations of movies, but I think next month is going to be,

Speaker 3 6:08

I mean, I, I, I love the weird combinations, but that's okay.

Speaker 2 6:11

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's fun. It's just a good excuse to watch horror movies that we,

Speaker 3 6:16

It just feels like you're accomplishing something. Yeah. Horror movies with a purpose, you know? Ooh, that's good.

Speaker 2 6:21

Yeah. Okay. Anyway, time to talk about Freddy Krueger. Yeah. I guess so anything else you want to say first?

Speaker 3 6:28

Oh, I'm just, I'm excited. I do. This is about how nightmare on Elm street was based on a true story. Is that what this is?

Speaker 2 6:36

I mean, let's be honest with the listeners. This is a little bit of a lighter episode because we have some pretty heavy hitters to steal a term from the last podcast on left. We have like some longer-term episodes we've been working on coming up in the next few weeks. So this one's kind of like a lighter, more fun, less researchy episode. I mean, yeah. But so we're going to talk about, um, the history behind a nightmare on Elm street, which includes that it's based on this real thing, which we're going to talk about. Okay. Which seems wild. Yeah. It is wild. And we're, and it also, we're going to talk about like the history of, of the film itself, right? Like the production and, and how it came to be, because there's some really interesting stuff there

Speaker 3 7:17

There's horror lore involved with the film itself.

Speaker 2 7:20

It's not, no, it's, it's literally like the story of the production

Speaker 3 7:25

Movie, VAX.

Speaker 2 7:26

Yeah. But it's interesting. Cool. Yeah. I got like swept up in some articles about it and I was like, Oh, there's a lot here. Actually. It was a, you know, a labor of love this film.

Speaker 3 7:36

I mean, it seems everything West Craven does is just kind of wild.

Speaker 2 7:39

Did you know that he died? I didn't know that until I was researching this. He died in 2015. Huh?

Speaker 3 7:45

I, I didn't know that, but I guess that doesn't surprise me. I just assume he's

Speaker 2 7:49

It was like in his eighties, which I feel like is young. I mean, for sure. Yeah. Anyway, so, alright. P West Craven. Thank you for all the good times you contributed quite a bit. Yeah, totally. Okay. So shall we jump in? Yeah. Is John Carpenter still around? I don't know. Hope so. He's good. He's good. Yeah. Today's sources Freddy lives an oral history of a nightmare on Elm street by Craig marks and Rob tenant bomb on vulture Wikipedia, which actually has some really great information on this film. There's a bunch of YouTube videos. I watched interviews with West Craven and other producers that run the project and a cinema blend article by Nick Venable. Okay. Let's start with the basics. Okay. On November 9th, 1984 West Craven's nightmare on Elm street opened in 165 theaters across the United States, which is a relatively small opening number of theaters.

Speaker 3 8:44

It seems like, well, I was, I I'm, I'm very unfamiliar with West Craven's early.

Speaker 2 8:50

This was his seventh film, but this was obviously one of like his first film was the last house on the left. So that was, that was his first film. Yes. So it was a big film, but, and he also did swamp thing before this, um, will the Hills have eyes before this? The Hills have eyes the original, Oh, I didn't realize it was remake and then came in and that's just to name a few. And so yes, it was not his first film, but it was, um, probably at the time, his most popular film. Do you remember swamping? No, you do.

Speaker 3 9:22

That was one of the first movies we watched together as a couple. I don't think that's true. It was easily in the top 1000.

Speaker 2 9:28

Okay. So opening weekend. Yes. The film brought in just over$1.2 million. That's great. Uh, globally over to lifetime. Yeah. 57 million. That's even better. And then including all of the sequels 370 million,

Speaker 3 9:46

That's like almost half of an Avengers movie.

Speaker 2 9:50

It was considered an instant commercial success quoting West Craven from the vulture article. Great horror films. Don't win Academy awards. They make money.

Speaker 3 10:00

Huh? Actually that's a good question. Is there a horror category for Academy awards?

Speaker 2 10:06

No. A horror category. Now

Speaker 3 10:07

I don't know how Academy awards work for the record. You've never watched them. I don't really like them. It always seemed indulgent to me. Has

Speaker 2 10:15

Anything you've worked on Ben nominated, uh,

Speaker 3 10:18

For, uh, well, what do you, what is an Academy award? It's like an Oscar, an Emmy or an Oscar? No, definitively. No I've worked on Emmy nominated stuff, but that's it. Got it.

Speaker 2 10:31

Okay. Nightmare on Elm street was written and directed by West Craven. It was his seventh film, like we said, nightmare was produced by Robert Shay who are going to talk a bit about today. So remember that name, Robert Shea copy and stars. I'm going to mess up these names, but in stars, Heather link Langin camp, John Saxon, Ronnie Blakely, Robert England as Freddy Krueger. And of course in his debut film launching his lucrative career. Johnny Depp.

Speaker 3 11:02

Yeah. Yeah. It's a shame. He never went anywhere.

Speaker 2 11:06

It's a shame now he's like a piece of. Right? I

Speaker 3 11:08

Loved him as legless. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 11:11

Alan is kidding. In addition to it's interesting origin story that we will get into this film also made a splash in the film world and more than one way, first it is considered one of the most successful horror films of all time. Why it went on to inspire six equals a TV series, a remake of Friday, the 13th crossover. And of course, so much merchandise and product.

Speaker 3 11:36

What's the TV series. I don't know. Hang on. I have to know this quick, quick Google brain Google break. So I just Googled because I had to know what this TV series was and it was called Freddie's nightmare. It was from 1988 to 1990. What's Friday's nightmare. Uh, it was well, this serial TV show and I, I only bred the synopsis of the first episode, but it followed the trial of Freddy Kruger for like the kid murders. Interesting. I mean, I re I'm just imagining, it's like an episode of law and order and they're trying to defend Freddie Cruz.

Speaker 2 12:16

Yeah. When I, when you said Friday's nightmare, I was like, what, what Freddy Krueger be afraid of? And it was just his system apparently. Yeah, fair enough. But the movie also had a lasting impact on the horror industry. Nightmare on Elm street is considered to have solidified the slasher sub genre. It used berries, mechanics and tropes that were first introduced by John carpenter's Halloween in 1978, a few examples, sexually active teens are killed

Speaker 3 12:45

That this was first done in Halloween.

Speaker 2 12:48

These are tropes that are starting to emerge. Right? Like we look back now and we're like, Oh duh, like, you know, that's what horror film is. Yup. He's like, can't be films, but Hey, I mean, you know, I don't think they're, but he doesn't mean in everyone, but like in the seventies, these were some of the first films that were actually doing this. Yeah. So, you know, they really set the stage for this. Like it helped bring this renewed energy to the monster horror villain. When you look at like the first monster movies, you know, like the universal monster films. Oh, those, yes. They're really monster movies. I wouldn't call them horror movies. And I think even at the time they weren't horror. No, they were not. And so those were like the films, right. That these directors are watching, growing up. Sure. Yeah. And then you come to the seventies and it's a totally different genre. And so like carpenter and West Craven and these directors and writers were really the ones who were pioneering this thing. It didn't exist before. And so I don't think these films get enough credit for, uh, you know, what the world that they created and like the sub genre that they created. Like, yes, it's a, it's a small section of horror monster. Like all of these like things. But if we're talking about slasher films, like Halloween, Friday, the 13th, a nightmare on Elm street, you know, it, it sort of was its own little thing.

Speaker 3 14:13

I'm just imagining how, you know, these teenagers, they fall asleep and what plagues their nightmare is lawn Cheney. Yeah. This is not scary.

Speaker 2 14:24

Oh, it's not, it's really not. Okay. So at this point, in my outline, yes, it says, Alan, do you want to set up the plot for everybody? And then it says in parentheses funny,

Speaker 3 14:35

So you got these teenagers. Right. And all of a sudden Johnny Depp is just chilling there. And he's like a small character and he falls asleep and uh, he has these spooky dreams of getting up by Freddy Krueger. And then this girl shows up and

Speaker 2 14:55

He has a baseball bat and a radio.

Speaker 3 14:57

And it's like, ah, you're getting killed by[inaudible] and then he doesn't wake up and then he gets murdered. Yeah. And then no one believes her that it wasn't that it was a supernatural guy that kills everybody. And so she has to go on this crusade to like, try to convince the world that there's this guy killing people in dreams. And they're like, that's stupid. And you know, she's like, yeah, I know. But, uh, but by the end she has vindictive.

Speaker 2 15:29

Well, she gets like locked in her house. Remember that part?

Speaker 3 15:32

Yeah. There's like the whole like police stakeout across the street,

Speaker 2 15:36

The cop. Yeah. Johnny Depp lives across the street.

Speaker 3 15:39

And then, you know, Johnny, Depp's dead, but I'm saying that's where, sorry, sorry, spoilers. Yeah. Eventually she has this like crazy. Oh, there's the thing. She like pulls the hat out of the dream and she's like, Oh wow. If I can pull this guy's hat out, I can pull him out. Cause you know, dream, dream mechanics. And so she pulls him out and then she's like, ah, now we're going to arrest you. But I didn't know. But she needed cops for that. And there were no cops. So that was a problem.

Speaker 2 16:06

No, she told her dad, Hey, you're a cop. I'm going to come out of this dream world at like midnight or whatever. Please be here, please be here. And dad is not there.

Speaker 3 16:16

Cause he's too, he's too busy being a cop. You know,

Speaker 2 16:19

He's too busy with a murder across the street and he can show up to his daughter's dream plan. Right.

Speaker 3 16:23

So then eventually she's just like, I'll have to take things into my own hands. And she goes all home alone on him and just like swings, paint, cans, and and hits Freddy a couple times. And he gets really mad. And then he falls on the stairs and gets really hurt. He does not like stairs, no matter what movie he's in, Freddy Krueger gets up on stairs. Yeah. Um, and eventually there, she's about to finish them off, uh, with multiple bank hands and baseball bats. And then, um, he sees her mom and he's like, ah, I'm out. And then just jumps onto the mom and like pulls her through the bed, into the dream world. And she's like, Oh bye mom. Didn't like anyways,

Speaker 2 17:09

The end credits. Very good. Thank you for that. Beautiful and factual summary of the plot of the film.

Speaker 3 17:16

I really hope you edit it down to make it even less, uh,

Speaker 2 17:20

Sensical. Yes. Okay. All right. So before we get into the true events that inspired this crazy movie, let's talk about the movie itself. The making of it, all of the major studios passed on a Craven's script for nightmare on Elm street. Why every single one, the feedback that he kept getting was that people don't want to see dreams and movies. That it's not interesting that it's going to confuse people that was literally in here. He had like the rejection letters from like universal, like framed on his wall. But that was the thing they were like, the dream world is like too confusing. It's too ambitious. It's people aren't going to get it. It's not going to make sense. And that was literally the feedback that he was getting. So enter Bob Shay, a producer with new line cinema and a Fulbright scholar. Shay wanted to be a director, but no one would have him. So he got into film distribution, new line cinema started in his New York city apartment, a fifth floor walk up in the East village. And he said something like for the studio space, his like apartment, you know, and the other half of the unit or whatever, like for all of this, like his whole space was like$109 a month. Something like that. It's pretty reasonable for the West village East village. Oh, that's sorry. Yeah. It originated as a company to distribute films to college campuses and went on to be the first to distribute John Waters and Werner Hertzog. And of course a nightmare on Elm street, even Sean S. Cunningham the director of Friday, the 13th warned Craven, the audiences might not buy into the dream world of the script, but Craven and Shea pushed forward getting funding mainly from a, and I'm quoting, here you go. Slavi and guy who wanted his girlfriend to be in the movies, only one of those. So most of the investors backed out during pre-production resulting in a budget just over$1 million, which isn't bad at all. But again, this is Craven's seventh film. So he is an established, super successful films previously, right. Crave and wanted something different for his Freddy Krueger. If you look at the main horrible. And so at the time Michael Myers, Jason, even Leatherface, they all had masks, right? So here's a quote from Craven. 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. Cool. So there's an interesting Rob zombie quote. That is exactly what I was just talking about from the vulture article that when they were young, when he and his he's kind of considering himself a peer of craving here, right. That when they were young, the films were monster movies, not horror movies that carpenter and Craven transformed the genre from monster movies to horror films. Exactly. Sort of what I took credit for saying a few minutes ago.

Speaker 3 20:10

Well, I mean, this is getting a little off topic, but I'm just curious before there must have been horror films before this.

Speaker 2 21:00

It's interesting. Cause I feel like fifties are, or this like middle ground is either very Saifai oriented. Like the woman from outer space or whatever, or it's Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, but it's not really this idea of a human or humanoid type monster killing people with a weapon in a very bloody and violent way. Yeah. Oh sure.

Speaker 3 21:26

I mean, have you seen well, yeah, fit, we've seen some fifties. Right?

Speaker 2 21:31

So it, but it's not, again, it's different. It's not like slasher violent. Like it's a different thing. It is. I just, it's almost Saifai, you know?

Speaker 3 21:41

Yeah. There's gotta be I'm I'm going to do some research. There has to be, I mean, it could have just been, not Jada defining could have been ahead of its time. There has to have been horror, like actual horror films before a late seventies. I mean, I'm sure once black Christmas from,

Speaker 2 22:01

You know, we also there's like the Stepford wives, like th there's a ton of horror films, you know, I'm sure you could easily find a list that have dates. But I think the w what Rob zombie is really talking about is I think like the slasher film and how we define horror now. Oh yeah. It changed the mainstream, right? Like when you think about horror, these are the first films that come to your mind, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. On Twitter in 2014 Craven revealed that Kruger's appearance was inspired by a man who had appeared at him through his window one night through his window. One night when he was a child, he saw an elderly man walking outside, who stopped and looked into his window, which freaked him out crave and wanted to make Freddy a child molester, but changed him to a child killer because he was afraid of backlash at the time, there was a huge rise in child molestation cases in California.

Speaker 3 22:57

I mean, that would have really changed the tone. Yeah. Have, I mean, Freddy Krueger, maybe in some later films where it gets a little weird, but he doesn't really have sexual energy. And I love, I love that. I love that in the second film he does,

Speaker 2 23:12

Uh, kisses that girl.

Speaker 3 23:15

Well that, okay. Hang on. You, you, where you want to do a deep dive in this moment, that that's fine. Okay. That was an amalgamation between the protagonist, Jesse, who was being possessed by Freddie Cruz.

Speaker 2 23:30

I know, but I'm just saying it, he has sexual energy.

Speaker 3 23:34

There was, yes, you're right. In the second film, there was, there was, there was sexual energy, but this wasn't, you know, as if, to people who had no interest in each other, then Freddie shows up and suddenly it's, you know?

Speaker 2 23:51

Yeah. I get it. He's he was kind of possessing that guy

Speaker 3 23:54

All about the murder. Just imagine the, how these two films made you feel that you have like Friday, 13th, right. Which is pure murderous, slasher, just murder Fest, right? Yeah. And then you have last house on the left, which is another murder Fest, but mixed with a whole bunch of sexual assault. Yup. As soon as you add that element, it just gets so uncomfortable and movies like Friday, the 13th nightmare on Elm street. For me, they're just fun, you know, they're violent, but they're fun. Last house on the left is not a fun movie. Yeah,

Speaker 2 24:36

Absolutely. That's a good point. I mean, yeah, totally. I totally agree. I'm glad we're on the same page about this. I hope we all are. Yeah.

Speaker 3 24:44

I absolutely think that there's a place in movies for that kind of, um, assault and trauma, you know, uh, but silly can't be horror. Movies is not one of them. Anytime you add some kind of really unwanted, violent sexual energy to a film, it really takes me out of it personally as an audience member had, because it suddenly just makes the film so much more serious in a very dark tone.

Speaker 2 25:12

Yeah. I think that's a good point because I think there are important films about these topics, right? That handle them in a really tasteful and meaningful way that is telling a message about the survivors in this situation and the trauma that they've experienced as a totally different thing to exploit that in a really graphic way where you're forcing an audience to experience something or not, again, you're not firsthand experiencing, but watching this thing being experienced, it's like exploitative and especially in a horror film to your point when people are you're, you're going there for a certain type of experience. It's not like, again, that's one of the reasons why Rob zombie movies are not for me last house on the left is not for me. And I agree with you. I think, you know, there are certain filmmakers who totally, you know, it's, it's an important to tell stories about that, but they have to be respectful and they have to really honor the survivors and in horror movies, it's really never about that. It's about glorifying the villains.

Speaker 3 26:22

I think they just have to come full circle. If you are showing some kind of sexual assault scene, there has to be a meaning behind it. Whereas in a slasher horror, you can have gratuitous violence simply for the sake of gratuitous violence. If you, yeah. If you do a scene of a sexual assault and it's just in there for the sake of it, like that's, that's, that's bad filmmaking and that's very distasteful in my opinion, at least. Yeah, totally. If it builds up the protagonist, you know, if that is, uh, his or her motive Mo uh, motivation going forward at that point to then go on, you know, their vindictive rampage to vanquish evil. Sure. Maybe that can work

Speaker 2 27:10

Well. I also think there's a difference in the way that these moments are represented. You can say, you can show something like this happening in a thousand different, and the way that it's shown in the last house on the left is a lot different. You know what I'm saying? Like in there you're watching the whole thing happen. It it's very triggering. It's very upsetting. It's very uncomfortable, but there's also ways to elude to it or to show it in a much more condensed, palatable way. Again, none of it is palatable, but in a way where we, as an audience will understand, okay, this thing happened. I understand her motivation. I understand her revenge story without sitting there for 17 minutes watching it happen in front of you.

Speaker 3 27:54

Sure. And a perfect example is that from nightmare on Elm street too, when you know, you see, uh, what starts as consensual sex, then the guy gets possessed by Freddy and his big Bern tongue comes out and starts going all over. Yeah. You know, I hated that. I mean, yeah, it's uncomfortable, but it's pretty funny, you know, and it quickly devolves into, uh, you know, just supernatural parody. Right. Cause it gets absurd. Yeah. It's, it's absolutely. If you're going to show something, make sure it's for the right reasons.

Speaker 2 28:33

Exactly. Yeah. Like again, I think horror films certainly have a place in helping to tell hard stories, but how are you showing it? How is it being handled? What is the audience going to feel about it? You know, all of that stuff is really important.

Speaker 3 28:51

Anyway. I mean it's sexual assault is just like one of those very taboo things. Yeah. You know, if you're going to show it, there better be a good reason. It's it's yeah. It's super taboo. It's like, it's like killing a dog, you know, not to equate the two, but in the, the, what I mean is like in cinema, there's a rule you just can't kill a dog on screen without a really, really good reason. Yeah. And certain movies, you know, that show the death of a beloved animal, John wick, John wick, then he goes on that motivates the character to then go on a huge dog avenging rampage. Right. So shout out to those filmmakers for doing it. Right.

Speaker 2 29:35

Okay. So back on track here, we got way off topic, but that was interesting. What led to the name? Freddy Krueger? Any guesses?

Speaker 3 29:44

Yes. Okay. So Friday seems like a very fun name. You know, it seems like you're the guy that would be very disarming. You know, everyone, everyone loves a good Fred, you know? Yeah. And then Krueger, is this a guest? What is this? It's a guess, not the most household friendly name, but it makes me think of supermarkets. Sure.

Speaker 2 30:16

Okay. Well, all of that is wrong. Craven had been bullied as a child by a student named Fred Krueger. So he got his revenge. It's actually, this bully clearly had a very lasting impact on Craven because in the last house on the left, the West Craven do that also. That was his first film. Oh, to me, that's the, wow. The last house on the left, the villain was named Craig. So he clearly, right. Like wanted to just up this guy's life crave and copied the idea of the striped sweater that Kruger wears from the DC comic character, plastic man and the red and green colors he chose because he read in a scientific American article that green, the combination of green and red are the most upsetting to the human retina.

Speaker 3 31:10

I always thought it was a Christmas sweater.

Speaker 2 31:12

I mean, that's how it comes across for sure.

Speaker 3 31:15

They make jokes in the lighter movies about a Christmas sweater wearing maniac.

Speaker 2 31:21

Yeah. Because I'm sure that's what everybody assumed that it was.

Speaker 3 31:23

How dare they defile plastic man's memory like that. You don't even know a plastic man. I certainly do. Who is a plastic man? Oh boy. What do you mean? Oh boy, go ahead. Plastic man is a wonderful anti hero. He started as a criminal. Okay. So he was some small time, two bit, you know, thug that would Rob banks, right. To bet mean to bit. That's all, he was worth two bits. Okay. You know, always laid hearted, always cracking jokes, but he eventually answered the call when real crisis showed up. Cause he has, he made of plastic. He, you know, you, don't Mr. Fantastic. From fantastic four. You know, he stretches. Yeah. That's plastic man. But plastic man is the DC version. Okay. So same powers, very different personality. Eventually plastic man goes on to join the justice league because he is just such a stand-up guy. And you know, he ends up being the role model for all these very small hero wannabes, almost that, you know, they know that they can't, they, they know that they think that they can never stand up to the image of people like Batman, Superman wonder woman, but plastic man shows them that they can contribute in all, you know, in their own way. He's a, he's a very good,

Speaker 2 32:55

Great guy. You really do know a lot about him off the top of your head. I wasn't expecting that.

Speaker 3 33:01

Well, happy to deliver. Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:04

Okay. So actor Robert England who plays Freddy Krueger only auditioned because it was the only project that fit his schedule at the time.

Speaker 3 33:14

We never heard of plastic man plastic. No, I've

Speaker 2 33:18

Never heard of plastic, man. He's great. Uh, so F uh, Robert England was at the time in the popular NBC mini series V on his way into the audition. He licked his finger and dipped it into the Ash tray of his car and like spread some Ash around his, I think, under Andrae, um, because he wanted to come in, looking strange. Craven says that England wasn't as tall as he wanted, but he had nice baby fat in his face.

Speaker 3 33:44

Oh, good thing. They're going to cover it with prosthetics.

Speaker 2 33:48

Great point, Alan. It took four hours every day to apply the makeup and rubber prosthetics that made the final Freddie luck.

Speaker 3 33:55

That estimate is actually less than I was expecting.

Speaker 2 33:58

It's also notable that England cut himself on the knife glove. And every time the hero glove was used in the hero glove is the one that's actually sharp. All the other ones are dull. But when the, you actually see it cutting something in a scene, they have to use the hero glove that every time the hero glove was used, somebody cut themselves every single time. Hmm. Craven was trying to draw on the primal fear of animal claws. When he imagined the glove, he wanted something that wasn't the typical knife that slashers use. So he kind of said to his, you know, design guy, this is what I have in mind. And some scenes, the glove actually emits sparks. This was achieved. Practically. Do you know how Alan,

Speaker 3 34:40

Um, I'm going to guess either sparklers or, Oh, they probably used the, uh, the type of, uh, powder used in model rockets. Nope.

Speaker 2 34:58

Car battery that connected it to a car battery.

Speaker 3 35:01

They just made it Ark. You serious

Speaker 2 35:04

$1 million budget. They connected it to a car battery

Speaker 3 35:07

Dangerous. So, okay. Hang on. They just ran a ton of DC current through the glove. And so when he touched things at heart, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 35:18

That's rock and roll. My friend.

Speaker 3 35:20

I would personally not put my hand in that glove.

Speaker 2 35:23

That's why you're not a famous actor. Even though Bob Shay was on board from the start, he and craving clashed over an ending of the film. They shot three endings in order to test with different audiences. However, the test screenings didn't drive clear results. You know what? They put all three in the film. What? Yep. There's one. He drives away. There's when the mom, all of those were supposed to be three different endings that they just kept in the film back to back to back and raw. I think Bob Shay's dad said to him, like you watched one of the screenings and it was like, this movie ending really sex. Like it's this ending's going to ruin the film. And they were like, we don't know what to do. Like we don't know. So that's why like the ending is kind of drawn out and weird because it's literally three endings back to back. Okay. Interesting fun fact. The words Elm street are never spoken during the movie. Why is it called Elms?

Speaker 3 36:16

I mean,

Speaker 2 36:16

It takes place when I'm straight, but nobody ever says Elm street. Okay. How many gallons of fake blood do you think they used onsets?

Speaker 3 36:24

Oh, geez. Um, this is going to be a huge number simply because of the one scene where the blood spews out of the bed. 500,

Speaker 2 36:32

Yes. 500 gallons. That's exactly right. I'm a really

Speaker 3 36:35

Good blood gallon. Estimator

Speaker 2 36:38

The film, the crew filmed for 32 days around the LA area. The high school scenes were filmed at John Marshall high school, which was a pretty popular spot for filming high school scenes. And you may recognize it from pretty in pink and Greece.

Speaker 3 36:53

Yeah. That's a John Hughes movie. That's right.

Speaker 2 36:56

We've now come to the story to the story, the true story that inspires.

Speaker 3 37:00

Oh, that kind of stories, you know, fiction story in this episode. Why can't we just do Y why don't you just quickly think of some pretty Krueger fan fiction?

Speaker 2 37:11

That would be helpful. Okay. So what could possibly be the true story that inspired a film like nightmare on Elm street before we dive in, there's actually a quote from West Kramer and that really sums things up. So I'm just going to be quoting for a paragraph here. I'd read an article in the LA times about a family who had escaped the killing fields in Cambodia and managed to get to the U S things were fine. And then suddenly the young son was having very disturbing nightmares. He told his parents that he was afraid if he slept the things, chasing him would get him. So he tried to stay awake for days at a time when he finally fell asleep, his parents thought the 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 the nightmare. Here was a youngster having a vision of a horror that everyone older was denying that became the central line of nightmare on Elm street. What Craven was referring to is a series of mysterious deaths that occurred in the 1970s, men and adolescent boys who had fled to the United States from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, escaping war in genocide were reportedly dying after complaining of nightmares and being afraid to sleep. Many, you refuse to sleep altogether for days at a time. In one case, a victim actually said, no, this isn't PTSD. This something is stalking me like this is like, I know why you think it's that. It's not that, uh, which of course it probably was PTSD, but the shadow people, he finally fell asleep. And so this guy who said, you know, something is stalking me, which is, I believe the same person that West Craven was talking about. But to be honest, there was a lot of chaos. There was there's multiple cases of this. So this, this kid finally fell asleep and his family carried him to his bed relieved that he was getting sleep. And later they heard him screaming and thrashing. And when he finally fell silent, he had died. The family then found hidden stashes of black coffee and piles of untaken pills that they thought he had been actually taking. So those impacted by this were between the ages of 19 and 57. It's since believed that most, if not, all of the victims were killed by sudden arrhythmic death syndrome or SATs, just as it sounds, this is the sudden and unexpected death of adults and teens very often during sleep, reading a quote from Wikipedia here, because I am not a doctor and it is very medically jargony. And so I don't want to mess it up. Medical examiners have taken into account various factors, such as nutrition, toxicology, heart disease, metabolism, and genetics, although there's no real definite cause extensive research showed that people 18 years or older were found to have suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscle becomes oddly thickened without any obvious. Cause this was the most commonly identified abnormality of sudden death in young adults. And the instances where people experienced sudden death it's most commonly found that they were suffering from coronary artery disease or any level of stress. So end of quote will be, can very easily relate to this last point on stress is the PTSD that these men in the seventies would surely have had. Um, and scientists also point to Brugada syndrome. So this is genetic it's when electrical activity in the heart is irregular, it adds to the risk of abnormal heartbeats and sudden cardiac arrest. That is what West Craven read in an LA times article that inspired the original script.

Speaker 3 41:23

So my, my unpacking of this, yes, it seems like there was a bunch of people, or at least enough to have a pattern of people that had escaped such horrific life events. Yes. They had witnessed such atrocities firsthand that when they were sleeping, they would dream, Oh, you know, it's you, they couldn't escape their nightmares. You know, they're just reliving the horrific things that they'd witnessed before their eyes. Yep. Yeah. So this was in the States that they had immigrated and they, because they couldn't, every time they fell asleep, they would just witness these things flashing before their eyes that they started avoiding sleep. And it got to the point where they were so sleep deprived that they began to hallucinate. You know, we w we actually talked about the shadow people on a, on a previous episode, um, which is a known phenomena of, uh, extreme sleep deprivation. And with that, of course is insane sense of paranoia.

Speaker 2 42:40

Isn't it from amphetamine abuse.

Speaker 3 42:42

Right. Which is which liens you. Yes. But that in turn means that you are up for many days on end. So they kind of go hand in hand. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, full disclaimer. I've never heard of this phenomena happening outside of amphetamine abuse, but also like normally people aren't staying up for, you know, four or five days straight, uh, without the use of drugs.

Speaker 2 43:14

No, totally. I, yeah. I think, yeah, certainly I don't think these people were abusing drugs in his instance, but I do think it's a good example of a, the fact that your brain, like your brain can do wild things when it's under stress. Right. And staying up for first of all, being stressed about all of the things that you've lived through. And second of all, the stress of not sleeping for days at a time, like yeah. You know, and then that leading to some sort of irregular heart pattern or cardiac arrest that it's almost like the, it's not the same thing at all, but like the trope of like stressed businessmen, having heart attacks, you know, like we know stress can kill you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 44:02

Yeah. I mean, our bodies did not evolve to put up with this. Right. Not even close, we have a fight or flight mechanism that gets you out of danger of the lion chasing you. Yeah. You know, in modern society, nine times out of 10, it just misfires, which leads to crazy anxiety disorders, you know, panic attacks, all sorts of things that just absolutely cause complete chaos in civilizes.

Speaker 2 44:36

Yeah. That we all have. We all have something. Right. You're lying. If you don't think you do, everybody go to therapy. If

Speaker 3 44:43

You want therapy, click the link below.

Speaker 2 44:46

Yeah. I'll leave a therapist below for you. Actually. It really depends on your state. So I can't do that, but you know, there's a lot of online resources that are no, your state that you live in. Oh. The therapists have to be, even though we're online, they still have to be licensed within the state that you are anyway.

Speaker 3 45:04

Investigate. Pittsworth it?

Speaker 2 45:06

Yeah. It's very worth it. Okay. So we just, before we started recording, we just watched nightmare on Elm street too. There are, I believe six or seven total. Yes. You said three is supposed to be one of the best. Yes.

Speaker 3 45:21

And I've never seen it. I've seen nightmare on Elm street one. Yeah. We've just watched the second one together. I think I've seen one of the later ones. I have no idea which, and I've seen Freddy versus Jason. Sorry. Let me rephrase. I've seen the cinematic masterpiece, Freddy versus Jason. Oh, you're a big fan. Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 2 45:47

I actually, it's kind of recent. No, I feel like I saw it in like

Speaker 3 45:52

2008.

Speaker 2 45:54

I saw it. This is all clean. It's all flooding back to me. I actually saw that before I saw either of the original movies. Like I think my sister made me go see it at the movie theater. It was. And then I, then I, that inspired me to watch, um, some of the original movies I had never seen like Friday the 13th or a nightmare on Elm street.

Speaker 3 46:14

And dare I say, it's even better than its sister film alien vs. Predator.

Speaker 2 46:22

Actually, I think I did see, I think maybe nightmare on Elm street. Actually. I did watch it with a friend. Sorry. I just didn't want to misrepresent my history to everybody. You can't disrespect. I watch it when I was very young, actually that is confronting me. Shout out to friend anyway. So yeah, so we haven't watched all of the movies, but the important one is the first one and it sounds like the third is also worth checking out.

Speaker 3 46:46

So yeah, I just did a bit of Googling to be like, which movies are worth it.

Speaker 2 46:52

You should get Google to sponsor our Google breaks and these episodes.

Speaker 3 46:55

Yeah, please. Um, please, please Google, please.

Speaker 2 47:01

We would love some money. Yep.

Speaker 3 47:04

Um, number two is actually ranked as one of the worst.

Speaker 2 47:07

Oh, okay. I mean, I didn't, I mean, I didn't think it was terrible. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't great. The 13th number two is really bad.

Speaker 3 47:14

Yes. Um, but then again, I was expecting a lot more out of Friday, the 13th part two, it just was a under delivering film. Number two. It was still fun. It just didn't have the number two. You mean

Speaker 2 47:33

Freddie's revenge. What'd I say yes. No. I just wanted to make

Speaker 3 47:36

Exactly, it just didn't have the magic and charm that the other films in the franchise have. Yeah. Um, regardless number three West Craven comes back to direct

Speaker 2 47:47

No ice cream and darks. All of them. I think

Speaker 3 47:50

Really? No, he directed the first and the third. Oh, all right. All right. And the others are just cash grabs. It's my understanding Molly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 47:58

Cause her doesn't win Academy awards. It makes money.

Speaker 3 48:02

Yes. It's the third one, which is supposed to be just as good as the first. Sorry. It's supposed to be just as good. If not better than the original, but you know, the original just has such historical significance that of course it has to take the cake, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:19

Yeah. I mean the originals. Yeah. They're always usually the best. The original doesn't stick. There's not going to be a sequel, right? Yes.

Speaker 3 48:25

There's very few franchises where any SQL is better than the original. Yeah, totally. The King of that would be Terminator two judgment day.

Speaker 2 48:34

Okay. I'll take your word for it.

Speaker 3 48:37

You haven't seen Terminator two judgment day.

Speaker 2 48:39

I think you made me watch that. And I haven't seen just Terminator.

Speaker 3 48:43

Did you watch the film or you fall asleep?

Speaker 2 48:45

Probably fell asleep. Who's to say,

Speaker 3 48:48

Should I cut? Should we cut? Watch it right now? No,

Speaker 2 48:52

There's also apparently a really remake from 2010, 2010. Is that right? 2010 again, if you've, if you've seen it, let us know. But the reviews out there are pretty disheartening.

Speaker 3 49:03

What is West Craven's new nightmare? I just had that phrase in my head.

Speaker 2 49:09

I don't know. I know for the 30th anniversary though, there was a bunch of press and interviews and that's where I got a lot of the research actually. Um, so I don't know, maybe it was some special they did talking about it. Got it. But I don't know. Or maybe you're just having dreams of publicity stunts, dangerous dreams. Wouldn't be the first time. Nope. Well, everyone, thank you so much for joining us on this nightmare on Elm street, deep dive. And it was a little bit of a funky different format, but I had fun. It was almost like a horror movie club, but you know,

Speaker 3 49:44

It was very much like horror movie club, except we actually had things prepared. Yeah. This wasn't just start researching horror movies. Cause it wasn't just me just fricking going on a tangent. I mean, that's exactly what this was, but it was coupled with your well-documented research to back up my ramblings.

Speaker 2 50:06

Yeah. This was fun. We have some really exciting episodes coming in the next few weeks. So keep your ears tuned for that. As always, you can follow us on Instagram at the lunatics project, you can support us on Patrion for as little as$1 a month to get access to horror movie club among many other awesome perks among which also a permanent discount code for the March store, which is available via Teespring. We'll have the link below, but we have some really, really beautiful March designed by PLR capita of Jollyville radio. So yeah, I think those are all the little pluggy things we have to say, but thank you guys so much for listening. We really appreciate it. And we will see you next week with something very, very special.

Speaker 3 50:52

All right. Until then,

Speaker 2 50:55

Do you want to, should we end with the Freddy Krueger chant? Like one, two, Freddy's coming for you three, four. Okay. Ready? Wait, let me look.

Speaker 3 51:04

I, no, we can just do a little three ball. Don't worry about no. Put your phone down, put your phone, do it. We have this. Okay.

Speaker 2 51:09

One, two. Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, lock your door. Five six, stay, play, grab a crucifix seven, eight, nine, 10. Never sleep again. All right. That was good. Yep. Bye. Bye.