A Nightmare on Elm Street/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Actor Allusion: John Saxon, who plays a lawman who tries to solve the murders in the first film, also played a similar character in Black Christmas (1975).
  • And Starring: In the first film, Johnny Depp's name is preceded by "and introducing", as it was his very first film appearance.
  • The Cameo: Zsa Zsa Gabor in Dream Warriors.
    • Renny Harlin in The Dream Master.
    • Johnny Depp, Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold and Alice Cooper in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.
    • Nearly every film had producer Robert Shaye in some role.
      • Actually averted in New Nightmare in relation to Johnny Depp: Craven wanted to have him appear in the film, but was too afraid to ask; after the film's release, Depp met with Craven and said he would have gladly made an appearance.
  • Dawson Casting:
    • Prevalent in the remake, but the original is also guilty of it (Amanda Wyss, who played the fifteen year-old Tina, was twenty-four at the time of filming).
    • Lampshaded when a sleep deprived Nancy looks herself in the mirror and says "Oh God, I look twenty years old". Indeed, if Heather Langenkamp wasn't yet past her 20th birthday when that scene was shoot, it was, at most, a few weeks away.
  • Dolled-Up Installment: Freddy's Revenge apparently started life as an unrelated horror script, and got turned into the second Elm Street film when the producers wanted a quick sequel but were hampered by Wes Craven being unwilling to return.
  • Dueling Movies: With Dreamscape, another movie about dream-venturing from 1984.
  • Enforced Method Acting: In the final scene, the roof of the convertible came down much harder and faster than the actors expected; their startled reactions are real.
  • Executive Meddling: Wes Craven originally wanted to end the first film with a happy ending. However, Robert Shaye insisted on a darker ending and prevailed. This might have been for the better, since aside from opening the door for the very popular sequels to be made, Craven's intended ending was notoriously anti-climactic when judged against the rest of the film.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: John Saxon and Johnny Depp in the original; as pointed out above, Elm Street was Depp's first film role.
    • Laurence Fishburne and Patricia Arquette in Dream Warriors.
    • Yaphet Kotto in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.
    • Johnny Depp appears again in the sixth film, starring in an anti-drug infomercial.
    • In the remake of the original, Rorshach certainly looks good in red and green, doesn't he?
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer for the remake had several scenes that were noticeably absent from the film itself.
  • The Other Darrin: Kristen was portrayed by Patricia Arquette in Dream Warriors, and Tuesday Knight in The Dream Master.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: The earthquakes LA suffered in New Nightmare were real, and struck the film during mid-production. Craven wove it into the plot.
  • Shown Their Work: The writers for the remake bring up quite a few biological tidbits, in order to make Freddy more disturbing:
    • Micronaps - a sleep-starved brain's attempt to "recharge" with tiny bursts of forced rest - means that staying awake will eventually become meaningless against Freddy.
    • There is a difference between "Normal" death and brain death. Freddy knows this, and uses the amount of time between the two to do a couple Serial Killer victory laps on people he has murdered.
    • Staying awake for too long will cause the brain to forcibly enter a coma. Freddy not only knows this, but was counting on it .
  • Typecasting: Robert Englund played Freddy in all of the original films and Freddy vs. Jason. To be fair, apart from all the makeup it requires, he does enjoy the role.
    • The whole "typecasting" thing was lovingly mocked on Mad TV early in that show's run, when Englund did a guest spot for a Halloween episode. During his appearance, everyone kept describing Englund, as his big claim to fame, his other famous genre role of "Willie", the comic relief alien from the original V mini-series. Englund responds quite angrily, pointing out to each cast member who calls him "Willie", that he played Freddy Kruger in the Nightmare on Elm Street films. But everyone keeps referring to him as "The guy who played Willie on V" instead of "the Nightmare On Elm Street guy", much to his dismay and anger.
  • Vaporware: The reality television show Real Nightmares which had six episodes made but never aired.
    • The Freddy Vs Jason video game.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Several from the remake:
      • Two alternate openings that were filmed. The first, which was shown in the trailer and orginal script, was of a party being held where Dean (played by Kellan Luz) kills himself by jumping off a high point and crashing into a garden. The second, featured on the DVD and Blu-Ray, was Freddy Krueger lying in a hospital bed, covered up to hide his face before dying. He had somehow lived through his ordeal from being lit on fire and was comatose. He only dies several days before the remake even occurs.
      • According to the casting call sheet, Quentin was originally written as a "indie-style guy who runs the high school's podcast Insomnia Radio".
      • Nancy and Quentin were also were set to face off Freddy inside an old church for the ending, with scenes even filmed at a local church but it was cut out entirely or strapped for the another ending.
  • The Wiki Rule: The Elm Street Wiki
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/A_Nightmare_on_Elm_Street/Trivia?oldid=1770988"