This was Johnny Depp's first movie.
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When Nancy is in the boiler room towards the end of the movie, Freddy suddenly jumps out at her and scares her. In this shot Freddy is wearing his hat. Earlier in the movie Nancy takes the hat from in the movie. After the shot where Freddy jumps out at her with his hat on, the next scene is showed chasing her down a stair case without his hat. See more...
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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - 22 trivia entries
Directed by Wes Craven, starring Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Johnny Depp, Charles Fleischer (add more)
This was Johnny Depp's first movie.
Wes Craven named Freddy Krueger after a bully who tortured him in school.
The reactions of the actors when the car roof came up was real, Wes Craven just made the roof speed up and it was unexpected to the actors.
A Nightmare on Elm Street was the first film to be distributed from New Line Cinema. It also saved the company from going bankrupt, as prior to this movie, it was just a distribution company.
When Johnny Depp is asleep in his room (just before he gets killed) with the T.V. on. The television says, "It is now 12 midnight and this is station KRGR leaving the air." KRGR is Krueger without the vowels.
Robert Englund, who is now famous for playing Freddy Krueger, was actually not the first person to be picked for the role. They wanted a stuntman to play him instead.
The bathtub scene where Nancy is dragged under the tub - the bathtub had a false floor in it for Nancy to lay on and the tub was actually constructed around a swimming pool.
The clothes of Freddy Krueger were based on the clothes of a homeless man that scared Wes Craven as a teenager.
This film was banned in Finland and censored in Germany.
Nancy tries to stay awake so she watches "The Evil Dead", this is in response to Sam Raimi putting a "Hill's Have Eyes" poster in the "Evil Dead".
While running away from Freddy Krueger, and aiming for the front door of her house, Heather Langenkamp (Nancy in the film) cuts her foot. You can tell by how she hops at the door before she opens it.
It takes 4 hours to put all the make up and rubber on for the face of Freddy Krueger.
The firey footsteps that led upstairs were Pyro gel set alight. When it leads upstairs to Freddy set alight, it is stuntman Tony Cecere, who actually specializes in being set on fire.
When Freddy bulges through the wall at the head of Tina's bed whilst Nancy sleeps in it, that is actually Jim Doyle (special effects specialist) standing behind a painted sheet of spandex, then pressing against it.
When Tina is dragged along the ceiling as she is killed. To do this they built the room out of mettle with 3 rotating axis. They just covered the metal with scenery walls, to make it look like a regular bedroom. They bolted the camera, and every piece of furniture to the floor of the room. Nick Corri, who plays her boyfriend was similarly harnessed to the floor. As Tina is dragged across the ceiling the room is upside-down and she is simply rolling around on the ceiling of an upside-down room. Since the camera and Rod are both strapped to the floor of the room it creates the illusion that she is flying around the room.
Freddy's hat is based on the hat of a homeless man that scared Craven as a child. His red and green shirt came from an article Craven had read saying that red and green are the two colors the human eye has the most trouble registering next to each other.
All the boiler room scenes were filmed at Lincoln Heights Jail, which is now a condemned building due to all the pipes being covered with asbestos.
When Nancy runs up the stairs, and steps in the goop, pancake mix is used in the pre-cut holes (visible as a mistake) and the pancake mix was covered with Bisquick and chopped up carpet.
Wes Craven wanted Freddy's makeup to look like most of the flesh has been burned away. Make-up artist David Miller could not take the makeup as far as Wes wanted so they decided to keep Freddy's face obscured in the shadows as much as possible.
The sound of Freddy's knife-fingers scraping across metal was actually produced by scraping a steak knife across the underside of a metal chair.
You may also like: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers | A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 | A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge | The Da Vinci Code | Halloween
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