This was Johnny Depp's first movie.
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When Nancy is running up the stairs in her house to escape Freddy for the first time her foot hits the steps and go through the steps into some goop. Look at the steps above that step and you can see the pre-cut holes where the next sets of goop will be. See more...
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - 21 trivia entries
Directed by Wes Craven, starring Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Johnny Depp, Charles Fleischer (add more)
This was Johnny Depp's first movie.
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.
Wes Craven named Freddy Krueger after a bully who tortured him in school.
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 clothes of Freddy Krueger were based on the clothes of a homeless man that scared Wes Craven as a teenager.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
It takes 4 hours to put all the make up and rubber on for the face of Freddy Krueger.
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.
The lamb that appears in the film could not be persuaded to run across the corridor, so it got a hefty kick up the backside. Poor lamb...
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.
A Jason hockey mask can be seen on the shelf in the room Nancy is trying to sleep in.
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