Craven was connected to Shaye via Jack Sholder, who would eventually direct “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.” Shaye resonated with the material and, ultimately, became the man to take a chance on Craven’s wild idea. As Shaye explained in the Vulture piece:
“I went to L.A. for a fact-finding trip and contacted Wes. He told me the story — I thought it was a fantastic, because everybody has nightmares. I got pretty excited, but he wouldn’t send me the script. Little did I know, everybody else in Hollywood had already passed.”
Indeed, every studio in town passed on “Elm Street.” Disney showed some interest, but it wanted to make the film PG-13, among other changes. Luckily, Shaye signed on and it was off to the races. Langenkamp, then a newcomer, was brought on to play Nancy, while Depp (another newcomer at the time) signed on to play her boyfriend, Glen. Despite having a monster career in the decades that followed, “Nightmare” remains one of Depp’s most critically-beloved movies, interestingly enough.
As for Freddy Krueger, the killer of “Elm Street” was inspired by someone from Craven’s own life as a child. When interviewed for the documentary “Never Sleep Again,” the filmmaker described the encounter he’d had with a strange man in his youth and how it ultimately birthed an icon of the horror genre:
“I think [he] was a drunk, walking down the street. He just somehow knew I was there, and he stopped and he looked [wide-eyed] right at me and just held that. It scared the s**t out of me.”
That stuck with Craven and, even down to the man’s fedora, it inspired who we now know as Freddy. Working man’s actor Robert Englund (“V”) was cast to take on the role of Freddy, even though he had only briefly dabbled in horror thanks to a role in Tobe Hooper’s “Eaten Alive.” In a 2023 interview with /Film, Englund explained:
“I was a huge horror fan as a child. It’s not that I outgrew it, I just became other things. I became a classically trained theater actor and I was a little bit full of myself for a while and I kind of pushed that in the back of my mind, but I think with me, I think it’s kind of just the luck of aging. Freddy was only my second horror film.”
Englund proved to be the secret sauce, as his portrayal of Freddy was front-and-center in the marketing. Along with Craven’s original story and deft skill behind the camera, it all gelled together, allowing New Line’s risky investment to pay off handsomely.
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