what is the story behind the nightmare on elm street?

Answer 1

Nancy (Langenkamp) is having nightmares, violent nightmares about a mysterious badly burned man with a razor fingered glove on his right hand that calls himself Freddy (Englund), a disfigured serial killer with a glove made of razors on his right hand. He was a janitor at the school and was burned alive by the local parents when it was found out the he abused the children. When she realizes that her friends are having the same nightmares and that one by one they are being brutaly murdered in their sleep she turns to her father (Saxton) who does not believe her and thinks her to be crazy. After she finds out the horrible truth behind Freddy's rampage she decides to take action and bring this dream murderer out of dreamland and into the real world where she can send him straight to where he belongs


Wes Craven states that the film was inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the LA times on a group of Cambodian refugees and their children, who, after fleeing to America from Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, were suffering horrific nightmares, after which they refused to sleep. Acting on medical advice, their parents encouraged them to do so. However, each of the children died in their sleep soon after, following the second dream. After Craven read the articles covering these events, he began writing the film.
Other sources also attribute the inspiration for the movie to be a 1968 student film project made by students of Craven's at Clarkson University. The student film parodied contemporary horror movies, and was filmed along Elm Street in Potsdam, NY.

Perhaps coincidentally, Canadian serial killer Peter Woodcock, who was jailed in 1957 for the murder of three young children in Toronto, officially changed his name to David Michael Krueger in 1982. Woodcock was remanded to a mental hospital, where he committed a fourth murder, and is still incarcerated today.

By Craven's account, he had been bullied at school by a child named Fred Krueger, and named his villain accordingly. (He had done the same in his earlier film The Last House on the Left, where the rapist's name was shortened to 'Krug'). He based Krueger's appearance on another childhood experience in which he had been scared by a homeless man with a very distinctive red-and-green sweater; the same colored sweater he chose for his villain. In addition, it has been stated that Craven had read that those were the two hardest colours to visually process together, which is another reason as to why he chose the respective colored sweater.

Answer 2

I've never seen it but I've heard reviews and stuff it's like these kids who live on Elm Street kill or sometjhign to Freddy then he comes back as supernatural an dtakes revenge on all of the kids

Answer 3

Kruger molests kids.
Kids tell parents.
Parents burn Kruger.
Kruger get back at parents by haunting their children in their dreams. Yes, the same children he must've molested.
It was all very entertaining at the time ;P