Freddy Krueger Was Inspired By A Frightening Stranger From Wes Craven's Real Life
My confession: I was a late bloomer to loving horror movies. Well, ok, I've been drawn to art and stories that scare me since I can remember, but it was only in high school that my curiosity started to overpower my fear (that and I discovered ways to access movies without my parents). Even so, it took me until October 2017, my first spooky season in college, to finally watch the classic "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
Why did I take so long? I'd heard of the movie before and I knew who Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) was. I'd seen "The Simpsons" parody in "Treehouse of Horror VI" ("Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace") and understood what it was referencing. I even knew the lyrics of the ghostly killer's theme song ("One, Two, Freddy's Coming for You"). Shouldn't "Nightmare" have been a priority for me?
Yet, as a budding cinephile in the early 2000s, I spent as much time digesting IMDb trivia as I did honestly watching movies. I'd read a lot about "Nightmare On Elm Street," from the major story beats to behind-the-scenes facts, and hadn't yet realized what a poor substitute that was for experiencing it, terror and all.
Still, one thing I read stuck in my craw as much as anything in the "Nightmare" films eventually did. It was an episode from director Wes Craven's childhood, where he encountered a man who'd live in his nightmares like Freddy lives in ours.
The real Freddy Krueger
Craven recounted his memories of this incident several times, including for the documentary, "Never Sleep Again: The Making of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street.'" One night, when he was a kid growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, he looked down from his apartment window and saw a man walking down the street wearing a fedora hat (which would inspire Freddy's own choice of headwear).
"I think [he] was a drunk, walking down the street," Craven recalled. "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 sh*t out of me."
The story doesn't end there, for more is recounted in the book "Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy," by Thommy Hutson. After young Craven noticed the man looking at him, he ducked away from the window, hoping the man would leave. When he went back for a peek, the man was still there, staring up at him. When he did move, it was towards the apartment building's entrance. Craven heard him coming up the stairs, so his older brother got a baseball bat. When his brother ran out, the man was gone, never to be heard from again by the Craven clan.
Creepy story, right? Both for what happened and the lingering mystery. Who was this man? What was he planning to do? Was he just a cruel trickster or something more sinister? We'll never know, just like Craven didn't, but this story is proof that some bumps in the night are all too human.
Craven's influences for creating Freddy don't end there; the concept of a "dream killer" came from a child who died in his sleep. Freddy's first name? That came from Craven's childhood bully. Still, that Craven remembered this encounter for so many years speaks to how potent and terrifying it must have been.