A Nightmare on Elm Street is an American supernatural slasher media franchise consisting of nine films, a television series, novels, comic books, and various other media. The franchise began with the film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), written and directed by Wes Craven. The overall plot of the franchise centers around the fictional character Freddy Krueger, the apparition of a former child killer who was burned alive by the vengeful parents of his victims, who returns from the grave to terrorize and kill the teenage residents of the fictional Springwood, Ohio in their dreams. Craven returned to the franchise to co-script the second sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and to write and direct Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). The films collectively grossed $472 million at the box office worldwide.
Freddy Krueger is a fictional character and the antagonist of the A Nightmare on Elm Street horror film franchise. Created by Wes Craven, he made his debut in Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as the malevolent spirit of a child killer who had been burned to death by his victims' parents after evading prison. Krueger goes on to murder his victims in their dreams, causing their deaths in the real world as well. In the dream world, he is a powerful force and seemingly invulnerable. However, whenever Freddy is pulled back into the real world, he has normal human vulnerabilities and can be destroyed. He is commonly identified by his burned, disfigured face, dirty red-and-green-striped sweater and brown fedora, and trademark metal-clawed, brown leather, right hand glove. This glove was the product of Krueger's own imagination, having welded the blades himself before using it to murder many of his victims, both in the real and dream worlds. Over the course of the film series, Freddy has battled several reoccurring survivors including Nancy Thompson and Alice Johnson. The character was consistently portrayed by Robert Englund in the original film series as well as in the television spin-off Freddy's Nightmares. The reboot portrays him as an undead groundskeeper accused of molesting the students.
Robert Barton Englund is an American actor and director. Englund is best known for playing the villain Freddy Krueger in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and Willie in the V television franchise (1983–1985). Englund has received multiple accolades and honors, including a Saturn Award, a Fangoria Chainsaw Award, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Body Double is a 1984 American satirical neo-noir erotic thriller film directed, co-written, and produced by Brian De Palma. It stars Craig Wasson, Gregg Henry, Melanie Griffith and Deborah Shelton. The film is a direct homage to the 1950s films of Alfred Hitchcock, specifically Rear Window, Vertigo and Dial M for Murder, taking plot lines and themes from the first two.
Rollercoaster is a 1977 American disaster-suspense film directed by James Goldstone and starring George Segal, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda and Timothy Bottoms. It was one of the few films to be shown in Sensurround, which used extended-range bass frequencies to give a sense of vibration to the viewers during the coaster rides.
Brooke Bundy is an American film and television actress.
Ghost Story is a 1981 American supernatural horror film directed by John Irvin and starring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson, and Alice Krige. Based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Peter Straub, it follows a group of elderly businessmen in New England who gather to recount their involvement in a woman's death decades prior when one of them suspects her ghost has been haunting him.
Jennifer Collene Rubin is an American actress. A competitive swimmer during her youth, Rubin was discovered by the Ford Modeling Agency and went on to model for Calvin Klein and became Ford International Model of the Year in 1984. She made her film debut as Taryn White in the 1987 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and has since starred in a variety of films including Andrew Fleming's Bad Dreams (1988), Marisa Silver's Permanent Record (1988), Oliver Stone's The Doors (1991), Alan Shapiro's The Crush (1993), Louis Venosta's The Coriolis Effect (1994), Christian Duguay's Screamers (1995), and the 2001 Dogme 95 inspired film Reunion. Outside of film, Rubin has guest starred on a variety of television series such as The Twilight Zone (1987) and Tales from the Crypt (1992). In 2010, Rubin appeared as herself in the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy and has since been also working as a writer, producer & director on her original screenplays.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is a 1987 American fantasy slasher film directed by Chuck Russell in his feature directorial debut. The story was developed by Wes Craven and Bruce Wagner and is the third installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and stars Heather Langenkamp, Patricia Arquette, Larry Fishburne, Priscilla Pointer, Craig Wasson, and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. Nancy Thompson, now a psychiatrist, and Kristen, a patient who can bring others into her own dreams, team up with other kids to launch a daring rescue into the dreamland and save a child from Freddy Krueger.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a 1988 American fantasy slasher film directed by Renny Harlin, and is the fourth installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Serving as a sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), the film follows Freddy Krueger who, following the death of Nancy Thompson and completing his revenge against the families who killed him, reappears in the dreams of Kristen Parker, Joey Crusel, and Roland Kincaid, where he uses Kristen's best friend, Alice Johnson, to gain access to new victims in order to satiate his murderous needs. The Dream Master is often popularly referred to as "the MTV Nightmare" of the franchise.
Henry Silva was an American actor, with a film and television career which spanned fifty years. A prolific character actor in over 140 productions, he was known for his "dark, sepulchral" looks and brooding screen presence that saw him often play criminals, gangsters, or other "tough guys" in crime and action films. He was also closely associated with the "Rat Pack".
Nancy Thompson is a fictional character in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. She first appears in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as a teenager hunted in her dreams by enigmatic serial killer Freddy Krueger. In this film, she was portrayed by Heather Langenkamp—who reprises the role in the sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). Langenkamp later portrayed a fictional version of herself who embodies the role of Nancy in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). A reimagined version of the character, Nancy Holbrook, is portrayed by Rooney Mara in the 2010 remake.
Kristen Parker is a character from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. She is a co-protagonist and final girl of the third film of the series A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and the false protagonist in the following film A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, and has appeared in various merchandise as well. She is played by actress Patricia Arquette in Dream Warriors and Tuesday Knight in The Dream Master. She is the central member of the titular Dream Warriors, seven teens who have to learn to fight as a group in order to survive their spectral tormentor, enigmatic murderer Freddy Krueger, and has the ability to bring others into her dreams as well as being an Olympic-level acrobat in her dreams.
Arthur Hindle is a Canadian actor and director.
Robert W. Tessier was an American actor and stuntman who was best known for playing heavy, menacing characters in films and on television.
Four Friends is a 1981 American comedy-drama film directed by Arthur Penn. The semi-autobiographical screenplay by Steve Tesich follows the path of the title characters from high school to college during the often turbulent 1960s and beyond. The cast features Craig Wasson, Jodi Thelen, Jim Metzler and Glenne Headly.
Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors is a six-issue limited series comic book written by Jeff Katz and James Kuhoric, with drawings by Jason Craig. The series was published by Dynamite Entertainment and DC Comics, with imprint by Wildstorm, beginning in August 2009 and concluding in December 2009. The Nightmare Warriors is a sequel to Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, which was published in 2007 and was itself a sequel to the 2003 film Freddy vs. Jason. The series is a crossover between the A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Evil Dead horror film franchises.
Jacques Adam Haitkin was an American cinematographer. He was best known as the cinematographer for Wes Craven's slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street.
1428 Elm Street, also known as the Elm Street House, is a fictional residential house and street address in Springwood, Ohio, and is an important location in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, where it has been the home of Nancy Thompson and her mother, later Jesse Walsh and his family, and finally Lori Campbell and her father, throughout the film series. It has also been implied to have been Freddy Krueger's home at some point before the events that take place in the films. It appears in some form in nearly all the films, as well as literature, comic books, toys, and music videos. The house, like Freddy Krueger, Nancy Thompson, Tina Gray, and Kristen Parker, were all conceived by Wes Craven.
