A Nightmare on Elm Street

Dean Russell falls asleep at the Springwood Diner, where his friend Nancy Holbrook works as a waitress. In his dream a burned man in a red and green sweater, with a bladed glove on his right hand, cuts his throat. In the real world it looks like Dean cuts his own throat while Nancy and his girlfriend Kris Fowles watch.

At Dean's funeral Kris sees a photo of herself and Dean as small children, even though she does not remember knowing him before high school. She starts dreaming of the burned man and tries not to sleep. Her ex-boyfriend Jesse Braun stays the night with her. Kris falls asleep and is torn apart in her bed by the burned man. Jesse runs to Nancy's house covered in blood and learns that Nancy has been dreaming about the same man, whose name is Freddy Krueger. Police arrest Jesse for Kris's murder, and Freddy kills him when he falls asleep in his jail cell.

Nancy and her friend Quentin Smith realize none of them can remember each other from before their teens, and they find out they all went to the same preschool. Nancy's mother, Dr. Gwen Holbrook, finally tells them about Fred Krueger, the school's gardener. The children said he hurt them in his 'magic cave', and Nancy was his favorite. Gwen says Krueger left town before he could be arrested. Nancy tracks down the other kids from the class and finds that all of them have died. Only she and Quentin are left.

Quentin falls asleep during swim practice and dreams the truth. The parents, led by his father Alan, hunted Krueger down and burned him alive in a building. Quentin and Nancy confront Alan, who admits it. At first they wonder whether Krueger was innocent and the parents killed him without proof. The long stretch without sleep brings on micro-naps, where they slip into dreams while still awake.

Driving to the preschool, Nancy nods off and is attacked. When Quentin wakes her, she has pulled a piece of Freddy's sweater out of the dream. At the hospital Quentin steals adrenaline and a syringe to keep them awake. At the abandoned preschool they find Krueger's hidden room and photographs that prove he abused the children. Freddy is not after revenge for being wrongly killed. He wants revenge on the kids who told.

Nancy decides to pull Freddy into the real world and kill him. Quentin falls asleep and is attacked too. Freddy tells Nancy he saved her for last so she would stay awake long enough that she could never wake up again. Quentin wakes and gives Nancy a shot of adrenaline, and she drags Freddy out with her. With a broken paper cutter blade she cuts off his gloved hand and slits his throat. Then she sets the room on fire with his body inside.

Nancy comes home from the hospital with her mother, who tells her to get some sleep. As they talk, Freddy appears in the mirror, kills Gwen, and pulls her body through the glass while Nancy screams.

Story notes

• A new group of Springwood teenagers discovers they share childhood connections to Freddy Krueger, who attacks them in their dreams.

Release & Reception

NECA released two Freddy figures and a glove replica in March 2010, and an online game had players keep a girl awake with coffee, cold showers and worse. The film premiered in Hollywood on April 27, 2010 and opened April 30 in 3,332 theaters on about 4,700 screens, the twelfth-widest R-rated opening in the US at the time. That beat Freddy vs. Jason's count by 318 theaters. The 1984 film opened in 165 theaters.

Thursday midnight shows earned $1.6 million from 1,000 theaters, a record for a horror film, and opening day brought about $15 million. It won the weekend with $32,902,299, ahead of How to Train Your Dragon. It fell 72 percent to about $9.1 million in its second weekend, behind Iron Man 2, and left the top ten in its fifth weekend. Box Office Mojo reports $63,075,011 domestic and $115,695,418 worldwide. It opened overseas from May 2010, with about $6.5 million from ten territories in its first weekend and first place in Russia with $3 million.

Its opening weekend alone topped the entire runs of the 1984 film, Freddy's Revenge, The Dream Child and New Nightmare. Among Platinum Dunes remakes, only Friday the 13th had a bigger opening. It is second in North America behind Freddy vs. Jason. Wikipedia's $117.7 million total makes it the top Nightmare film worldwide, but on Box Office Mojo's current numbers Freddy vs. Jason is about $1 million ahead.

Reviews were harsh. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 14 percent from 185 reviews, with a consensus that it lives up to its title in the worst possible way. Metacritic gives it 35 from 25 critics, and CinemaScore audiences gave it a C+. Roger Ebert gave it one star. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave it one and a half stars. The Hollywood Reporter said there was no replacing Englund. Owen Gleiberman gave it a B minus, and Xan Brooks of The Guardian and Richard Corliss of Time were kinder. It still won the People's Choice Award for best horror film on January 5, 2011.

Press and marketing

• Theatrical key-art / poster campaign reference: Warner Bros. online banner campaign — nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com.

Cast

Crew

Production

In 2008 Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes started work on a remake of the 1984 film. Producer Brad Fuller said they would use the approach from their Friday the 13th remake and cut the jokes Freddy had become known for, to make a truly frightening movie. Early on he said they would borrow deaths and dream sequences from the whole series. Director Samuel Bayer later said this remake came straight from the first film. Fuller and Andrew Form called it a reimagining in the style of their 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with a different tone from their Friday the 13th.

Samuel Bayer, a music video director, was hired in February 2009 for his first feature. New Line production chief Toby Emmerich said Bay pushed hard for him because of his seductive, unsettling imagery. Bayer turned the offer down twice and said yes after Bay emailed him about the business opportunity. Wes Craven was not consulted and said in June 2009 that he was unhappy about it. Robert Englund supported the remake and liked the idea of using new technology to exploit the dreamscape.

Wesley Strick got the job because Emmerich liked a prequel script he wrote for Seven. Eric Heisserer then rewrote it, and Bayer said the script still needed tinkering when he joined. Earlier versions had Freddy falsely accused, which would have set up a sequel where he went after the parents. The final film made him a child molester, which Craven had first wanted in 1984. The writers reasoned that if Freddy had killed children, the teens could simply look it up online. Heisserer came up with micro-naps to blur dream and reality. In March 2019 he said he disliked the finished film and described crew members moving dialogue around on set.

The studio first wanted an unknown for Freddy. Emmerich was won over by Jackie Earle Haley's performance in Little Children. Bayer, Form and Fuller watched Haley's Rorschach screen test for Watchmen, which Bayer said blew his mind. Haley was cast in April 2009 and signed for three films. He said fans online had suggested him before his agents were already talking to Fuller. Rooney Mara was also signed for a sequel, and Bayer called her Nancy the loneliest girl in the world. Englund backed the casting and compared Haley's size to a little rabid dog that bites your ankle and holds on.

Principal photography ran from May 5 to July 10, 2009, with a budget of $35 million. The producers chose Illinois because of good experiences making The Amityville Horror and The Unborn there, and because the state gave a 30 percent tax break. They looked for old, decaying places to match Freddy's look. Gary, Indiana hosted work at a church on May 22, 2009, a dream sequence on Elm Street in June, and diner scenes in December. The credits also list Los Angeles and insert units with their own crews.

Warner Bros. suggested a 3D release after recent 3D hits. Form and Fuller fought it, arguing a film not planned in 3D should not be converted, and the studio agreed to release it in 2D. After the opening weekend Platinum Dunes hinted at a 3D sequel that was never made.

Filming locations

• Ryerson Steel warehouse, west side of Chicago, Illinois: Most of the scenes where the parents burn Krueger alive
• Elk Grove High School, Elk Grove Village, Illinois: Springwood school scenes, including the swimming pool; the studio searched nationwide for a school with a pool
• John Hersey High School, Illinois: Springwood school scenes
• Former City Methodist Church, Gary, Indiana: Filmed May 22, 2009; the cut church finale with Quentin and Krueger was set in a ruined church
• Streets of Gary, Indiana: Elm Street dream sequence, June 2009
• Gary, Indiana diner location: Diner scenes, December 2009
• Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles and insert units
• The remake filmed from May 5 to July 10, 2009 primarily in Illinois, using John Hersey High School and Elk Grove High School for school material, the Ryerson Steel warehouse in Chicago for Freddy's burning sequence, and Gary, Indiana locations including City Methodist Church.

Effects and makeup

Andrew Clement designed Freddy's prosthetics from a silicone life cast of Haley. The pieces were glued on from his head down his back and blended together. At first the makeup took six hours. The crew got it down to about three hours and twenty minutes, or close to four and a half hours when the skull cap was needed. Most days Haley skipped the cap because the fedora covered his head. He said he used his frustration in the makeup chair to get into character.

Form and Fuller wanted Freddy to look like a real burn victim. The crew studied reference photos of healed burns, but held back so audiences would not look away every time Freddy appeared. The team that made the digital Two-Face effects for The Dark Knight worked on Freddy's face. CGI was used for areas like his cheek that look burned all the way through.

Haley wore two contact lenses, one bloody and one cloudy. The cloudy lens made it hard for him to see. His voice was partly enhanced digitally to give it a supernatural quality and to set it apart from his Rorschach voice in Watchmen.

Visual effects came from Method Studios, Pixomondo and Digiscope, with Marc Kolbe as visual effects supervisor. Robert Legato directed the Los Angeles and insert second unit. Robert Englund later said the makeup effects were ineffective.

Andrew Clement developed Freddy from a silicone life cast of Jackie Earle Haley, building layered acrylic/silicone prosthetics for the head, neck and hands. Early applications could take up to six hours before the crew reduced the routine to roughly half that time.

The face remained fundamentally practical, with limited digital augmentation used to deepen specific burn cavities that could not be achieved safely with prosthetic thickness alone.

Props and costumes

Costume designer Mari-An Ceo brought back Judy Graham, who knitted the sweaters for the 1984 film, to make the remake's red and green sweaters.

Freddy's fedora started as a brown beaver hat from Optimo Fine Hats in Chicago and was reshaped and aged.

Property master William Dambra and propmaker Joe D. Mack built several gloves from molds of Haley's hand. Mack hammered and welded them out of brass, copper and hardened steel. Besides the hero glove, there was a rubber version for close-up stunt slashing and one that threw sparks.

Propstore sold a template glove Joe D. Mack built after production for a run of replicas. It used parts made for filming that never showed up in the final cut. Only two template gloves were made.

Jessica Sheehy is credited with creating Nancy's artwork.

Costume designer Mari-An Ceo brought original-1984 sweater knitter Judy Graham back to fabricate the remake's red-and-green knitwear, while the fedora was based on a brown beaver hat from Chicago's Optimo Fine Hats and then reshaped/aged for Freddy.

Prop master William Dambra and fabricator Joe Mack developed multiple gloves from molds of Haley's hand. Hero gloves were hand-built from brass, copper and hardened steel with thirty-nine individual pieces, alongside safer rubber/stunt and sparking variants.

Production artifacts

Art and design

• The IMP Awards primary one-sheet credits Ignition and LA for design and Peter Tangen for photography.

Scripts and documents

The killers

Deaths

Steve Jablonsky composed the score, recorded with a 60-piece string section from the Hollywood Studio Symphony and conducted by Nick Glennie-Smith. A 15-voice children's choir sang the main theme. Jablonsky reworked elements of Charles Bernstein's 1984 score. Brad Fuller said the score recalled the 1980s through its synthesizers. About 65 minutes of music was recorded.

WaterTower Music released A Nightmare on Elm Street (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) on April 27, 2010, three days before the film opened. It runs 49:55 over 18 tracks: 'Freddy's Coming for You', 'Main Title', 'Missing Pictures', 'Rufus?', 'Quiet Drive', 'Jesse and Kris', 'Jesse and the Police', 'You Smell Different', 'A Man Named Fred Krueger', 'Research', 'It's Hot in Here', 'The School', 'Where the Monster Lives', 'Wake Me Up', 'Boo', 'Like It Used to Be', 'One More Nap' and 'Jump Rope'. It was sold digitally and as a made-on-demand CD.

Charles Bernstein's original theme and 'Jump Rope' rhyme, The Everly Brothers' 'All I Have to Do Is Dream', and The Hit Crew's 'Un Homme Et Une Femme' are heard in the film. Only 'Jump Rope' is on the album.

Home Media

• October 5, 2010 DVD, Warner Home Video. Its only extra is the featurette 'Freddy Krueger Reborn'.
• October 5, 2010 Blu-ray, Warner Home Video. 1080p, 2.40:1, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Extras: 'Freddy Krueger Reborn', a deleted scene, an alternate opening, an alternate ending, and Maniacal Movie Mode.
• 2010 Limited Edition Blu-ray and DVD combo, Warner Home Video, with a digital copy and a holographic sleeve. Limited combo editions also came out in France, the UK and Japan (2011).
• 2010 Limited Edition Steelbook Blu-ray, Warner Home Video, Germany.
• 2010 UK Blu-ray bundle pairing the original 1984 film with the 2010 remake.
• 2012 Blu-ray Triple Feature, Warner Home Video, with Freddy vs. Jason and Friday the 13th (2009, Killer Cut).
• Other DVDs include Germany (2010), the UK (2010), Japan (2011) and Russia (2011, Central Partnership Digital / Universal Pictures Russia), plus a Canadian Blu-ray (2010).

• A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Freddy Krueger figures, NECA, March 2010: a pre-burn Fred Krueger with Jackie Earle Haley's likeness and a burned Freddy.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Freddy Glove prop replica, NECA, a distressed glove with riveted metal parts and a display mannequin hand. Now discontinued.
• Official online game released with the film, where players keep a girl awake to protect her from Freddy.
• Soundtrack album, WaterTower Music, April 27, 2010.
• Dead by Daylight's A Nightmare on Elm Street chapter adds The Nightmare (Freddy), survivor Quentin Smith and the Springwood/Badham Preschool map, based on the remake's version of the characters.
• NECA A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Freddy Glove prop replica.

Replica props and masks

The catalog

Trailers & clips

Gallery

Posters & Key Art

Film Stills

Behind the Scenes

Press & Promo

Effects

Props

Costumes