Freddy Kreuger and 40 Years of Nightmares

When “A Nightmare on Elm Street” hit theaters 40 years ago this month, few would have predicted a pop culture phenomenon in the making. Yet it would become one of 1984’s most profitable pictures and spur a lucrative franchise.

The success of the series was due primarily to two factors. The first was the thoughtful approach Wes Craven, a humanities professor-turned-filmmaker, took to the material, drawing inspiration from the terrifying stories of Southeast Asian refugees in America who died in their sleep under mysterious circumstances in the 1980s. He fused those stories with the contemporaneous satanic panic and accusations of widespread child molestation to create the character of Fred Krueger, a high-school janitor accused of sexually abusing several children in the small town of Springwood, Ohio. After the man was freed on a technicality, the parents of Springwood took the law into their own hands, burning Krueger alive. A decade later, the undead Freddy haunts the nightmares of Springwood’s teens, murdering them in their dreams.

“Nightmare” is a film of genuine fear, dread and menace in which Craven effectively contrasts the pure Americana of the daytime sequences — picturesque houses, tree-lined streets, chirping birds — with the darkness of Freddy’s gruesome deeds. He’s tapping into universal fears, beyond even those of his slasher-movie brethren; not all of us have been stalked by a masked killer while babysitting or fooling around with a fellow camp counselor, but we all sleep, and dream and have nightmares.

The second key to the success of the “Nightmare” films was Robert Englund, the classically trained actor who played Krueger — referred to as Fred in the original film, but by the cuddlier Freddy as the series continued. Each installment brought in new protagonists, new actors, new writers and new directors, who fleshed out the character (pardon the pun) with new dimensions and a broadened back story. He would evolve — if that’s the proper description — from the menacing, murderous abuser of the initial entry to a rakish antihero. By the fourth film, he was like an Arnold Schwarzenegger character of the era, spouting groan-inducing quips at his victims (“No pain, no gain!” he would taunt a weight lifter he was torturing) in films that were as silly as they were scary.

Freddy was a ubiquitous pop culture presence. He was mentioned in speeches by President Ronald Reagan, featured in pop songs, video games and a “Freddy’s Nightmares” anthology television series, and feverishly merchandised in products including children’s toys and pajamas, odd branding for a character accused of being a pedophile. Englund was among the last names in the credits for the first film; by the fourth, he was billed above the title. As the series progressed, the actor would contemplate the social implications of the character. “It’s a warning of the future,” he told Newsday in 1989. “It’s a fable. It’s the Ballad of Freddy Krueger. I am the ghost story of the late ’80s.”