A Nightmare on Elm Street is widely regarded as a cult classic, but the chilling real-life stories that inspired it are just as haunting.
The 1984 release of A Nightmare on Elm Street marked its 40th anniversary this year. Without it, director Wes Craven might not have created the Scream franchise or Red Eye.
For those unfamiliar, A Nightmare on Elm Street centers on a group of teenagers tormented in their dreams by Freddy Krueger, a disfigured man armed with a bladed glove and a penchant for wisecracks.
The terrifying twist is that if Freddy catches them while they sleep, they die in real life, leaving them with the daunting choice of staying awake or facing a gruesome death.
This unexpected hit led to the creation of nine sequels, comic books, TV shows, and appearances in numerous video games over the years.
Although the film might not seem as intense by today’s standards, in the 80s, it was a groundbreaking scare that inspired imitations and parodies for years to follow.
What’s even more unsettling is that the film was based on a real-life phenomenon.
While there wasn’t an actual bladed-claw serial killer haunting teenagers, there was a period in Los Angeles when mysterious deaths of young men raised concerns.
In a TV interview, Craven discussed his inspirations for the script, revealing that in the 1970s, he came across a newspaper article about a young Cambodian man who fled to the US after experiencing war and genocide, which left him with terrifying nightmares.
The director explained (via Metro): “His father was a physician and had given him sleeping pills, and the kid supposedly was taking them.
“They had come out of Southeast Asia from a camp, so the family just assumed that he had been traumatized.
“He said ‘No, no, it’s different. There’s something stalking me in my dream. I don’t want to sleep.’ And he actually kept himself awake.”
Eventually, the man did fall asleep, much to his family’s relief. However, soon after being put to bed, they heard ‘screaming and thrashing’ coming from his room.
“They ran into his room, and he was just screaming, kicking in his bed, and then he fell silent, and he was dead.” Craven said. “He hadn’t taken any of sleeping pills. It was so dramatic. It was like, holy s***.
“This guy knew he was going to die if he slept. And you have to sleep, whatever you do. How terrifying.”
According to Craven, this incident became the ‘central line of Nightmare on Elm Street’, as reported by Vulture.
Alarmingly, this was not an isolated case, as numerous reports of Southeast Asian refugees in the US mysteriously dying in their sleep emerged at the time, Metro further reports.
The phenomenon was eventually identified as sudden unexplained death syndrome (SUDS), predominantly affecting Asian men during sleep, with postmortem examinations often failing to determine a cause of death, according to the National Library of Medicine.