20 Things You Didn’t Know About The Nightmare On Elm Street Franchise

20. The Original Film Was Based (Loosely) On A True Story

If you were terrified of A Nightmare On Elm Street but convinced yourself it was unrealistic and could never happen, here’s some bad news: the film was actually inspired by a real life, equally horrifying case.

In the early 1980s, director Wes Craven read a series of L.A. Times articles about a group of healthy young people in South East Asia suddenly being found dead in their sleep. In one case, a 21-year-old man stayed awake for seven straight days to avoid his nightmares: when he finally fell asleep to the relief of his family, he was heard screaming and by the time he was reached, he'd died.

When the autopsy was performed, the coroners couldn’t explain what had happened. This phenomenon is now called Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS), and there have been thousands of reported cases over the years. 

Wes Craven, being the creative horror nut that he was, imagined what would lead someone to stay up for days to avoid nightmares. Naturally, his answer was that a burn victim with knives on his gloves chases teenagers around and tries to kill them, and the concept of Freddy was born.