10 Ripped Off Characters Movies Didn't Even Try To Hide

When you hear the phrase “semi-supernatural slasher in which some form of campy demonic entity uses the wildest dreams of teens to ensnare and murder them one-by-one in creative ways”, it’s pretty clear who we’re talking about. Any horror fan worth their salt will know we mean the Wishmaster, a powerful djinn whose presence is felt throughout the history of fantasy-slasher hybrids.

What’s that? The Wishmaster wasn’t your first thought? Was it by any chance Robert Englund’s incredibly famous icon of horror Freddy Krueger, the star of genre stalwart Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street series who’s infamous enough to have been parodied in everything from Rick and Morty to The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror series?

Well, much as it may shock you to learn this, most cinemagoers actually thought of Freddy when they first saw the djinn’s grinning, punning debut on the big screen in 1997. This may be due to executive producer Wes Craven’s influence, or Robert Englund’s own cameo in the first flick as an antiques collector.

But, it’s more likely due to the fact that the djinn is a more shameless rip-off of Freddy Krueger than Scary Terry. Despite the character’s transparent origins, he did go on to star in a franchise of his own, though the djinn could never hope to escape the shadow of his nightmarish inspiration.