A Nightmare On Elm Street Prequel Film With Charles Manson?

With A Nightmare On Elm Street’s remake turning eight years old this time next week, a neat bit of trivia has been discovered in the dark, bleak depths of eBay. Where else?

Fortunately, it has nothing to do with Platinum Dunes’ 2010 reboot, but rather the original 1984 version that has cemented itself firmly in the horror history canon. Starring Robert Englund as the quiet literally nightmarish killer, the movie follows a group of teenagers dying in their sleep at the hands of Freddy Krueger - a burned, knife-fingered child murderer that draws his power from the dream dimension.

It turns out that John Saxon, who plays Nancy’s father Don in the series, turned his hand to scriptwriting in 1987 in the wake of A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors - creating his own treatment for Freddy’s origin story.

The screenplay is set in 1969, during the height of the Manson murder frenzy. Utilising the timeline to his advantage, Saxon penned a film that featured Charles Manson as responsible for the deaths of the children that were pinned on Freddy; ultimately casting the fictional horror villain as a good man all along.

Actual events of the film see Nancy gain a sister, Betsy, a carefree youth caught up in the hippie mentality of the 60s who runs away to a comune. Don brings her home and takes her to a therapist, namely the one and only Frederick Krueger, before her untimely death casts suspicions over his practise. Don kidnaps him, interrogates and tortures him, and finally burns him alive - though Krueger insists he’s innocent until his dying breath.

Turns out, it’s actually the parents’ lack of time for their children that pushes them away from their families and into the arms of the murderous Charles Manson, the real Springwood Slasher. Freddy’s dream antics only serve as his revenge for being wrongfully blamed and unjustly killed, offering a whole new dimension to his character in the process.

Aptly titled How The Nightmare On Elm Street All Began, the screenplay was sold last August on eBay. Whilst the thematic ideas of Freddy being innocent were explored in the 2010 film, none of the Nightmare instalments have been quite so bold as Saxon in his script. That’s not to say there isn’t hope for the franchise to revitalise in the future however, as Lights Out director David F. Sandberg has expressed an interest in continuing the mythos of the infamous villain.

Combining the very real Manson and the very fictitious Freddy would be quite the feat of horror cinema - and with the coming of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, based on the cult leader himself, it’s not something that’s impossible anymore with the taboo being challenged.

Below are some snippets from the pitch package itself: