A Nightmare on Elm Street

[CHILDREN LAUGHING AND CHATTERING]

A Nightmare on Elm Street was a title...

...that we always wanted to be involved with.

I think for Michael, Andrew and myself, it's kind of the jewel in the horror crown.

It was a title that we were pursuing for a long time.

And even after the success of Friday the 13th...

...we still were not able to lock it down, and it took a lot of convincing.

We started the begging process for A Nightmare on Elm Street...

...which is a movie I grew up on, and it scared the hell out of me as a child.

Absolutely, Freddy Krueger is a big part of what made those films successful.

But the other thing that was so exciting for us about this movie...

...is the concept of "if you sleep, you die" is as clear a concept as you can have.

And growing up, I always thought if I died in my dreams that I would actually die.

And that didn't come from hearing it on the news.

That came from the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

I think true horror is psychological.

And so there's a tone that we're trying to reach with this.

It's like, yeah, Freddy is a scary son of a bitch.

But it's the feeling and it's the vibe of:

"Can somebody actually kill you in your dreams?"

And if I can make people believe that, then we've succeeded.

In the screenplay, the movie opened at a party scene at Dean's house...

...where we brought all of our leads together...

...and introduced the characters in a seven-minute sequence.

It all took place at the house with Dean dying at the end, at the party.

We shot the scene, cut the movie together...

...and after showing the movie to an audience and really watching it closely...

...we figured that it was the wrong tone for the movie...

...to open at a big, fun party scene.

Something that we had always battled with was:

"When do you show Freddy Krueger in this movie?

How early is too early? And should we open with a nightmare?"

In the original development, we decided to not open with a nightmare.

And we decided to hold Freddy back.

I think after watching the movie and seeing it with an audience, we realized:

"You know what? Let's open with a nightmare.

Let's set the tone right off the bat on what you're here to see.

You open with a nightmare...

...Freddy Krueger's in the movie 30 seconds into this movie...

...and this is what you're here for."

When we shot the party scene, everything felt great.

We have a great stunt where Dean goes over the balcony through a glass atrium...

...the glass cutting him to shreds.

It all seemed to be working great.

In the screenplay, it felt like it was working great when you read it.

So we didn't know until the movie was put together and you watch it as a whole.

Then you realize, "We're not starting this movie the right way."

The first six minutes of the movie is the entire setup.

And we sat down with the studio and everyone agreed:

"Know what? Let's open this movie in a nightmare.

Let's open with Dean in a nightmare. Where are we gonna do that?"

We just start batting ideas around and we end up in the Springwood Diner.

What a great location.

And then we take Nancy, we give her a job. She's the waitress at the diner.

And then you start building the sequence and now you have this in the movie.

I'll tell you, Kellan Lutz, when he heard we were redoing the opening...

...he decided not to sleep for a couple of days...

...because he knew this was his sequence, he was gonna die at the end...

...and he had to be tired.

And let me tell you, he brought it and it was an amazing thing.

In working on this and trying to develop this character...

...you know, Sam first sent me a copy of Nosferatu...

...and a bunch of information on serial killers.

So I watched that old vampire movie. It was just a great thing to watch.

And then I started really poking through and learning about serial killers.

And I started to kind of go down this very serious road with Freddy...

...in terms of the research.

And I started to key into Ed Kemper.

And as I was doing this research, I ended up on a website telling me that:

"Wow, they made a movie on Ed Kemper."

So I kind of went to YouTube, looked it up...

...and I found the trailer to this movie, and it was a slasher movie...

...and it pissed me off.

And that's when I realized, I'm not playing a serial killer.

And I didn't need to go to that depth of research with this character.

So I immediately kind of pulled back.

And I started to focus on the bogeyman aspect of this guy.

And in terms of, like, what made this guy tick and the bogeyman aspect...

...that's where I'm kind of coming from.

Trying to be true to who Freddy Krueger is.

Trying to be true to that bogeyman aspect...

...but yet still bring a little bit of reality and realism to his back-story...

...and what turned him into this.

So it's kind of this cool little hybrid.

But it was very freeing for me when I realized, "Man, we're playing a bogeyman."

This is the guy that he's just your worst nightmare.

He's the guy that-- You know, he's the main point of focus in a campfire story.

And that to me is what Nightmare on Elm Street is.

There are things about Freddy that are iconic that you have to address right off the bat.

You gotta address his hand, gotta address the sweater...

...and you have to address his face. And the fedora, really.

When you start this process, you wanna make it your own.

So you go in a lot of different directions and investigate them.

I mean, we had a lot of bad ideas that I don't wanna tell you about...

...but we never put him in a cowboy hat and boots.

There was a lot of shredding involved in some of the earlier drawings...

...but we realized that it would require a T-shirt underneath.

And you know, concerns about prosthetics and stuff, and it wasn't just--

It becomes a homeless guy, so we changed it from that.

And we were gonna do different things, images or something maybe on the inside.

Maybe it would be more-- Again, it would be like the--

You know, some of the nightmares would be inside the jacket.

We were gonna, you know, get really into it.

We were lighting up the greens.

These are color stripes we were looking at. This is sort of like an overcoat.

And up here, this was different, you know, for fabrics.

There's swatches and textures.

We tried to have stuff that had more texture to it.

I think, mostly in the past, a lot of it was really flat.

We did wanna exaggerate it at one time...

...which would have been more of this kind of stuff, which was just to--

This was gonna be this red leather that's been modeled up here...

...coat that would've had burn marks and everything.

I just put the green and red stripe at that point because we hadn't gotten into it...

...but there was gonna be different images back here on the coat.

And that was more of the Nosferatu type of look.

He would have the coat maybe on just for a little bit.

And this was just an idea. This was the lining of the coat.

These were skulls. That's to give them an idea of what we could do.

Then we were gonna dye it colors.

We had the gray hat, which originally was the hat that they had wanted.

It was a gray hat. We ended up switching it at the last minute.

We began going through my childhood...

...and that's when they started.

When what started?

These nightmares.

Nightmares.

So, what, you can't sleep?

I can sleep.

I just don't want to.

Okay, Dean, listen to me.

They're just dreams. Okay? They're not real.

These dreams...

...they're real.

They're not.

They're re-- I'm sorry, Kris.

- No, it's okay. - Kris.

No, no. It's fine. I'm gonna go clean myself off.

It's okay. It's okay.

Doing the prosthetics took about two hours and it was just really cool.

It was my first, like, slicing-of-the-throat prosthetic that I got to wear.

So it's kind of cool just doing it.

We had great FX guys, and they really talked to us all:

"Let's do this right. We only have, like, one or two takes with this.

This is what has to happen."

So with great communication, we were able to nail the scene.

And for myself, I love doing stunts. You know, I know this isn't a crazy stunt...

...but envisioning a knife there, you know, without the blade.

They're gonna have the real knife blade CGI'd or put back in there.

So it's just, you know, hitting yourself.

It's just for the effect.

When you feel it, it kind of helps as an actor.

When you're doing it, you get that surprised "shit, that hurt" feeling.

Tragedy can shake us at our core...

...and it can also unite us in our shared grief.

Today we are gathered and united...

...for the tragic loss of a young man with so much life ahead of him.

Let us pray.

Lord, you who can turn the shadow of death...

...into the light of a new day...

...as we gather to commend Dean into your hands...

...help us to wait upon thee with penitent hearts...

...and remind us of he who died that we might live.

--and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Amen. - Come on, sweetie. It's over.

Yeah.

Let's go say hi.

- Gwen. Hi, how are you? - Alan, hi.

- It's been a long time. - Yeah, yeah.

- Especially under these circumstances. Yeah, not a...

You know, Nance, if you need someone to talk to...

I'm okay. Thank you.

We're setting up a crisis center at the school.

- You know where my office is, right, Nancy? Yeah.

We're gonna head out. Take care. - Good to see you.

Bye-bye, Quentin.

You knew Dean that far back?

Jesus, that is me. But I don't know how I'm in that picture.

I didn't meet Dean until high school.

Come on.

- Dean said something right before he died. - Oh, please don't.

He said, "You're not real."

He kept repeating it over and over again.

Do you have any idea what that means?

No. I don't.

Think about it. What would it mean? Dean was on a load of medication when--

Jesse.

When it happened, it was like somebody was making him do it...

...but there was nobody there.

Jesse, you have to believe me.

Kris, it was late and you were scared. Your mind was just playing tricks on you...

- ...that's all. - I believe you.

You do?

I've seen...

- I saw-- - You didn't see anything.

You weren't right there. Kris was.

She's already fucked up, so leave her alone.

You have no idea what I've seen.

Let's go home.

Sam and Andrew Clement really got into the logistics...