Freddy Krueger, the vicious, dream-slashing villain from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, has more than earned his spot among the horror genre’s most brutal icons. Even before he reached the peak of his paranormal powers, Krueger was a vicious child killer, one who managed to squirm out of a jail sentence because of a technicality. This, as fans of the original film know, led the parents to take matters into their own hands.
It’s not as if Wes Craven’s pinnacle 1984 film hadn’t already made the character into one of the most horrific of all time. But as it turns out, the director’s original vision made Krueger’s origin much, much worse.
Those details can be viewed in the deleted scene up above. As you’ll notice, most of it actually did find a place in the movie, as we see heroine Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) confront her mother (Ronee Blakley) about Krueger in their basement. This is when her mom informs Nancy that the man hunting her in her dreams was a real-life serial killer, whose knives Mrs. Thompson has kept as a memento.
We all recognize this scene, but one noticeably different detail (which is revealed around 1:25 in the clip) is added to it which gives Kruger’s horrid acts a much deeper connection to Nancy. Apparently, she wasn’t always an only child; in fact, neither were her friends Glen, Rod, nor Tina. Freddy had actually killed all of their brothers and sisters, a fact none of them seem to have known.
It’s easy to wonder why Wes Craven chose to cut out this bombshell of a fact. Maybe it was too easy of a connection, too foreseeable for horror gurus that would detract from the random callousness of Kruger’s deeds. In any case, it’s not like anyone can say that A Nightmare on Elm Street failed without this detail; with several sequels and spinoffs, it’s become one of the greatest and most extensive horror franchises in film history.