iHorror: How we put a child molester on kids lunchboxes

[Jim Burton]

https://ihorror.com/how-freddy-krueger- ... ture-icon/

In Wes Craven’s original concept for A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Freddy Krueger wasn’t just a child murderer. He was a child molester. The film’s backstory explicitly positioned him as a predator who w abused the children of Springwood before the parents burned him alive in vigilante justice.

New Line Cinema made Craven change it. They thought the molestation angle was too dark, too real, too disturbing for audiences. So the theatrical version softened it to “child murderer” instead, still horrifying, but with just enough distance from real-world horror to be palatable.

Even with that change, the first Nightmare on Elm Street is genuinely terrifying. Freddy barely speaks. He’s a malevolent presence stalking teenagers, punishing them for their parents’ sins. When he does talk, it’s creepy whispers and menacing threats. There’s nothing funny about him. He represents every childhood fear made flesh, the monster under the bed, the thing in the closet, the unsafe adult who can hurt you when you’re most vulnerable.

Robert Englund’s performance is unnerving precisely because Freddy feels wrong. Predatory. Sadistic. The kind of thing that gives you nightmares.

[Kierkegaard]

"Child murderer" being a less disturbing, more palatable background for a villain than "child molester" is interesting logic...