Origins of the Nightmare... (paraphrased from the special edition Nightmare Encyclopedia DVD)

The nightmare series was based on a true story. There was an article in the LA Times... late 70's. One kid's nightmares had grown so intense, he had told his family it didn't feel normal. He had decided at some point to stay awake and not go to sleep.. he constantly drank coffee in an effort to stay awake. Finally one day his family found him sleeping on the couch, so the father brought him to his room to sleep. Later they heard screams and thrashing in the night... the kid had died in the middle of a nightmare.

Origins of Freddy...

When Wes was a kid... he heard someone outside his apartment. He looked and saw this man. The man stopped and looked directly at him. Wes backed away from the window, but the man stood his ground. Wes waited for a while and went back to the window... the man was still there watching. The man finally continued walking... then turned the corner and went to the front door of the building.. Wes heard the door open and woke up everyone in the building in fright of this man. By the time people got downstairs, the man was gone. This was where Wes came up with the essence of Freddy.

Freddy's Story

This is all just based on little tidbits I picked up from watching the movies... I know there's a book out there that probably has the whole real backstory... and the upcoming Nightmare prequel will probably fill in all the blanks, but for now, this is how I've always invisioned his story based on the movies...

Back in the 40's, there was a phsycho ward for the worst of the criminally insane at Westin Hills. One hundred maniacs were kept there. Before leaving for the holidays, the guards did a count of the maniacs, left the ward and locked it down. Unbeknownst to them, one of the resident nuns was trapped with the maniacs over the holidays. Her name was Amanda Krueger. She was raped hundreds of times. She was later found barely alive... and with child. That child of course was Freddy Krueger... the bastard son of a hundred maniacs. Amanda spent the rest of her life in the Asylum. What happened to Freddy from there, I'm not quite sure.

Not much is known of his upbringing. There was a scene in 'Freddy's Dead' where they show young Freddy showing his first signs of the psychotic when he took a mallet and smashed the class pet into mush... all the while the rest of class teased him, calling him the 'son of a hundred maniacs.'

At some point, Freddy was brought up by an abusive step-father who consistantly gave Freddy his 'medicine' by whipping him with a leather belt. Eventually Freddy went on to abuse himself... cutting himself to the point where he just stopped feeling pain altogether.

Later in his life, Freddy got married. His wife (Loretta) and he had a daughter... Katherine Krueger. At some point after that, Freddy constructed knived gloves for his soon to come killing spree. He would wait in dark alleys as school got out and kidnap children. Some he took to a boiler room at the power plant he worked at to kill them... some to his own boiler room in his basement at home.

I'd estimate some years later... Katherine was about 6-9 years old I guess at the time. Loretta was snooping in the basement and found Freddy's boiler room filled with bloody knived claws and newspaper articles about missing/murdered children in the town of Springwood. She ran out to the yard where Freddy was playing with Katherine and screamed. Freddy told Katherine to go inside. She got as far as the door when she witnessed Freddy strangle her mother to death. Now this is just speculation, but I think Katherine was questioned by police if she knew what happened to Loretta... she told and was immediately placed in an orphanage until she was later adopted. In the meantime, a warrant was made out for Freddy's arrest.

It was the biggest and most infamous trial in Springwood. The 'Springwood Slasher' was caught and tried. Unfortunately, someone forgot to sign the search warrant in the right place and he was freed on a complication. A bunch of residents from Elm Street tracked Freddy down and took justice into their own hands, torching him to death. It was there, as his body began to burn and he himself was dieing that the dream demons gave him the power to blur the line between dreams and reality.

After the fire, the charred remains of Freddy were taken to an old junkyard and placed in the trunk of a car. And that was the end of Freddy Krueger's reign of terror... or so it was thought.

Years later, the children of those who torched Freddy began having nightmares about Freddy. And that's where the original 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' picks up and tells the tale...