Was Freddy Also a Child Molester???

Posted on: June/1/1999 12:01 AM

Excerpt from Screams & Nightmares: The Films of Wes Craven.

Although it was suggested in the original series, the official answer: no.

Robert Englund recalls: “Wes wrote the most evil, corrupt thing he could think of. Originally, that meant Freddy was a child molester. Right while we were shooting the fist Nightmare, there was a huge scandal based around an area of single parent yuppies in California known as South Bay. Child molesters had descended on this unsupervised flotsam of seventies leftover Me-generation American children. On the spot we changed the script from child molester to child murderer, mainly so Wes wouldn’t be accused of exploiting the South Bay case.”

Child molestation is a driving plot point in Platinum Dunes’ remake of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. Their version of Freddy Krueger is different than the one presented in the original series and his motivations mirror what Wes Craven initially conceived for the character.