A Nightmare on Elm Street is arguably writer/director Wes Craven’s most popular creation to date but it was also his hardest to get made. Wes shopped the project around for a couple of years to see it turned down by every studio until Bob Shaye came along. Shaye thought Nightmare would be a good fit for his new company New Line Cinema and he was right. Nightmare ended up putting New Line on the map and is now referred to as the house that Freddy built.
Nightmare was inspired by several articles Craven had read on sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome. The film’s main antagonist Freddy Krueger was inspired by a man that frightened Craven as a child. He appeared to have been badly burned and wore dirty brown hat which has become Krueger’s signature look. Freddy was the name of a boy that used to beat Craven up as a child and the name Krueger was taken from the name Krug which was the lead murderer in Craven’s first horror film The Last House on the Left. The idea of the red and green sweater came from an article Craven had read which stated that red and green side by side were the two hardest colors for the human eye to process. Lastly Freddy’s signature glove came from Craven watching his cat claw the side of his couch on evening.
A Nightmare on Elm Street was shot in 32 days around the Los Angeles area of Southern California. First we begin with the most iconic location from the film as well as the series in general, Nancy’s House.
Located at 1428 Genessee Avenue just off of Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Only the exterior of this location was used in the film. The interiors were all sets built and filmed at the old Desilu Studios in Hollywood. There are POV shots that were filmed from inside the upstairs window looking across the street at Glen’s house but the interior of Nancy’s room was also just a set. I have added several photos of the interior of the real house just so you can see the differences.
Nancy’s Room:
As you can see in the photo the real bedroom has a window just to the left of the head of the bed as well as a closet door where the bedroom door is in the film. You can see that closet door behind Nancy in the shot of her looking out the window of the real house.
The staircase in the film faces the front door and goes from the front of the house towards the rear where in the real house you have to walk in the living room and head to the right and the stairs go from the right of the house to left. There also isn’t a banister at the top of the stairs in the real house like the one Freddy falls over in the film.
The kitchen is also located in a different part of the house than the film. In the film it is in the rear left corner of the house with a door that exits the left side of the house. The real kitchen is in the rear right corner of the house and has a sliding door that exits into the backyard where there is also a swimming pool.
One thing that is odd about the design of the interior sets is that if you look at the front of the house the front door is clearly in the center of the house however when they walk in the front door in the film there is a wall just to the left of the door where half of the house should be. The living room in the real house takes up the entire front of the house from left to right where in the film it is just the front left half of the house.
In 2007 the house was sold by the family that had owned it since the first Elm Street movie was made. The new owners completely gutted the house and refurbished it. At first Elm Street fans were worried that the iconic house would no longer be recognizable after seeing a mere skeleton of a house standing in it’s place in the summer of 2007 but I’m glad to report they brought it back to it’s original look and all is well on Elm Street.
Just before the remodel in 2006.
During the remodel in 2007.
After the remodel in 2008.
Several scenes were also shot on the sidewalk and street in front of the house.
Next we move just across the street to Glen’s house which is located at 1419 Genessee. Again only the exterior of this house was used in the film.
The interior of Glen’s room was a set built in the same rotating room where they built Tina’s room for the beginning of the film. This way they got double their money by using the same upside down room gag twice. Once for when Tina appears to be stuck to the ceiling and once to make the blood gushing out of Glen’s bed appear to be shooting up at the ceiling when actually they just rotated the room upside down and poured it in.
Next we head to the cemetery where they have the funeral for Rod Lane. This is Boyle Heights Evergreen Cemetery located at 204 North Evergreen Avenue in Los Angeles. This is also the same cemetery used in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Finding the exact spot where the funeral took place is difficult. It is behind the mausoleum where Nancy’s is sitting on the stairs in the film, not right behind it but in that general direction. This is also the mausoleum used in the 1983 horror film called Mausoleum.
Next we head over to the 5th Precinct. This is where Nancy’s father worked and Rod Lane met his demise in the prison cell. The exterior of the police department is actually the Public Library located at 4591 Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The interior of the police station and prison cell were all sets.
Next we head over to the high school. This location had me confused for years. The exterior of the high school was clearly John Marshall High School located at 3939 Tracy Street in Los Angeles which has been used in numerous television shows and films such as Grease, Grosse Pointe Blank, Zapped and Pretty in Pink just to name a few.
The thing that had me confused was the school’s interior. When I went inside the school it was clearly different. I thought it could have been remodeled but it just didn’t look like that was the case. If you watch the film Pretty in Pink you will see that it is also the very same interior as in A Nightmare on Elm Street. What are the odds that two completely different films with two completely different location managers would have used the exact same two locations to represent one high school? Well as I learned the odds were pretty good because that is exactly what happened. The interior of the high school was filmed at John Burroughs Junior High School located at 600 South McCadden Place in Los Angeles.
Another confusing thing about this location is the way Craven shot it. The geography Craven created from Nancy getting up from her desk and following the trail of blood to the stairs leading to the boiler room is very different from how it really is. All of these locations are there but in different places. I will do my best to try and explain where everything really is.
Everything is geographically correct until Nancy runs around the corner and bumps into the hall monitor. If you look closely at the picture below you can see stairs to the right where the blood trail leads around the corner. There is no hallway there. In the same photo look past the blood trail and down to the end of the hallway because it is down there where it cuts to when Nancy turns the corner and bumps into the hall monitor.
Here is what is really around that corner.
So now we cut to the other end of the hallway just darkly lit.
When Nancy heads towards the stairs to go down to the boiler room it cuts back to the other end of the hallway again. If you look back to the photo of Nancy first stepping out of the class room you will see two doors behind her with the word AUDITORIUM above them. If you walk towards those doors and go left you will see the stairs leading down to the boiler room.
Of course there is no boiler room at the bottom of those stairs. That is a completely different location all together about a half an hour away in Lincoln Heights. It is the boiler room of the old Lincoln Heights Jail formerly known as the Los Angeles City Jail. It was built in 1931 and changed a bit over the years. By the late 1950's the jail was becoming costly and over-crowded, housing up to 2800 prisoners. In 1958, the county had taken over most of the responsibilities of the entire Los Angeles City jail system. For a time, the Lincoln Heights Jail continued to be used as a drunk tank. It was last used as a jail during the Watts riots in 1965, then formally closed later that same year.
Located at North Avenue 19 in Lincoln Heights today it is still owned by the city of Los Angeles. It is home to the Los Angeles Youth Athletic Club, The Bilingual Foundation for the Arts theater company, and the Aztlan Foundation which provides workshops in Latino art and culture for the community. It is also used quite often for filming in television and movies.
Unfortunately the boiler room isn’t open to the public. You need permission from the city and it has to be a supervised visit. Don’t bother trying to get in there any other way because it is a real prison and was built to keep people from getting out which means it is just as hard to try to get in.
Where Nancy first sees Freddy is located on the first level of the boiler room.
The Spiral staircase goes from the first level directly to the third level. It does not access the second level.
Most of Tina’s chase takes place on the first level but ends on the second.
Just like Nancy did in the film, you must climb the metal ladders to access the second level.
The area where Freddy always seems to trap them is on the second level and like most of the boiler room hasn’t seemed to change a bit in the last 25 years.
The only thing that appears to be different is the pipe next to Nancy’s head on her left I believe was added for the scene where she burns her arm to wake herself up. Notice there is a strap holding that pipe in place. If you look at the picture of me being a geek posing like Nancy you can see that strap is still present and there even appears to be a round mark on the wall where the fake pipe was up against.
Next we head over to the bridge that Glen and Nancy eat their lunch on. This is located in Venice, California near the location used for Tina’s house. The bridge is on Carroll Canal near the corners of Virginia Court and Dell Avenue.
Next we head over to Tina’s house. This was by far the hardest location for me to find in the film and no one I spoke to from Robert England to Wes Craven could remember exactly where it was except that it was somewhere in Venice. The front of Tina’s house is seen very briefly in the film and in close up not giving me much to go on.
People often ask me how I find a lot of these locations and sometimes the filmmakers help me, but a lot of the time it is just watching the film very closely for clues. That is how I found this location and later in this article I will show you just exactly how I found it.
Tina’s house is located at 620 Milwood Avenue in Venice.
The current owners are the same that occupied the house during filming. In fact they told me their daughter was the little girl jumping rope in the film. I was able to go inside the house and it has changed a great deal. They did an addition to the rear of the house extending out into the backyard a bit more. She said they used her living room and an upstairs bedroom for interior filming. The backyard scenes were also filmed at this location although as you can see the backyard has changed a quite a lot.
And believe it or not that spooky alley where Freddy stretches his arms out IS right behind this house exactly as it appears in the movie. It was a clue I found in the alley scene that led me to this location. If you look closely at the picture of Tina standing in the alley you can see a partially covered street sign that reads “d Ct.” So all I had to go on was a Court in Venice that’s name ended with the letter D. Well it turns out that was all I needed. There was only a handful of Courts in Venice and only one that ended in the letter D and that was Milwood Court.
The alley is located at the corner of Milwood Court and Electric Court in Venice.
Well I hope you enjoyed the conclusion to Horror’s Hallowed Grounds look back at A Nightmare on Elms Street. Until next time just remember what ever you do don’t fall asleep!
-
Sean Clark
