The film was inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the Los Angeles Times in the 1970s about Southeast Asian refugees, who, after fleeing to the United States because of war and genocide in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, suffered disturbing nightmares and refused to sleep. Some of the men died in their sleep soon after.

Director Wes Craven knew the unseen was far scarier than the seen, which is why Freddy Krueger only has 7 minutes of screen time in the original film.

Tina awakens from a nightmare wherein she is attacked by a disfigured man in decayed clothes who wears a blade-fixed work glove on his right hand. Her mother points out four mysterious slashes on her nightgown.

Craven chose to make Krueger's sweater red and green after reading an article in a 1982 Scientific American that said these two colors were the most clashing colors to the human retina.

The next day, Tina's boyfriend is arrested despite his pleas of innocence.

Nancy dreams about Freddy Krueger who chases her to the boiler room where she is cornered and burns her arm on a pipe.

Krueger kills Rod by wrapping bed sheets around his neck like a noose.

When Nancy's mother takes her to a sleep disorder clinic, Nancy grabs Freddy's fedora and pulls it from the dream into reality.

Wes Craven added the nod to director Sam Raimi because Raimi had previously included a poster of Craven's second film, The Hills Have Eyes, in a scene in The Evil Dead. Raimi eventually returned the favor by hiding Freddy's bladed glove in a scene in a toolshed in Evil Dead II.

During casting, it came down to 21-year-old Depp or another young actor to play Glen. Director Wes Craven asked his teenage daughter which actor he should cast as the heartthrob boyfriend. She chose Depp.