Talks of a revival of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” have been circulating the internet since 2015. Even Elijah Wood has thrown his hat into the proverbial ring of possibly rebooting the slasher classic. The continued interest is to be expected considering the 1984 movie’s enduring popularity and status as a genre groundbreaker. Not only did “Nightmare” redefine the horror flick by slanting the storyline toward the supernatural but as Entertainment Weekly stated, it “put New Line on the Hollywood map and gave Robert Englund his iconic slasher role as the child murderer who finds a villainous afterlife by turning up in the bad dreams of his victims.” The film also introduced audiences to Johnny Depp, who, in his very first onscreen role, played crop-top-wearing teen Glen Lantz, boyfriend of the movie’s heroine, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp).
It is director Wes Craven’s daughter who ultimately secured the role for the 21-year-old Depp. As Craven told Vulture in 2014, “The actor who played the coroner [Jeff Levine] came to me and said, ‘I have a friend who’s in town. His name’s Johnny Depp, he’s in a band, and he’s interested in getting into movies.’ He gave me Johnny’s headshot. I read with Johnny, and I remember his fingers were yellow from constantly smoking unfiltered cigarettes, and he was greasy and pale and sickly. My 14-year-old daughter was in from New York with a friend. I took the headshots of the actors I was considering for the role of Heather’s boyfriend, Glen. I put them out on the kitchen table, and asked the girls, ‘Who would you pick?’ They immediately pointed at Johnny. I said, ‘Are you serious?’ He looked like he needed a bath. They both said, ‘He’s beautiful.’” The rest, of course, is history!
And now the residence that served as the actor’s very first movie home, which has been a pilgrimage site for horror enthusiasts ever since the release of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” 37 years ago, has just changed hands after a scant 40 days on the market!
Purported to be at 1419 Elm St. in an unnamed city (later said to be Springwood, Ohio in “Nightmare’s” many sequels), Glen’s residence can actually be found at 1419 N. Genesee Ave. in Los Angeles’ Spaulding Square neighborhood. In real life, it is quite idyllic and most definitely not the stuff nightmares are made of!
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Image Credit: Realtor.com Originally built in 1917, the residence consists of four bedrooms and three baths spread across two stories and 2,714 square feet.
Curb appeal is in no short supply at the property. The charming façade is centered by a stately columned portico surrounded by four sets of French doors. Upstairs, two quaint Juliet balconies overlook the large front patio below.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com The interior, which was thoroughly updated in 2016 and features a classic Colonial center hall floor plan, is awash with bright white walls offset by dark hardwood flooring with most ground-floor rooms open to the backyard.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com The white color scheme continues in the fully modernized kitchen which boasts sleek shaker cabinetry, a breakfast nook, a large L-shaped center island and high-end stainless steel appliances including an immense side-by-side fridge/freezer combo.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com The ground floor is rounded out by a formal dining room with a mahogany sideboard, a living room with a fireplace and a family room.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com All four bedrooms can be found upstairs, including the luxe owners’ suite which contains a walk-in closet and a custom-built bathroom with an oversized shower tiled all in – you guessed it! – white.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com The grassy 0.15-acre lot is made complete by a dining patio and a detached two-car garage that the listing notes can double as “flex space.”
The property initially hit the market this past February with an asking price of $2,795,000 and sold shortly thereafter in early April for $2,835,000 (that’s an incredible $1,045 per square foot, for those counting!). The listing was held by Zach Goldsmith of Hilton & Hyland and the buyer was repped by Marcie Hartley, also of Hilton & Hyland.
Interestingly, no mention of the home’s infamous cameo was included in the marketing information.
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Image Credit: New Line Cinema -
Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Glen’s home pops up several times throughout “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” As depicted in the movie, it is situated across the street from the dwelling where Nancy lives, which can be found at 1428 N. Genesee.
Of choosing to base the horror classic on the leafy block, Craven said in the behind-the-scenes documentary “Never Sleep Again: The Making of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street,’” “There’s a wonderful little street called Genesee that when you pull onto it, it’s like you’re in the midwest. It just has beautiful overarching trees.” The neighborhood is so teeming with idyllic Anywhere, U.S.A. appeal, it had reporter Diane Wedner pondering in a 2008 Los Angeles Times story, “Is it real, or it is a Hollywood set? With Spaulding Square, in the heart of Hollywood, it’s hard to tell.”
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Image Credit: New Line Cinema -
Image Credit: Realtor.com The interior of the home was also featured briefly in “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” though it looks quite a bit different today due to the 2016 remodel.
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Image Credit: New Line Cinema Glen’s bedroom, however, where he ignores Nancy’s warning about not falling asleep and winds up succumbing to a Freddy Krueger nightmare, was a set constructed at Television Center Studios (now Red Studios Hollywood) at 846 N. Cahuenga Blvd. To achieve the effect of Glen being sucked up by his bed and then expelled as a geyser of blood, the set was built to rotate. The unique apparatus actually pulled double duty in the movie. It was also utilized for the filming of the vertigo-inducing death of Nancy’s best friend, Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss). As Robert Englund said in his book “Hollywood Monster,” “Subscribing to the Roger Corman school of getting the most bang for your buck, the revolving room was to be redressed and reused for Johnny Depp’s death scene, the scene in which the Artist Soon to Be Known as Edward Scissorhands is swallowed, then regurgitated by his bed, accompanied by plenty of blood and guts. To get the effect right, the room had to slowly revolve so that gravity would cause the FX blood and guts to explode from Johnny’s bed. To capture the sequence on film, Wes and [cinematographer] Jacques [Haitkin] had to be strapped into bucket seats that had been welded to the ceiling so that they and the camera would remain in a fixed position while the room rotated.”
Per Vulture, 300 gallons of fake blood were required to create the desired effect! The segment almost garnered the film an X rating due to a shot that lingered too long on Glen’s plasma-coated walls. Wes eventually had to cut the scene down (an extended version can be viewed here), but it sure made for a significant inaugural send-off for the young Depp! As noted by the website Ranker, “The character’s final moment is more memorable than any of Freddy’s other slayings even without the extended cut . . . and horror fans from decades past won’t soon forget it.”
Disclaimer: Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.