The back story to Steampunk Freddy

The first horror film I ever watched was A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. I was around 12 years old and I found Freddy fascinating. I quickly became obsessed with him, buying the rest of the films as they were released, looking for news items and articles or interviews. I had a huge poster of Freddy on my wall. I think this fascination was what made me tolerant to horror films in general. It’s a great concept; a child killer (a controversial subject even now) is murdered by a lynch mob consisting of the parents of the kids he killed. They burn him alive. Instead of dying, he makes a deal with a demon and comes back to kill again. Krueger invades people’s dreams and hunts them through malicious games of cat and mouse.

When I first decided to make a steampunk version of Freddy Krueger, I knew I’d have to have a larger back story to him. Throughout the modern day films we find out about his mother and the story of his birth. We discover his fears and hates as well as the true extent of his power.

I’ve twisted the basic story devised by Wes Craven and fitted it more into a British alter ego that would be living in Victorian London.

“Sir Frederick Charles Krueger is a noted child psychiatrist and philanthropist. He spends much of his spare time working and campaigning to free children from a life of hard work. He has a private office and apartment on Elm Street in London, situated just around the corner from the Great Ormond Street Hospital where he does most of his work.

Sir Frederick had been visiting an iron works in the North of England to see how well the children working there were being treated and to try and persuade the owner to introduce an educational program. As he toured the works, he strayed toward a blast furnace and super heated iron splashed on his clothing, setting him on fire.

His eyes are extremely photo sensitive

The resulting burns covered his entire body. His lungs have 85% burn damage from the heat, so he wears a respirator. His eyes have been badly burned and are therefore super sensitive to light. Ironically, he has to wear welding goggles in order to be able to see properly.

His Lungs were so damaged he has to breathing apperatus

As Sir Frederick recovered, he kept in touch with the outside world via newspapers. His heart sank as he read about children committing crimes, killing, begging and stealing. He couldn’t understand why – after everything he’d done and all he’d sacrificed – they wouldn’t try to help themselves. Slowly as the months turned into years and spent his recovery time as a recluse, he went crazy in his own thoughts. He blamed the children for his appearance. Not just the ones at the iron works, but all children. They had to be punished and he was the one that could mete out this justice.

Once capable of walking and moving without too much pain, he went down to his workshop. He collected four cut throat razors and proceeded to weld them to metal tubing that was hammered to shape around each finger. These in turn were attached to a second piece of metal that was then riveted to a plate which slotted over the back of a glove.

As Krueger stalks London, the children hide in fear. When he struggled to find the urchins, he turned his attention to ladies of the street. He found himself in Whitechapel and a couple of his victims were blamed on the Ripper – a person that Krueger admired.

Now he can go anywhere. He invades your dreams and hunts you down.”

“He wears a smart brown Top Hat,

His face is horribly burned.

He has a mask over his mouth and goggles on his eyes,

He has a red and green sweater under a waistcoat and black morning coat.

He has razors on his right hand”