Own the rights?
As strange as it may seem...yes.Wes Craven states that the film was inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the LA times on a group of Cambodian refugees and their children, who, after fleeing to America from Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, were suffering horrific nightmares, after which they refused to sleep. Acting on medical advice, their parents encouraged them to do so. However, each of the children died in their sleep soon after, following the second dream, although the deaths weren't as elaborate as they are in the film, all the children died from heart attacks.
By Craven's account, he had been bullied at school by a child named Fred Krueger, and named his villain accordingly. (He had done the same in his earlier film The Last House on the Left, where the rapist's name was shortened to 'Krug'). He based Krueger's appearance on another childhood experience in which he had been scared by a homeless man with a very distinctive red-and-green sweater; the same colored sweater he chose for his villain.
Wes Craven's classic was published in the era of VHS in Germany in the unrated version in contrast to the USA. However, all the DVD-editions, which followed worldwide, only contained the R-rated version - which leads to the exasperating result that the current DVD is a shorter version than the old VHS tape. A detailed comparison between both versions can be found here.
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