A Nightmare On Elm Street
Petrifying serial killer Freddy Krueger, who killed his victims in their dreams, is a work of fiction – but the story was inspired by a spate of unusual deaths in the US in the 1970s of young, healthy, South-east Asian refugees.
The immigrants, who had escaped the horrors of their own war-torn countries, were heard screaming and thrashing around in their beds before dying with no medical explanation. By 1981, 20 people had died due to “night terrors”.
It seems they had lived in constant fear of going to sleep, like the children in the 1984 movie and its sequels, and literally died of fright during their dreams.