How A Nightmare on Elm Street influenced Twin Peaks

Perhaps it’s sacrilegious to suggest that Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street had a deep and lasting influence on Twin Peaks. Today, Twin Peaks is regarded as a fairly classy show—prestige TV before the current era of prestige TV— whereas A Nightmare on Elm Street is decidedly less classy, partly due to the fact that it was followed by a string of increasingly campy sequels. But when you stop and consider the two works in relation to one another, you find numerous similarities.

For starters, like much of Twin Peaks, the original Nightmare on Elm Street focuses on the friendship between two high school girls. Blond, tempestuous Tina resembles Twin Peaks’ Laura Palmer, being free-spirited and sexually active with her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Rod…

…whereas brunette Nancy Thompson resembles Donna Hayward, demure and virginal despite the advances of her own boyfriend, Glen (played by none other than Johnny Depp).