How to Make a Freddy Krueger Costume

Guide Note

Freddy Krueger has been an icon of horror movies and Halloween ever since he invaded our nightmares in the first Nightmare on Elm Street film in 1984. If you would like to create your own Freddy costume without spending a lot of money, then this page will guide you on how to do it.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• The Red and Green Sweater
• The Brown Fedora.
• Freddy Krueger's Burned Complexion
• Freddy Krueger's Glove
• Conclusion
• References

Freddy Krueger Tips

1. Freddy Krueger is known for wearing a red and green striped sweater.
2. Krueger also wears a brown fedora over a bald head.
3. His face is badly burned from the fire that killed him.
4. He is best known for the glove that has four blades attached to it that he wears on his right hand.
5. Robert Englund has portrayed Freddy Krueger in all of the movies.

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Introduction

• Freddy Krueger is the fictional serial killer from the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. According to a legend in the movie, Freddy was a child murderer known as the Springwood Slasher in the early 1960s who managed to escape prosecution due to a technicality. As a result, the outraged parents of Springwood followed Krueger back to an abandoned boiler room and set the place on fire, burning Freddy alive as their own form of justice.¹ As a result, Freddy now stalks their children in their dreams.

• Freddy is known best for four things:
  1. His red and green sweater.
  2. His old brown fedora.
  3. A burned complexion.
  4. The glove with four metallic talons he always wore on his right hand.

• A Freddy Krueger costume must have these four items. This article will discuss how to make all four of these items out of ordinary household materials.

The Red and Green Sweater

• 

  (Creative Commons photo by Andy)
  Amazingly, although Freddie's face burned in the fire, his red and green striped sweater has always been unsinged and remarkably blood free. However, finding such a sweater for you costume can be a little tricky (although some costume stores do sell them), which is why you will most likely need to make one. Here's how to do it:

1. Start with a red sweater. If you cannot find one, try to find a light colored sweater and dye it red or use a red sweatshirt.
2. Cover large horizontal stripes on the sweater with masking tape. The tape will help make clean lines.
3. Using fabric paint, dye the uncovered areas green.² Since you are coloring over red, use a lighter shade of green.

• Another method of coloring a red sweater uses duct tape and green spray paint. Duct tape stripes onto the sweater and then spray paint the rest of it.³ If you have a red sweater that you don't want to permanently color, get a roll of green duct tape and simply tape stripes onto it. If you're really desperate, you can use a combination of red and green duct tape and make a Freddy sweater out any color shirt.

How to Make the Brown Fedora

• Unless you're recycling an Indiana Jones costume, you probably don't a fedora lying around. Therefore, you have two options, either to make one or to purchase one. Quality fedoras can be expensive and it may be more within your budget to simply buy a cheap black fedora and color it with brown pastel chalk.³

(Creative Commons photo by Owen Blacker)

Make Your Own Fedora

• The Costumer's Manifesto provides an excellent, step-by-step guide on how you can make your own fedora out of wool felt.^{4 5}

What You Need

• 1. Some type of form such as a wooden hat block; Styrofoam blocks glued together, covered in plastic wrap and carved into form; or a very cheap plastic fedora.
  2. Brown wool felt
  3. White glue
  4. A box of "T" pins
  5. 2/3 yard brown grosgrain ribbon
  6. Large rubber bands
  7. Hat wire
  8. Carpet thread.

Freddy Krueger's Burned Complexion

• As explained earlier, Freddy's face is scarred from having been burned in the fire. There are various methods you can use to create this look. Since Krueger is bald, you will also need to either tie your hair back (which will be covered with the hat) or wear a bald wig or an old swim cap.
  1. Combine pink and green face tissue with corn syrup.⁶
  2. Ground rouge and charcoal over the top of Vaseline.⁷
  3. Paint your face with red makeup. Then, coat it with a layer of latex scar material and paint it with more red makeup.*³
  4. Use unfavored gelatin, vegetable oil, and liquid latex.⁸ You apply the gelatin to your skin and the cover it with liquid latex for a more realistic appearance. See the video below for more information on how to create this effect.

• YouTube: Applying a Burn/Scar Makeup Effect Part 1 (Time: 7:25)

Freddy Krueger's Glove

• While it might be "cool" to have a metal Freddie Krueger glove, it is generally not practical and can be considerably expensive. You can purchase plastic ones. While these do not look very good, they can be enhanced using cardboard covered with aluminum repair tape.³ Others have also made the glove entirely out of duct tape.⁹

• However, probably the easiest method to make the gloves would be to use cardboard and paper mache. Paper mache paste is made by with flour and water and should be the consistency of a thick soup.¹⁰ You can use regular flour, but unbleached flour is supposed to work better.¹¹
  1. Mix flour and water until it is a little thinner than glue or like a thick soup.¹²
  2. Add about a teaspoon of salt to the mix. The salt will help prevent mold.¹³
  3. You can add a little white glue to make the paste stronger.¹⁰
  4. Stir the mixture until you have dissolved most of the lumps.

• Either draw your own blades or use the template provided and cut out four blades out of cardboard. Then, cover them with a couple of layers of newspaper dipped in paper mache paste. You can then paint the claws or cover them with aluminum foil tape. Attach them to the glove using tape or paper mache (either before or after you paint them).

Construction Resources

• The blades will probably be the most challenging part of the glove to fabricate a convincing copy of. To that end, here are a couple of resources which will hopefully help:

1. A rough template of the characteristic shape of each individual blade on the glove:
   • 

     (Photo by Mahalo)
2. An excellent up-close video of a professionally-manufactured glove replica. Take note of the ways blades are affixed to the glove, and the placement of moving parts on a faithful reproduction of the original glove:

• YouTube: Freddy Glove Nightmare on Elm Street (Time: 4:12)

Conclusion

• Now that you have your costume, you are ready to go out and scare the neighbors. Of course, you may want to brush up on your Krueger-ness by watching all seven of the Nightmare on Elm Street films as well as Freddy vs. Jason. If you practice enough, you might just get good enough at channeling Freddy to give Robert Englund, the actor who has portrayed Freddy in all of the movies, a run for his spooky money.¹⁴

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References for How to Make a Freddy Krueger Costume

1. ↑ A Nightmare on Elm Street Companion: Main Timeline
2. ↑ FamilyCorner.com: Stars & Stripes Shirt
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3} Misfiled: Freddy vs. Jason: The Halloween Costume
4. ↑ The Costumer's Manifesto: Homepage
5. ↑ The Costumer's Manifesto: A Felt Hat Using Standard Fabric Store Craft Felt
6. ↑ Halloween on the Web from Aristotle: Gruesome Makeup Hints
7. ↑ US Scouting Service Project: First Aid Special Effects
8. ↑ Haunt Your Home.com: How to Apply & Make Fake Burns
9. ↑ Duct Tape Club: Fashion Gallery: Freddy Krueger Glove
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1} Deep Creek Times: Mask Making
11. ↑ The Papier Mache Resource: Make a Papier Mache Mask
12. ↑ Commedia dell 'Arte: How to Make Commedia Masks
13. ↑ About.com: Paper Mache Paste Recipes
14. ↑ IMDb: Robert Englund - Biography