Wes Craven's 1984 horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street introduced Freddy Krueger, a dream-stalking slasher who kills teens in their sleep—kills that become real—and was inspired by a chilling true epidemic of Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS) among Southeast Asian refugees in the late 1970s–80s. A young Cambodian survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide (1975–79, ~2 million dead) resettled in the U.S., tormented by nightmares of being chased, resisted sleep for days, then died mysteriously in bed with no autopsy findings; the CDC documented over 100 similar cases of healthy young Hmong, Laotian, and Cambodian men dying overnight. Locally explained via folklore—like the Philippine batibat hag or Thai widow ghost suffocating victims—these deaths were later linked to Brugada syndrome, a genetic heart arrhythmia triggered by stress, heavy meals, or PTSD, though the "hundred years' enigma" remains unsolved, blending real trauma with cinematic terror.

 

Sources:

www.history.com/news/nightmare-on-elm-street-real-inspiration-hmong-death

 

www.nytimes.com/2024/11/10/movies/freddy-krueger-nightmare-on-elm-street-anniversary.html