It’s been a decade since we last saw any interpretation of A Nightmare on Elm Street. The 2010 version was a remake/reboot of the series starring Jackie Earle Haley (remember him?) as Freddy Krueger and was a mostly forgettable horror movie save for featuring an early role for future Oscar nominee Rooney Mara.
For many fans, there’s only one Freddy and that’s Robert Englund. The actor starred as the dream demon in eight different films with the last one being 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason. He did, however, reprise the role for an episode of The Goldbergs back in 2018.
Of course, the rights to the franchise recently returned to the Wes Craven estate. And despite the director passing away five years ago, Englund believes that Craven’s children are fully capable of bringing the character back in a meaningful way.
“Their choice is whether to go with completely original stuff or whether to reboot the franchise for another generation,” Englund shared with ComicBook.com. “That’s the decision, I think it all lies now with the Craven estate, all the rights have returned to them. And I know that both Wes’ son Jonathan and his daughter [Jessica], they’re really smart, talented people and they work in the industry, so I totally trust what they’re gonna do. I just know that there are some terrific scripts over the last, let’s say 15 years, there’s been some really interesting scripts and they’re sitting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust. And I just hope that they read all of those, as well as the new ones, because a couple of those old ones were really interesting. There’s one or two prequel scripts that are pretty interesting.”
I never have a problem with reboots because even if they’re terrible, at the very least, they introduce a whole new generation of people to a franchise they perhaps didn’t know about before. And Englund seems optimistic that a new iteration would work, saying the Craven estate would be fools not to reboot A Nightmare on Elm Street.
“Everything gets remade and everybody brings a new interpretation and a new value, sometimes better, sometimes not, but I know they’re gonna reboot the franchise,” the actor added. “They’d be fools not to, especially with all the new technology and effects they have available now, that we can enhance this nightmare/dreamscape with. The landscape of the mind and the subconscious using stuff that we discovered during Inception or What Dreams May Come, that Robin Williams film. There’s so many new kinds of CGI and tricks that we have that would just really enhance the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.”
I have to say that I haven’t thought about What Dreams May Come in quite a while. Say what you will about the film, but visually, it looked spectacular. But does A Nightmare on Elm Street need CGI to make it better? That’s what makes those ‘80s horror movies so good. The practical effects, puppeteers and makeup are great because they’re tactile. We can all relate on some level whereas CGI if done poorly, can take you right out of the film. The sequel to The Thing is a perfect example of that.
In any case, while we wait for a new Nightmare on Elm Street, you can see Englund hosting his new Travel Channel series True Terror with Robert Englund, which premieres on March 18th at 10:00 p.m. ET.