Exclusive: Robert Englund on 40th Anniversary of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ & Why He’s Hanging Up Freddy Krueger Glove
2024 sure has been an enormous year for beloved ’80s films celebrating 40th anniversaries. That’s because 1984 brought us cinematic treasures such as Gremlins, The Karate Kid, and The NeverEnding Story, just to name a few. But this November, one of the definitive horror films of the ’80s will be turning four decades old. We’re of course talking about A Nightmare on Elm Street, the seminal slasher from legendary horror helmer Wes Craven. And to take advantage of the Halloween season, it’s ringing in its big 40th a little early with an all-new 4K Blu-ray now available from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.
A Nightmare on Elm Street introduced us to the nefarious Freddy Krueger, the razored-clawed dream stalker brought to wicked life by horror icon Robert Englund. Freddy would go on to become one of the most famous movie maniacs ever ingrained in pop culture and would terrorize us with a total of seven films, spanning from the 1984 original to 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (which celebrated a 30th anniversary on October 14). Then there was 2003’s Freddy vs Jason, which pitted the Springwood Slasher against Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th franchise. Englund played Freddy in all eight films (including 1988’s TV series Freddy’s Nightmares) and eventually passed the glove to Jackie Earle Haley, who took over the role in 2010’s abysmal Nightmare on Elm Street remake, but the less said about that one, the better. After all, we are here to celebrate the 1984 flick that started it all, and so is Englund.
To help promote the all-new ultra-high-definition 4K Blu-ray of A Nightmare on Elm Street, we managed to chat it up with Englund about this spectacular new print, and he agrees: you’ve never seen A Nightmare on Elm Street like this before. The picture is crisper and sharper than ever — sharper than the knives on Freddy’s glove, in fact. During our exclusive interview, Englund gushed about this new restoration and told us about how he was recently wowed by his first-ever 4K experience with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. He also shares his many ideas on how A Nightmare on Elm Street can be rebooted again, and which directors he thinks could take the helm.
Robert Englund Talks Future of Freddy Krueger for 40th Anniversary and New 4K Blu-Ray Release
Credit: Everett Collection
A Nightmare on Elm Street turns 40 years old in November and we now have this stunning new 4K presentation of the film, and it looks better than ever. What was your reaction to seeing it like this?
Robert Englund: Well, here’s my thing. I’m also a director and I literally lived through it, so I know that we ran out of money making that film. So, I see the budget limitations sometimes, and I don’t think anything looks cheesy, but I can tell when we were working for $1.99, you know, as I’m just sticking my face against cheesecloth over Nancy’s bed or something. So I’m aware of stuff like that. But in terms of the new ultra-high-definition 4K, I just had a great experience with my wife’s family, who came down to visit a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t know what to do with everybody, so I just got everybody in the living room with some takeout pizza, a couple of glasses of wine, and I ordered Rear Window, and I must have ordered the new 4K version. Now, I saw the original Rear Window with my mother and father as a child in Beverly Hills, and I’ve seen it half a dozen times over the years since, but I’ve never seen it or experienced it in my life like I did as an old man, watching it on 4K — I just accidentally streamed the 4K version, and I was blown away. I didn’t think I could be blown away anymore by that kind of print quality. So I just am encouraging all the fans that I’ve talked to over the years who have only experienced the original Nightmare on Elm Street on video or watched it with commercials on a local channel [to check this out].
I am just so enthusiastic about the new one because I just experienced the same thing with Rear Window, so I know it’s going to be great for them. The other thing is that our cinematographer Jacques Haitkin was a kind of genius. And I know that when they redo it, they have to consult with the DPs, and it’s going to look exactly the way he wanted it. I just want to make sure the fans understand it, because a lot of them have seen A Nightmare on Elm Street at conventions, projected badly with light leaks in the auditorium, and they haven’t really seen it pristine like this, and this is an opportunity to turn out all the lights and pop it in and watch it on your crispy flat screen, with a pizza and a warm beer.
I revisit the original Nightmare on Elm Street all the time, and I too was blown away by how clean this 4K version looks. The colors pop, you see details you never noticed before, and seeing some of these kill scenes with such clarity was just awesome.
You get a little more with Tina up on the ceiling, which is my first kill. She’s played by the lovely Amanda Wiss. You know, that’s been added to and embellished, and there’s stuff they were never allowed to use in that sequence. I know we did a very strange sequence of Tina’s point of view on the ceiling, of me dragging her. But that’s not in the new one, I don’t even know if that footage exists anymore, but it was incredible, because I saw it and Wes Craven used it to get other juicy bits in. But I know that they’ve added, I’ve heard 11 or 12 seconds to that sequence, to build it and stretch it out and give you the perspective of the upside-down room, and we don’t know who’s pulling her or why she’s being manipulated on the ceiling. It’s just a remarkable sequence, especially for a low-budget film, and I’m really proud of that. I think it’s actually a classic sequence and all the fans out there get a bonus 11 or 12 seconds.
Most Famous Nightmare on Elm Street Death?
New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection
One of the most famous deaths of the entire franchise is Glen’s death—the geyser of blood coming out of the bed. There’s so much left to the imagination and no one really knows exactly what happened to him. Since you worked on the film, can you shed some light on what Freddy actually did to him, or if there were alternate scenes that were maybe filmed but never released?
I think the idea is that Johnny Depp was this cool kid, and he’s in there with his munchies, which sort of suggests maybe, you know, I think Glen is supposed to be maybe goody-goody, but also maybe in the privacy of his bedroom, he had a toke, or maybe he’s just up there and he’s just a classic teenage guy in the classic teenage bedroom, eating junk food and watching his little TV on his bed which is, I don’t want to say it’s slothful, but it’s certainly a teenage vice, and Freddy punishes him for that. And the idea of Freddy’s punishment is to suck him into his safe place — and the bedroom is a safe place, but nothing is more safe than your bed. It’s your safe space, but not when Freddy’s around, because Freddy knows that’s your safe space. We don’t ever really learn what Glen’s fears are, but Freddy doesn’t just exploit your fears, like your fear of insects or things like that, he also does metaphorical things, or just punishes you for your own likes, because he knows what you like, and he can take advantage of that. So I think that’s really the point of Glen dying in bed, because if you think about it, it’s a very safe place for a huge segment of the teenage population and kids put signs on the door, you know, “knock before entering,” and all that, and then there’s a debate about whether a kid should be able to lock the door to their bedroom, and then even more sacred than that is the bed, and then the next after that is the diary, and does Freddy read your diary, does he know your innermost secrets from your subconscious? Does he know who you have a crush on? Does he know if you’re suicidal? All the things that Freddy can find out about you that he can exploit.
Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection
The franchise has been stagnant since the critically panned 2010 remake of the original Nightmare on Elm Street. What would you suggest the franchise to do next?
Freddy’s Revenge is a great fodder for a stand-alone remake. We’re in a much more modern culture now that accepts bisexuality and sexual proclivities, and I think it would be really fun to show Freddy playing with the boys in that and their friendship, and also his confidant, the role played by Kim Myers, and how Freddy manipulates that, and that would be fun, and you could really go further with that.
The Lasting Legacy of Dream Warriors and Being a Fan Favorite
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors; New Line Cinema/courtesy Everett Collection
I know that you recently said you don’t have another Elm Street film in you, but if there is another movie, would you like to be involved as a producer or a story consultant or perhaps some cameo role?
I’m too old to do Freddy anymore. I would hope that if they remake Dream Warriors, which if you polled fans, I think it is the most popular of the franchise, even more so than the original Nightmare on Elm Street. Part 1 may have sold more DVDs, but I think Dream Warriors, Part 3 is close behind, and it’s certainly the fan favorite, and there’s a great thing in that, the wonderful Priscilla Pointer. She plays the doctor in Nightmare on Elm Street 3 who doesn’t believe that they’re all having this common nightmare and that they’ve all been infected by Freddy Krueger in their subconscious, and I think it would be really wonderful if I cameoed in a remake and really played on the cynicism that, “No, you kids can’t be having the same nightmare,” the cynical doctor that doesn’t buy into that. But that would be fun for me, and I think that’s an appropriate cameo that’s in the tradition of cameos in horror movies, and I think it’s also a nice wink to the fan base.
New Line/courtesy Everett Collection
Dream Warriors would be a great alternative to remaking the original a second time, because it does feature the Nancy character (played by Heather Langenkamp), and all the key backstory ingredients are there.
Between you and me in a hat rack, I think they’re probably foolish not to remake Part 3. Part 1 was remade to mixed success, Part 2 is standalone —you can remake that any time you want — so if they are going to start again with the franchise, I would start with Part 3, because it has the backstory in it. You certainly could put the backstory in it, unless somebody’s come up with a really great prequel script, and I would advise anybody that’s thinking about that to take a look at the Tobe Hooper pilot for the television show, Freddy’s Nightmares, as a potential departure point for a prequel, but I always think prequels are better after another film, so if you remade Part 3, then you could do a prequel, but you see three and four are kind of linked, so you have to do three and four, then a prequel, then five. Or do three, four, five, and then the prequel, because you want to keep the continuity with the character of Alice played by Lisa Wilcox, so it’s tricky, but they need to do it. I mean, they’ve already made Part 1 twice now, I think it needs to be left alone.
What Could Be Next for the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise?
Universal Pictures/Credit: Justin Lubin /courtesy Everett Collection
Are there any directors you would like to see tackle a Nightmare on Elm Street movie?
There’s so many terrific young directors working right now, and some of them are working for Blumhouse, and some of them are working independently, and I’ve seen lots of films I like, both European and stateside. I mean, it would be easy to suggest someone that you can really respect the integrity of, and could probably get the right budget, it would be great to see someone like Jordan Peele (pictured above) tackle it. I think that would be interesting, and certainly, add some Black characters, which we didn’t have until we hit Part 3. I think that would be an interesting choice. But, again, there’s a lot of really talented people running around right now. There’s a guy I love, Jeremy Saulnier, he’s got a movie out now called Rebel Ridge. Some of my favorite actors are in it, like Emory Cohen, and then he also did a great film with Macon Blair called Blue Ruin. These are right on the edge of action/revenge, but I have a hunch that because this guy did a movie, called Hold the Dark — it’s really dark. And it also has the best shootout since Kevin Costner‘s film with Robert Duvall, Open Range. But I think that he would be an interesting guy to tackle the mythology. Maybe he’s even the right director for a prequel because I see the prequel kind of being like Zodiac. That’s David Fincher, you know, that’s really reaching for the gods with either of these directors, Jeremy Saulnier or David Fincher, but those would be interesting choices for the prequels.
A Nightmare on Elm Street was originally released in theaters on November 16, 1984. The all-new 4K Blu-ray is available now.
©Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
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