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[bitbydeath]

I’d love a new Freddy movie done right. If we can re-cast IT and do it well then we should also be able to do the same for Freddy.

Appearing at a Summer Television Critics Association panel this week to promote Eli Roth’s new “History of Horror” docu-series for AMC, Englund was asked how he would approach an ‘Elm Street’ reboot to which he said:

If I had an Eli Roth budget I would have cast different actors to play Freddy for every potential victim, because Freddy is only alive in the imagination of his future victim. They would talk about it at a slumber party or in a locker room at school, or on the bus going home.

All we know about this Fred Krueger is he wears a hat, wears a red and green striped sweater and has a clawed hand. That’s the specifics. At the end, it would be the ultimate victim and we see Freddy peel [his face] open and maybe it’s yours truly revealed. And it’s the essence of Freddy.

I don’t think Freddy is an ’80s villain. There’s a huge nostalgia for the eighties for a variety of reasons, but so many horror films and characters transcend that decade.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/englund-offers-an-elm-street-reboot-idea/

 

[brap]

I’d love a new Freddy movie done right. If we can re-cast IT and do it well then we should also be able to do the same for Freddy.
http://www.darkhorizons.com/englund-offers-an-elm-street-reboot-idea/

I don’t think Freddy is an ’80s villain

Me either but I think Freddy is a Robert Englund villain. Not a bunch of random people in Freddy makeup. They'll never have the charm of him.

 

[kunonabi]

It's certainly a better idea than the last reboot but at the same time I think moving on from the character is still the best idea. They had the perfect opportunity after FvJ rehabbed Freddy to do another movie or two but they just pissed it away.

 

[Fox Mulder]

I'm sure now is the best time in years to drum up support for another reboot with IT doing great and if Halloween does well.

 

[DiscoJer]

To me, one of the things that set him apart was that he was both a child molester (when alive) and a product of gang rape of a woman in sexual captivity (nurse in a mental asylum kept by the patients). There's a certain nastiness to his character because of that, that is at odds with his comic persona (and to a certain extent, even Englund, he just didn't seem pervy enough, while the guy in the reboot did)

 

[zombie_gamer87]

You can't duplicate greatness. No one can fill Robert Englund’s shoes.

 

[BLAUcopter]

That new reboot looks soooooo bad. Ugh.

 

[Keylime]

To me, one of the things that set him apart was that he was both a child molester (when alive) and a product of gang rape of a woman in sexual captivity (nurse in a mental asylum kept by the patients). There's a certain nastiness to his character because of that, that is at odds with his comic persona (and to a certain extent, even Englund, he just didn't seem pervy enough, while the guy in the reboot did)

I've actually never really watched a Freddy movie (I remember flipping around one day and saw some scene where he was literally pulling someones veins out of their arms and thought "holy fuck I was not prepared" and flipped away) but I had no idea that this was kind of the basis for the character.

Do the movies actually explore these origins or is it just kind of throw away line to give a justification for his menacing behavior?

I guess I just assumed these movies had no depth.

 

[brap]

I've actually never really watched a Freddy movie (I remember flipping around one day and saw some scene where he was literally pulling someones veins out of their arms and thought "holy fuck I was not prepared" and flipped away) but I had no idea that this was kind of the basis for the character.

Do the movies actually explore these origins or is it just kind of throw away line to give a justification for his menacing behavior?

I guess I just assumed these movies had no depth.

The first hints at him being a child molester but the rest just drop it. For the reboot though it was pretty obvious he was into kids.

 

[bitbydeath]

I've actually never really watched a Freddy movie (I remember flipping around one day and saw some scene where he was literally pulling someones veins out of their arms and thought "holy fuck I was not prepared" and flipped away) but I had no idea that this was kind of the basis for the character.

Do the movies actually explore these origins or is it just kind of throw away line to give a justification for his menacing behavior?

I guess I just assumed these movies had no depth.

The movies throw hints in most. Number 6 or Freddy’s Dead is where they really deep dive into it.

 

[Airola]

Do the movies actually explore these origins or is it just kind of throw away line to give a justification for his menacing behavior?

The first movie tells he's a child killer. They don't straight up say he's a child molester, but they say he killed children. He was first written as a child molester too, but I recall in the news at that time was something about a child molester and they thought to tone it done a bit to not have too clear connection to the case. It was hinted though in the movie that it was a sexual thing for him (his tongue licks Nancy through the phone, the bath tub scene with his hand between her legs, and stuff like that). He got caught but was released because of some search warrant error. The parents got all vigilante on him and burned him alive. That's pretty much it in the first movie.

I don't recall the second movie having anything about his history. I guess they had Freddy as some sort of a representation of repressed homosexuality here. Go figure.

The third movie revealed his mother was a nun who got raped by hundreds of mental asylum patients.

The fourth movie had nothing new about his history, I recall. By this point Freddy was pretty much just a horror (comedy) character who kills people in funny ways. Well, here it was revealed Freddy traps the souls of the bodies he kills in his own body. Or something like that.

The fifth movie had some dream scene of Freddy's birth where he is already disfigured. The baby crawls away and finds Freddy's remains and merges with it and is kinda back again but tries to make a real comeback via Alice's baby - or whatever.

The sixth movie has a scene where Freddy is shown as a teenager. His father beats him but teenage Freddy seems to take pleasure from the beating. Then it's revealed that when he got burned alive he was visited by some sperm-like dream demons who gave him the ability to continue living in dreams.

The seventh movie tells every Elm Street movie has just been a movie. Wes Craven plays himself and there is supposed to be this real dream demon who has taken the form of Craven's creation, Freddy, and this demon has stayed away from real world as long as the movies have been made. Or something like that.

I don't remember if Freddy vs Jason had anything about Freddy's history, although I think there was a creepy shot of Freddy as a living human being licking the back side of a picture of some kid. So I guess they hinted more that whatever he did was sexually motivated.

The remake is all about him being a pedophile and it deals for a while with the thought of the possibility that maybe he was innocent after all.

There is also the tv series called Freddy's Nightmares where at least one episode told a lot about his history. I think it was a full tv episode about the crimes and the court and the parents killing him. One or two other episodes might've told more about him but the tv series was mostly not about Freddy. He was mostly just the host for different Twilight Zone type of horror stories, but there were a couple or a few episodes about him too.