OK, so wait. In this version, Freddy Krueger is some kind of revenge spirit? Not that I’m particularly attached to the franchise or anything, but that seems wrong somehow. Part of the scary thing about the original was his pure, twisted, perverted, child-murdering, unrepentant evil. He was sort of like the chick in “The Ring”. He couldn’t be mollified. He couldn’t be bargained with. No trickery was really ever going to kill him, exorcise him, or send him to the afterlife. He was an unrelenting force for evil. Period.
I don’t get your question. In the original, he was also out for revenge.
Oh wait. You’re right. Goddamn it. I’m very sleepy, you see. My brain isn’t working correctly.
Still tho’, in my mind, Freddy Kruger just reeks of the 80’s. I’m not sure this generation will get Freddy like a lot of us older folks did.
Yeah, man. Freddy’s deep shit, man. Totally.
He’s always out for revenge. In #6 or 7 he’s out for meta-revenge. It’s a necessity that in every movie he has some weakness to exploit which defeats him but turns out to have not actually defeated him in the next sequel at which point there is a new weakness… repeat ad nauseam… I’ll leave it as an excercise for others to list the previous defeat weaknesses and subsequent revivals…
I just don’t really see the point of a remake. Don’t the old ones hold up, at least as well as they ever did?
As long as he’s got the chance to say his one liners and witty remarks, I’ll be happy with the film, but I don’t think they’re going to go that way with the character.
Produced by Michael Bay.
No Robert Englund.
No thank you.
The Freddy of the first Nightmare was a nearly silent villain. He didn’t start getting quippy until the (pathetically bad) sequels.
Come on. It’s Jackie Earl Haley. The guy is practically distilled menace.
Not on Human Target.
Meh.
Here’s the thing: #1) Michael Bay. Attach his name to anything and I immediately tune out. I gave him a lot of chances and he produced total shit every single time.
#2) Freddy Kreuger actually has a personality. Jason, Mike Myers or Leatherface are just silent guys in masks killing people; maybe they’re supernatural, maybe not, they go out of their way to make that ambiguous for as long as possible, but in any case, save for a few details they are basically interchangeable. Freddy has a face and dialogue and an intellect. Could you imagine someone other than Doug Bradley portraying Pinhead? Robert Englund is Freddy Kreuger as far as I’m concerned.
You may feel differently.
:dubious: He’s the shortest and the smallest of the three leads, but the one I’d least want to be alone in a room with if I was standing between him and something he wanted. He may be casual and laidback on the show, but that’s because he has the least conscience of the three. You don’t have to glower all the time to be a genuine menace.
Again, in the first Nightmare, Freddy had only a few lines. He spoke, but he didn’t have any personality. His lines were just meant to give him an airof menace, which I think Jackie Earle Haley (or original choice Billy Bob Thornton) can pull off.
I love Robert Englund, but the man’s not an actor, he’s a ham.
“I’m your boyfriend now, Nancy!”
<Nancy> Please, God!..
<Freddy>THIS (gestures to RazorGlove) is God!
there’s also the scene where Freddy hacks off the fingers of his left hand while cackling manaically, or the “Stretch-Krueger” scene with his arms stretched across the entire alleyway
Krueger has always been a (must…resist…bad…pun!) “cut-up”… he just became more of a stand-up-comedian/slasher in NOES 3 and beyond (and no, NOES 2 does not exist…)
The scary-as-fuck silent stalker who could get you in your dreams was the Freddy I preferred. The quipping one was annoying and ruined the franchise for me. Silently, he still had the moves and conveyed a lot of evil humour, but the vocalized bad quips didn’t work for me. I was under the impression that the re-make is going back to the almost silent stalker with his occasional vicious editorial comment.
I don’t like the idea of actually showing us his origin story, however, and the trailers suggest it. The mom’s explanation of where he came from was scarier in my mind’s eye than a dramatized version ever could be. Freddy was out for revenge, but in the original it seemed more that it was the parents’ vengeful bloodlust that collectively got added into the spirit of a guy who was already a sick, twisted, and evil individual. It was more profound than just “Freddy wants revenge.” It was “Freddy is back and he’s not only got his own vengeful feelings, but he’s also is the embodiment of vengeful hate of all the parents.” That was a key ingredient of the original movie. Freddy was the bastard son of a thousand maniacs, and into that stew pot of fury, they poured their own evil, making him super-evil.
If they show us his death, there’s a risk that you can relate to him as just “angry guy who wants revenge” and he’s much, much more than that.
From what I’ve been reading, they’re going to dial the quips way down and dial the straight horror up. You’ll just have to give it the MST3K treatment in your head.
I just hope they don’t make a remake of Nightmare on Elm Street 2. What they need to do is make a remake of the original Nightmare on Elm Street, wait two years, and then reboot the franchise with a brand new Nightmare on Elm Street I (version 3). Then you can start making remake sequels.
I believe this is the accepted money-making procedure nowadays.