DVD Verdict Interviews Horror Legend Robert Englund

Judge Patrick Naugle

January 13th, 2004

It's tough being the embodiment of evil, yet Robert Englund can pull it off without a hitch. Since 1984, Englund has inhabited the dirty brown fedora of burned child molester Freddy Krueger, a role he's reprised in seven Nightmare on Elm Street films. In 2003, Englund once again returned to the role that made him famous after a nearly decade long hiatus in Freddy vs. Jason. Pitted against that "other" big 1980s horror titan, Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th fame, Freddy vs. Jason went on to pull in over $85 million dollars at the box office, thus proving that evil never dies, it just waits for the opportune moment for a comeback.

Englund spent some time with DVD Verdict discussing his favorite horror films, what the word is in a Freddy vs. Jason sequel, and why he's such a fan of Bruce Campbell...

Patrick Naugle: First off, I've got to say that I loved Freddy vs. Jason.

Robert Englund: Thanks. We worked hard on this one. It went through a lot of rewrites and several directors. It was just that happy accident that happens sometimes. Sometimes you have too many cooks and you ask them to slowly leave the kitchen, and they seemed to keep the right writer and director in the end. We all worked really hard in Vancouver and it got really cold up there. But I was really pleased with the outcome. It's strange, with something as commercial as Freddy vs. Jason is, there's a much bigger degree of difficulty than you may realize. There were a lot of traps and holes we could have stepped into but [director] Ronny Yu, the people and New Line and the writers were very nimble and avoided all that. I was always worried it was going to be Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

There came a point when there were some names being batted about, Guillermo del Toro, I heard Rob Bottin's name. I was pretty happy when I was hearing about the people they wanted to be involved. I knew New Line was on the right track for really getting Freddy vs. Jason together. I always knew there had to be a Jason nightmare, a Jason dreamscape, and someone either listened to me or had the same idea because I thought "that's why I would go see the movie if I were a fan. The scenes that shows what makes Jason tick." And I really think they lived up to that.

PN: How does it feel to have Freddy vs. Jason finally under your belt and out of development hell?

RE: You know I was ready to do it around the year 2000. People will tell you they were going to make it earlier than that but the truth is it was still going through a lot of rewrites and stuff, the different powers that be at New Line coming and going. Actually, I was sort of psyched to do it in the year 2000 and it got postponed. I can't tell if it's because Rob Bottin left the project or because Michael DeLuca left New Line around then. I sort of thought that was going to be millennium movie, Freddy vs. Jason 2000! (laughs) So I was sort of biding my time from 2000 to 2002, when we finally did it.

PN: Did you feel like Ronny Yu brought a lot to the table in terms of creativity and energy?

RE: Yeah. Again, I think it's a happy accident. I was excited about every name I heard. I'll be honest with you, I had been over in France on a jury with Jean Pierre Jeunet, director of Alien: Resurrection and Amélie, and the other guy on the jury with me was John Landis, at this little film festival in the French Alps. It was like eight o'clock, nine in the morning, we're ready to see a whole day of movies like Japanese cyberpunk and Spanish horror. The first movie we saw that day was Bride of Chucky and we practically spilled out coffee and croissants all over us. We enjoyed it so much; it was so over the top and silly and energetic and different that we all agreed it should get a special mention at the film festival. We were worried the French wouldn't get it but they liked it, too. We actually presented an award to Ronny Yu, and this was back in 1998 or '99. So I knew about Ronny, and when his name came up I was just as excited as I'd been potentially working with [Guillermo] del Toro and some of the other people discussed. So when I heard Ronny's name I knew that if they were even considering Ronny he must have some great take on the script and how to make the film.

PN: Did you talk to Wes Craven about what his feelings on the film were?

RE: You know I don't really know. I haven't seen Wes since the movie came out. I'd seen him before but Wes is so busy with his werewolf project [the upcoming Cursed] that's where his head's at now. I don't think Wes has probably been thinking about it. He's probably seen it by now, either popped it on a DVD or maybe he's seen it on the big screen. But I know he was really busy so I haven't talked to him about it. But you know Wes is a real gentleman and wouldn't bad mouth anybody.

Wes conceived all of this, so his protective nature towards the project is usually insulated by his feelings of how he's always imagined the film to be. I know there's a couple of the Nightmare films he's not too happy with. I think his last one [Wes Craven's New Nightmare] is just a brilliant film and perhaps even a little ahead of its time. It's finally gathering an audience on DVD. I think Wes knows that Ronny brings a certain Hong Kong sensibility to it. And I think he would also understand that this is a project that stands alone. It's not a Nightmare on Elm Street film, it's its own hybrid.

PN: What are your thoughts on Kane Hodder being asked to step down from the role of Jason?

RE: It's strange. You know, Kane and I are buds; we've done publicity before, the cover of Rolling Stone, I've seen Kane around, we've worked on a movie for mutual friend of ours -- the boys and KNB produced a movie that was turned into a series of successful genre films, the Wishmaster series. I felt bad and the only thing I know about the whole process is that Ronny Yu conceived of Jason as being really gigantic in terms of height. Really, really gigantic. I don't know if it's because he hadn't seen the Friday the 13th movies, or because someone told me he'd seen some storyboards or the illustrated Friday the 13th comic books where they actually elongated Jason to make him look taller and that Ronny just had that from the get go in his mind's eye.

What happened with Ronny is Ken Kirzinger walked into the audience for an interview as the stunt coordinator on Freddy vs. Jason, and Ken is huge, 6'5" or something like that, and he walked in with a pair of cowboy boots on, he's a Calgary cowboy, and Ronny got one look at him and said "that's what I want!" Then they offered him the part of Jason. That's what I heard happened. It wasn't anything to do with Ronny not liking or respecting Kane. He just had this image. Kane is sort of like a refrigerator and this massive bulk, he's tall but not real tall. And Ronny just wanted an exaggerated height on Jason.

PN: What did you think on the ending of Freddy vs. Jason?

RE: The ending on the film is a re-shoot. The original ending had to do with the Jason Ritter character finally getting the sacrificial virgin/woman warrior that is part of the recipe of every Nightmare on Elm Street movie. Their gentle, beautiful teenage sexual foreplay gets rough and becomes nasty and eventually Jason Ritter's hand suddenly morphs into Freddy's claw from Wes Craven's New Nightmare. When they screened it with a test audience I think that ending confused the audience. They believed that from now on I would be a teenage Freddy or something, or that Jason [Ritter] was the new Freddy Krueger. What they really meant was that there was a kernel or seed of Freddy still alive in the arm or the hand of the Jason [Ritter] character, that I polluted him or planted my seed within him. So they re-shot the ending which is the one you see now with the Freddy head wink.

PN: Which do you prefer?

RE: Well, I never saw the original ending so I don't know. I really liked it because I thought it was so kinky and I loved that it poked some knowledgeable fun at the sacrificial virgins that had been throughout the series. I liked the fact that it said that "Freddy's gonna get the girl, and I mean get her!" (laughs) So I kinda loved it on the page but I never saw it shot. So maybe it was confusing or just had the wrong rhythm.

What's nice about the current ending as it is, it sort of has a goodness to it that goes with a movie called Freddy vs. Jason. It also teases the audience, yet somehow Freddy is diminished at the end of the film. He's only a head, just like in the original he was only a claw on a teenage boy. So Freddy's definitely been diminished and semi-vanquished. Jason is certainly the stronger of the two at the conclusion. There was a definite plan to make Jason with more of his back story where we visit within the dreamscape. There was definitely a plan to make him more sympathetic as a monster than Freddy. Freddy is sort of irredeemable whereas there's at least some back story that gives Jason a bit more sympathy.

PN: Which brings us to a sequel. Anything proposed yet? Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash is the current rumor circulating among fans.

RE: That's the one that I love, only because I've done film festivals and I'm a big fan of Bruce Campbell's [star of the Evil Dead series]. I was just in Edinburgh and saw a great double bill and after a few glasses of scotch whiskey we saw the midnight showing which was Bubba Ho-Tep. That was a lot of fun. And I love Bruce and I think he and Sam Raimi and that whole crew of people are so smart and talented. I think it might be fun, but they'd really sort of have to go to the wall with this one. Once you bring Bruce Campbell and the Ash character on you'd have to go over the top. It's almost like this would have to be the last one. Ash would have to save the world from sequels. (laughs)

PN: How about Freddy vs. Jason vs. Michael Myers?

RE: Again, I heard a great thing from a bartender about that. The bartender had just seen Freaky Friday and thought it would be great if some sexy teenage daughter of Jamie Lee Curtis took her alcoholic mother across America to start anew. And as we unpacked into their new home we'd pull away to reveal that it was, in fact, the Elm Street house! Now Michael Myers would have to go seek out Jamie Lee Curtis in Springwood, where Freddy dwells, and now we know that Jason is also there. I think that's really interesting. I kinda like that idea but we'd have to get Jamie on board or it wouldn't be worth it. She would have to be surrogate Heather Langenkamp, the surrogate Monica Keena, a surrogate Lisa Zane, the more mature Freddy heroine. It would be kind of interesting to have Jamie Lee as the victim and the ingredient of the teenage girl, which is always the female warrior. Being the mother and daughter and they could kind of double team Freddy, Jason, and Michael. There'd be two girls instead of one. I don't know which one they're looking at. I know there's been serious meetings with both creators. It will be interesting to see what happens.

PN: What are some of the horror movies in the last few years you've really enjoyed?

RE: I'd like all the fans to see Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone. There's a great film called Dog Soldiers which really sort of reinvents the werewolf movie and crossbreeds it with an action film. I think that's really wonderful and fun. My favorite horror movie from the last several years, by far, is May, the Lucky Mckee film starring Angela Bettis and Jeremy Sisto. It's just extraordinary. May's sort of a crazed, Silver Lake lesbo. It's a wonderful, strange performance. Angela Bettis has taken the crown from Sissy Spacek as the greatest strange young woman in horror films.

PN: Finally, which Nightmare on Elm Street film do you think stands the test of time, and which aren't you as thrilled with?

RE: Well, I love the original A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare because it's the same cast, they're both Wes Craven, he created it. New Nightmare is so smart, it deconstructs the whole thing like the Scream movies. So I love 1 and 7. Definitely the original is the scariest but I have problems watching it because I see all the budget limitations. But I also am very pleased with parts 2 and 4, the Chuck Russell and Renny Harlin movies, because they have that overlapping cast as well, and they're really bang for their buck in terms of low budget horror. They're really entertaining and smart films. I think 3 and 4 really work well as a double bill.

You can take your pick of the bad ones. The one where we violated too many rules, and I love [director] Jack Sholder, is in Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2, although the Europeans love part 2 because of the sexual ambiguity involved in it. I think we just broke too many of Wes Craven's rules. There's like a Wes Craven bible of things Freddy can and cannot do and we violated a lot of them. I'd say that part 2 is my least favorite, but only for those reasons. Nothing to disparage Jack Sholder who I think is a really great director.

PN: Robert, Thanks for taking the time to talk with us!

RE: My pleasure!