Nightmare On Elm Street's Robert Englund Wants A Franchise Reboot Focused On Dream Warriors
True '80s horror kids rarely agree on anything. What's the best "Friday the 13th" rip-off? Some say "The Burning," some say "Sleepaway Camp." Who is the better slasher villain; Freddy, Jason, or Michael Myers? You'll never get them to agree on anything, except maybe one question: What is the best 'Nightmare on Elm Street' sequel?
There are stans for all of them, even the notoriously bizarre "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge" (especially that one since it has grown in popularity as a favorite among the LGBTQ+ community), but most will say the one Freddy sequel to really get it right was Part 3, "Dream Warriors" which brought back Heather Langenkamp's Nancy to face down Freddy once more, this time backed up by an army of juvenile delinquents who have had enough of being tortured in their dreams by this Christmas sweater-wearing, child-killing, nightmare demon weirdo.
The movie was directed by Chuck Russell and co-written by Russell, Bruce Wagner, Wes Craven, and a guy by the name of Frank Darabont, who would later go on to write and direct "The Shawshank Redemption," "The Green Mile," and bring "The Walking Dead" to TV screens. It's hard to overlook the pure nightmare logic insanity that Darabont, Russell, Wagner, and Craven conjured up and this is also right before Freddy became too much of a jokester.
All this is to say that franchise star Robert Englund knows this movie rules and knows the "Elm Street" fans love it to death, which is why he thinks someone should use "Dream Warriors" as a way to reboot the franchise.
No more Freddy origin stories, please
Talking with Comicbook.com, Englund said he'd skip remaking the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street" again and go straight to "Dream Warriors." His reasoning is a little confusing, but it boils down to the fans love it and he just thinks it's a great script. He said Darabont and Russell's take has a "previously on 'Nightmare on Elm Street' sense to it," which I interpret to mean that even if the new audience isn't familiar with all the original franchise lore, they can jump right onto a story that is already going.
Freddy's been around, these kids are plagued by him, and they're joined by someone who has already faced him down and won. There's no need for another retelling of the angry parents burning the child-killing Freddy to death after he walks free on a technicality, which is the '80s slasher version of watching Bruce Wayne's parents get shot in a dark alleyway.
Englund said he wouldn't want to return as Freddy, but that he'd be very interested in making a different kind of appearance should someone ever take him up on this idea. He said:
"I would love to do a cameo in it, maybe switch genders and play the Priscilla Pointer, Amy Irving's mother's role, the skeptical, cynical therapist who doesn't believe they're all having a common dream, a dream in common, a nightmare, a collective nightmare. I think that would be fun, a nice wink at the audience."
The last time someone tried to reboot "A Nightmare on Elm Street" things didn't turn out so well, but we're in an era heavily infatuated with IP so it's only a matter of time until we get a new "Nightmare." Will it be Englund's take? Probably not, but when Freddy Krueger speaks, you at least need to hear him out.