Gay Freddy Krueger actor wants a queer Nightmare on Elm Street remake
Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street
The actor who played the horror movie villain Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street wants a queer remake of the classic film.
Robert Englund played Krueger in the 1984 horror classic and went on to reprise the role in a number of sequels.
The actor told TooFab that the secret to the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street was that it was all about “the loss of innocence” – and said any remakes would have to capture that essence, while also adapting for a changed world.
He also referenced the first sequel to the classic horror film – A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge – which has a huge fan following among queer audiences for its homoerotic subtext.
Englund said a remake can only work if it deals with “middle American kids” who are “co-opted by evil”.
Freddy Krueger actor says a queer remake would work due to ‘openness’ around gender and sexuality today.
“But because our society now is more damaged because of the opioid crisis, because of incredible diverse, because of the openness now with gender and sexuality, those kids now have to be different than the kids from the original Nightmare and someone has to write a different batch of kids and Freddy needs to be a different kind of evil,” he said.
“His evil needs to be, he needs to toy with what they like in the culture.”
I think it would be really fun to have Freddy play with one kid who’s gay.
He continued: “If they redid Nightmare 2, for instance, and really deal with the subtext, Freddy toying with that boy’s sexuality.
“But the fact that we’re much more comfortable with that now, I think it would be really fun to have Freddy play with one kid who’s gay. Maybe one boy is not. Play with them. Tempt them. Force him out of the closet or back into the closet and we can do that.”
Englund said audiences would “accept” a more obviously queer storyline today.
Future A Nightmare on Elm Street remakes would have to ‘freshen’ the franchise with greater diversity.
“Freddy would do that because he’s in your head. But it is going to take somebody very clever to do that.”
He said he would like to see future remakes “freshen” the franchise by introducing new elements, such as including actors and characters with disabilities and diverse genders and sexualities.
The original A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984 and went on to become a cult classic. Directed by Wes Craven, it starred Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Johnny Depp, among others.
It spawned numerous sequels as well as an ill-fated 2010 remake starring Rooney Mara, Jackie Earle Haley and Kyle Gallner.
The film was panned by critics but raked in more than $100 million at the global box office.
