Welcome to Primetime, Bitch!

Editorial asides & innocuous interview by Staci Layne Wilson

My iPod has everything from Edgar Winter to Donna Summer, and from The White Stripes to Black Flagg, on it. The last three books I read ranged from a dissertation on the fine art of Leonor Fini, to Anthony Kiedis's sex-and-drugs drenched autobiography, to a fictionalized romance about Helen of Troy. Recent movies watched go from Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse to McG's Terminator Salvation, and from the Oscar-winning foreign film The Secret in Their Eyes to the big Hollywood remake of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is: I may love horror, but I'm open to almost anything. I'm not angry, upset, or even irked that one of my all-time favorite movies from my well-spent youth has been remade. I was actually curious to see what a different director might do with such indelible subject matter. Is it "better"? No. Is it "bad"? No.

In '84, it was all about Nancy and nightmares

This time around, the studio bean-counters are counting on Freddy Krueger

When I interviewed Brad Fuller and Andrew Form (the producers of the A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET remake) the other day the first thing they asked me — (hey, wait. Wasn't I supposed to be in charge of the questions? One day I will figure this whole reporter-thing out) — was, "How did the movie play at the screening?" I relayed that reactions after the fact were mixed, but during the movie I heard some good exclamations and jumps during many of the death scenes and villain Freddy Krueger's quips.

They were glad to know that, and to me it seemed more from a place of genuine caring what horror fans think than just how much admission they'll pay. After all, the flick could have been a quick 3-D retrofit if they were all greed and no good.

But don't get me wrong; I'm not a Pollyanna. I know Platinum Dunes Productions is hardly an arty little indie and it's not like our movie tickets are tax deductable, but over the years of covering their cinematic rehashes from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to last year's Friday the 13th, I must say I've seldom seen such dedicated producers. At first it seemed they might be flashes in Leatherface's frying pan, but Fuller and Form are here to stay.

STACI: Do you remember the first time you ever saw Wes Craven's Nightmare?

ANDREW: The first time I had saw the movie it scared the crap out of me. And it came out when I was 15 years old. So I saw it in the theaters, and I was not the biggest horror movie guy at that age. And I grew to really love horror films. But I remember seeing that movie and then getting it on VHS and stuff when it came out. I was a huge fan of the original movie.

BRAD: I didn’t see the original in theaters, even though I am much older that Drew. I was too scared to see it in theaters. I really was. I didn’t see the second one in theaters. I saw the 3rd one. I got my nerves up and saw the 3rd one in theaters. And then went back after that and watched the first one. I’m glad I wasn’t home, because even back then on that Betamax machine I could pause it...

ANDREW: You were lucky you even had a Betamax machine.

ANDREW: I was really scared by it.

STACI: Did you watch it all by yourself?

BRAD: No. I think I had two or three friends over and we were all watching it together and they had already seen it. And I didn’t want to be the guy who said, “I hadn’t seen it.” So I had to act like “Oh yeah, that’s right. This is where that happens.” But the fact was that I was terrified.

ANDREW: It’s a scary movie.

Aside… It is scary, and I think sometimes that's forgotten, or at least diluted by the subsequent installments. When I saw the first movie, I was working in a video store. I wasn't all too interested in seeing A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET until so many customers returned the tape, raving about it. So I was a little late to the party, but I do remember watching it at night in a darkened room and being absolutely riveted to the screen. Although my cinematic perspective was fairly respectable for a youngster (I knew William Powell from William Katt), I had never seen anything quite like Freddy before. Prior to that, my favorite slasher was Jason (he predates Freddy by three years). It's also interesting to compare the differences in the nightmare imagery. Personally, I love pretentious, over-the-top artiness. Give me Dali over Rockwell any day. I'd much rather see Fellini Satyricon 100 times than anymore mumblecore once. I am taken by style and panache, but it's true that those images can quickly crumble into cliché. So for the new A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET director Samuel Bayer (who's famous for iconic rock videos such as Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit), decided to "throw all those pretentious coffee table art books out the window" and attempt to do something different. Of course, that is not entirely possible, but he does put a different, more sedate (sleepy and dreamy, I daresay) twist on what we know as nightmare imagery. Also, his use of red and green, echoing Freddy's famously striped sweater, adds punch.

'84 Nancy's plain bedroom walls

And reboot Nancy's fancier decor

STACI: Longtime fans remember Freddy as the quippy kind of crypt keeper type caricature almost. Now when you guys were developing this new film, how far did you want to take it for what fans like about him, and to sort of reinvent him as something for a new audience?

ANDREW: I think you start with the reinvention ‘cause that’s the whole idea of what we were doing. And when we were developing, there was a screenplay that Wesley Strick had written that was given to us when we came onto the project. So, that was our jumping off point. And then we all sit in a room and talk about what we loved from the original, like we’ve done with CHAINSAW or AMITYVILLE or FRIDAY THE 13TH, and what needs to be in this movie. What do we need to pay homage to. And we all talk about the stuff, and when you see the movie, you see the bath tub, you see a version of Tina’s death that Brad said earlier - that shirt that Katie Cassidy is wearing is very similar to the shirt that Johnny Depp is wearing in the original. So there’s little things all over the movie that are sprinkled. Of course, it’s in Springwood, where the original was set. But we talk about that in great lengths. You know, the fans. We don’t want to make the same movie. We can’t just remake that 1984 version. It is a totally different movie.

STACI: And can you guys talk a little bit about the casting of Jackie Earle Haley? Because some people may think “Well, that’s kind of beneath him, it’s just a horror movie.” So, he really actually had to do a lot of acting and flashbacks and also under make-up and things like that. So, can you talk a little bit about what he specifically brought to the role of Freddy Krueger?

ANDREW: Did you like him?

STACI: Mmm. Hmm.

ANDREW: Did you think he was good?

STACI: Yeah, I do. Although it took me awhile to get into the flow of what he was doing. And I really liked the flashbacks actually. I enjoyed them, when usually I don't like to be spoon-fed a bunch of back-story. But in this case, it works and we get to see Jackie Earle Haley portraying Freddy as a human being.

Aside… I didn't want to say too much then because the clock was ticking on our interview and I wanted to get them talking more than me talking. BUT — here are my thoughts as a fan of Robert Englund, and knowing what I know of Jackie Earle Haley. I first saw Robert Englund in the miniseries V (I didn't catch his earlier work, gems such as Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive or Gary Sherman's Dead & Buried until MUCH later). He was the sweet, mild-mannered alien called Willie and was so likeable. Seeing him shift gears as Freddy and really embody and own a character successfully for so many years has really been gratifying as a fan. He's very commanding and has the presence on the level of very strong character actors such as Christopher Lee and Vincent Price. Jackie Earle Haley has a completely different demeanor. I must confess I have not seen any of his early work (we're talking none… I never saw The Bad News Bears, his Love Boat episodes, nothing). So it's like he popped into my consciousness with Little Children — a movie I absolutely love, and in fact chose as one of the best of the 00s at the turn of the decade. And then there was Watchmen — a movie I absolutely love, and in fact also chose as one of the best of the 00s. So Jackie is a great actor, no doubt about that. But as Freddy Krueger? I had my doubts. I saw him on set when he was filming, and I wasn't convinced (he is so tiny and soft-spoken!). I saw the first few minutes of the movie and trailers, and I still wasn't convinced. When I think of Freddy, I think of someone looming, and bigger than life — even if only as seen through the eyes of terrified children. I think of someone with a sharp hatchet-face and the rapier diction to match — Haley plays Freddy more realistically, as an uneducated janitor who probably would mumble and drop his g's. His face is softened and blunted too, because of the fire that burned him. This is all logical, correct and right. But as anyone who's seen all the Nightmare movies, it's impossible to forget Robert Englund. Now that I have seen the entire 2010 reboot from beginning to end and have made the effort to 1) step back into a 17-year-old mindset, and 2) take Haley 100% on his own merits, I have to say: Haley is a very good Freddy Kruger.

Freddy was hulking in the '84 version

But in 2010, he's more skulking

BRAD: I think we made a statement with our casting, when we started with the movie that we were going to try and make an elevated version of any horror movie by casting a guy who has an Academy Award nomination. And I don’t think any of us could’ve hoped to get anyone else but Jackie. Because, he was into it, and he didn’t shy away from the tougher scenes, and he wanted to make a very scary and compelling version of Freddy Krueger. And he wanted to make it his own. So, I don’t feel like he came to this saying, “Robert did this, or I’m NOT going to do this.” He said, “This is how I see this character, and hopefully other people will think it’s scary.” When you get an actor of that caliber, you let them run with it.

ANDREW: The whole movie shifted when he signed on. When we’re casting and prepping a film, actors are coming in. We’re taking meetings and everyone is asking the question, “who’s playing Freddy Krueger?”, ‘cause we knew it wasn’t going to be Robert. The minute that Jackie signed on, everything changed.

Robert's natural features are sharper, mirroring his rapier finger-knives

While Jackie chooses the play the character from the standpoint of a burn-victim

BRAD: That’s definitely true. There are two actors in the movie that passed on the movie, and then when he came on, they came in and read for us. Literally it was that...

ANDREW: ...Academy Award nominated actor now playing the role of Freddy Krueger. I think that people knew what we were going to try and do with this movie.

STACI: I understand that there’s not going to be a FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 in the immediate future, in spite of its strong opening and fan support of Derek Mears as Jason. So, do you see NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET as going on with Jackie?

ANDREW: Well, yes. If we’re lucky enough to do another one. ‘Cause we really wanted to do the FRIDAY sequel, because we love that so much. It would definitely be Jackie, and it would be amazing to do another one. We loved making the movie. You know, we really loved our script [for the sequel]. We thought we were really getting close on it. It’s just above us, and they’re not ready to move it forward yet. You know, we’re fighting [for it]. We want to make the movie.

BRAD: I think that if there’s big fan support for it. I think that if NIGHTMARE does well, I think that will hopefully open the door. But the reality is they’re not making horror movies like they were. They’re not making the same amount of them, and the ones that are getting made, they are not getting theatrical distribution. And it feels like the horror genre right now is going through somewhat of a drought. And it’s not for lack of material or subject matter. It’s purely financial. If the studios are going to get up to bat, they want to swing for the stands. And there was a time when the studios were making a lot more movies than they are making now. And a horror movie could fit into a slate of 14 to 16 movies a year. But if the slate is only 6 to 8, it’s harder to give one of those slots to a horror movie.

The 1984 version was a hard-R, with an emphasis on sex-and-violence

The new version also has suggestive imagery and dialogue, but it's watered-down

STACI: As always on imdb, you’ve got a thousand things in development. But how close are some of these? Because THE BIRDS has been around for a long time. And MONSTER SQUAD, I guess that’s a remake of the kid’s movie?

ANDREW: MONSTER SQUAD. Nothing is really close right now. We are developing, which is something we haven’t done in the past, and our deal is now at Paramount, and FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 we thought was the closest movie we had, which no longer is the case. But we’re meeting with writers, we’re doing takes on some of these other movies. Writers are writing. And just trying to push a ball down the field on a lot of projects.

BRAD: I think 2011 will probably be a great year for us for productivity, because we’re developing some amazing stuff this year with scripts that will be ready within the next two to three months. We’ll submit them to the studios. You know, bigger movies. Not horror stuff.

ANDREW: [But in the genre we do have] OUJIA. The Hasbro Oujia Board movie at Universal. It’s something we’re very excited about.

BRAD: That we can’t talk about [the new one coming up] yet, because it hasn’t been announced. And we’re pursuing another big franchise that we’re working on. But none of these things are horror movies. They’re all more action, kid-oriented stuff, as opposed to what we have been doing in the past.

STACI: And how do you feel about that, because I know your passion has been genre. Are you excited to move on? I’m sure you are, in some ways.

ANDREW: Yeah. They’re also movies that we love. I think as long as we’re making stuff that we would love to go see, we’re lucky.

BRAD: You know, Staci, the thing about Drew and I - and you know this - is that we love making movies. And so we consider it a privilege to be able to do it. Sure we always love making horror movies, and hopefully we will be able to do it. But as long as we’re on set, and we’re getting our shot to get up to bat, we’re happy to do that.

STACI: What about directing and writing? Any aspirations?

BRAD: We don’t have any talent. No.

(Laughter)

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