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In the realm of fictional supernatural serial killers, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is primus inter pares — a status that this insightful documentary leaves no doubt of, as is chronicles the rise, fall, revival, and relapse of the nightmarish franchise. It's a delight to hear Englund describe how he shaped the character (part Kinsky, part Cagney, part Old West gunslinger, among other ingredients) that writer/director Wes Craven created as an amalgam of stuff ripped from the headlines and his own childhood traumas.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the three movies where Craven and Englund coincided are the best of the bunch: A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (co-written by Craven and featuring Englund’s infamous ad-lib "Welcome to Primetime, Bitch"), and especially Wes Craven's New Nightmare — the latter not only the summit of the franchise, but one of the great films of the 20th century, horror or otherwise; a meta-textual, circular, self-referential masterpiece that finds both a highly original way to bring the villain back and a tight, satisfying conclusion.
Speaking of conclusions, the original film's ending contained the germ of its own corruption: the ill-avised Sequel Hook in which Freddy turns out to be Not Quite Dead. This was not Craven's idea but the brain(less)child of producer Robert Shaye; in fact, David Chaskin, who wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (an odd subtitle; wasn't the first movie already about Freddy's revenge?), calls the climax of that first sequel, which is for all intents and purposes the same as that of its predecessor, "the famous Bob Shaye coda." As for the installments that Craven had nothing to do with, he himself describes them better than anyone else:
All things considered, it's a testament to Englund's considerable charisma that Freddy remained the best, and sometimes the only good part, of flops like A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master or Freddy vs. Jason; the actor makes even Krueger's more pedestrian moments work, and he does so because it's no secret that Englund himself always took on the character in a rascally mercenary spirit — in his own words, "just being a whore" — which he just lets loose when Freddy's riding a skateboard or impersonating the Wicked Witch of the West (with good reason, this 2010 documentary doesn't even acknowledge the remake released earlier that year, except for a sort of 'if the shoe fits' remark: “if you got the wrong guy under that makeup it wouldn't have worked at all").
Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy
In the realm of fictional supernatural serial killers, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is primus inter pares — a status that this insightful documentary leaves no doubt of, as is chronicles the rise, fall, revival, and relapse of the nightmarish franchise. It's a delight to hear Englund describe how he shaped the character (part Kinsky, part Cagney, part Old West gunslinger, among other ingredients) that writer/director Wes Craven created as an amalgam of stuff ripped from the headlines and his own childhood traumas.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the three movies where Craven and Englund coincided are the best of the bunch: A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (co-written by Craven and featuring Englund’s infamous ad-lib "Welcome to Primetime, Bitch"), and especially Wes Craven's New Nightmare — the latter not only the summit of the franchise, but one of the great films of the 20th century, horror or otherwise; a meta-textual, circular, self-referential masterpiece that finds both a highly original way to bring the villain back and a tight, satisfying conclusion.
Speaking of conclusions, the original film's ending contained the germ of its own corruption: the ill-avised Sequel Hook in which Freddy turns out to be Not Quite Dead. This was not Craven's idea but the brain(less)child of producer Robert Shaye; in fact, David Chaskin, who wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (an odd subtitle; wasn't the first movie already about Freddy's revenge?), calls the climax of that first sequel, which is for all intents and purposes the same as that of its predecessor, "the famous Bob Shaye coda." As for the installments that Craven had nothing to do with, he himself describes them better than anyone else:
"[Freddy’s Revenge] didn't have a unity to it, it just had a bunch of scenes, which I think the worst of the sequels or the worst moments of the sequels, were just kind of striking scenes, but overall the story didn't often cohere very well."