- I dreamed about a guy
in a dirty red and green sweater.
He's horribly burned.
- Freddy was different because we got to see
the actual monster.
- Come to Freddy.
- He wears a dirty brown hat.
- He's got a cool look.
I mean, even though he's all burnt up,
he's got the hat. - He's got style.
- He has razors on his right hand.
- Nobody but Freddy could have that glove.
- His name is Freddy Krueger.
- Wes calls Freddy the bastard father of us all.
- You are all my children now.
- He was so bad to the bone.
- And he's also so easily quotable.
- Welcome to primetime, bitch.
- His commentary became like the main attraction.
- How's this for a wet dream?
- He wasn't hiding behind a mask.
He was being sassy.
He was playing with these victims.
- Let's get high.
- I mean, did anyone ever think
that movie was going to be a big deal?
Not really.
- Just a marvelous creation by Wes Craven.
- So iconic, never going to look at a red and green sweater
and think Christmas anymore.
I only think Freddy Krueger.
- He'll be scary forever.
- When "Nightmare on Elm Street" came out in 1984,
no one was really expecting it.
- Freddy just came out of the blue and it's like,
what the F is this?
- The idea that someone in your dreams
is going to kill you?
I just don't think that idea ever becomes not scary.
And that's Freddy Krueger.
- Freddy is a demon, he is a spirit.
He is unknowable and unstoppable
because he doesn't exist in our realm.
- Freddy likes to torment his victims
with whatever their particular flaw or fear is.
He likes to exploit that.
- Freddy operates on a lot of levels as a character,
as a symbol, he's whispered about, and he's hinted at.
The children have heard of him.
- He was a filthy child murderer
who killed at least 20 kids in the neighborhood.
- The specter has infiltrated their imaginations.
He's manifested in the dreams and in the nightmares.
- Whatever you do, don't fall asleep.
- And that's where he can do his damage.
- No!
- There's something horrific about having a mask on
that hides all features, you know,
you don't know what's behind it,
but I think the better horror icon
is somebody like Freddy who's got a backstory.
He was a child molester killer.
He gets captured and tried and let off on a loophole.
He gets out, the parents go after him,
and they burn him alive.
And then his ghost essentially comes back
and kills all the children on Elm Street.
- Tina!
- The beginning of "Nightmare on Elm Street"
really came to me with a series of articles
in the "LA Times" about young men who were dying
in the middle of nightmares.
- The famous case was about the young boy,
teenager who died and he said,
"I'm having these night terrors"
and had a coffee pot and was trying not to go to sleep
because he was afraid he was going to die in his sleep.
And everybody was like,
you just need to go to sleep, you're overtired.
And he died in his sleep.
- So, it was clear this guy saw it coming,
knew what was going to happen if he slept,
tried desperately to stay awake
and I just thought, wow, it moved me.
- I think that really blew my dad's mind.
You know, he had crazy dreams.
He was really driven by his own demons.
And I think when he heard about that kid,
he thought that could have been me.
- You know, Tina, she dreamed this was going to happen.
- What?
- She had a nightmare that someone was trying to kill her.
- Freddy's origins, they're sort of multifarious.
There was a kid named Freddy who was kind of my nemesis
in elementary school and he was a big kid
and he would beat me up.
So, the name Fred, Freddy, to me,
was like one of those names
that just brings up all these bad memories, you know?
And then there was this incident,
this kind of famous incident now of myself as a child,
I'm lying in bed at night.
I crept to the window and there was this man, you know,
overcoat and that sort of fedora hat.
And somehow he sensed that somebody was watching,
he looked right up into my eyes
and I was just more terrified
than I can ever remember being.
The thing that struck me most was
that he had a lot of malice in his face
and he also had this sort of sick sense of humor
about how delightful it was to terrify a child.
So, that was kind of the look.
And then what would the weapon be?
"Friday the 13th" had already been out and "Halloween"
so there was a lot of killers with masks
and with some sort of an edged weapon.
So I said, okay, what's the earliest weapon
that mankind might've been afraid of
and well the weapon of an animal.
So I thought, okay,
it'll be basically a hand with claws on it.
Perfect.
- Who are you?
- Wes described it to me as something
that he could make an a boiler room.
I kind of knew what that meant.
This guy was going to be a tinkerer.
He was going to be able to work with copper and steel.
He was going to be good at soldering and welding.
So, that sort of gave me an idea,
probably going to go brass or copper,
partly because of the look,
partly because of the way you can work it.
I did a little sketch for him and kind of showed him
how it would work.
He said, "Fine, let's pursue this."
They figured out where the joints really needed to be.
What's the articulation going to be like?
They have to be as articulate as your hand is.
We went through a lot of different shapes on the knives,
everything, you know, to like cut down buck knives
to all sorts of different things.
A lot of them were way too heavy.
A lot of them were curved the wrong way.
They couldn't be turned upside down, but we were still,
you know, tiger claw, long fingernails.
He kept making this gesture.
And so, that meant to me that this curve had to go this way.
It wasn't going to do this.
It was going to do this.
We made one hero, one metal.
We made a stunt glove that was basically all plastic
and it had wooden blades.
So, they'd break off.
We had made a stunt glove with plastic blades
that had like Mylar on the fingers
that you saw and all the background shots.
And then we made one glove
that was metal with plastic blades
that he would use any time he was just far enough off camera
or the stunt coordinator wanted something
that was close enough, but that wouldn't hurt anybody.
But there was only one metal version.
It wasn't designed to be an icon.
It was just designed to be a tool for this character
and instead, he became an icon with this thing.
- I just loved it so much.
On one level, the claw extends Freddy.
It extends his anger,
his revenge, and it's a little larger than life.
I think all those elements have combined
to kind of make it symbolic and evil.
- It's such a powerful idea and a powerful image
because we haven't really seen anything like that before.
We've seen claws and we've seen sharp knives
and we've seen chainsaws and we've seen everything else,
but we haven't seen that extension of the person
doing the killing become like a part of them.
- Die!
- How the glove transformed me,
how the glove affected me was it's heavy.
And when I put it on, one shoulder dropped a bit like this
and it affected my movement and it affected my posture.
And I immediately thought it's like having a holster,
it's like reaching for the gun.
So, that posture became signature for Freddy Krueger.
- The first time that Robert put the glove on
and he sort of hurt himself,
tink, tink, cut himself a little bit with everybody did.
And he goes, "Ow!"
And then he goes, "Ha."
And we were like, cool, good to go.
And that was just his face, no makeup.
- Well, the interesting thing about Freddy
is he was originally conceived as a dirty old man.
- They wanted a very big man to play the part
and he was to be mute, he wouldn't speak at all.
- David Warner was one of the actors
they were talking to about it.
He was thought of as this much older character.
- And I went in and I was sort of in my punk rock stage
at that time, my hair was a lot blonder
and I penciled circles under my eyes
and I wore all black and I played a staring game
with director Wes Craven as he told the story to me.
- And he was able to put himself
into the position of being evil.
And it brought out that wonderful thing about Freddy
of it's the guy in the sidewalk, frightening the kid.
- I did kind of get what he was going for.
We were on the same playing field with our understanding.
- So, I said, "Okay, fine.
"This might not work,
but I will try it with this younger guy."
The rest was makeup and once the makeup was on him,
you didn't know how old he was anyway.
I was like, "Duh, what was I thinking?"
- And then you add
that makeup to him. - Right.
- There's something about that,
he really is the epitome
of the serial killer turned horror icon
because he does not hide behind a mask.
He is himself.
- Please God.
- This,
is God.
- In the original script,
he's hideously burned and disfigured.
I mean, it's less than $2 million budget.
You've got to reproduce it 25 times
over the course of your schedule.
I think that what they came up with based on the structure
of Robert Englund's face is brilliant and it's so iconic.
- I worked on "Nightmare on Elm Street" one
in Dave Miller's garage.
So, I got to see how the makeup was designed,
which was very clever.
It was a two layer application.
The first layer that went on Robert's skin
was all this burned flesh.
But over that, was an additional layer of like
almost like melted cheese on pizza,
stringy pieces that went over that,
that you could look through to see the under structure.
- And it was like all new to me.
I mean, it was an adventure and part of me got
a little scared and it is rather claustrophobic
the first time.
- The first time I saw Robert in the makeup
where I really got the full import of Freddy Krueger
was on the set in the scene where I'm in school
and I go down the steps into the boiler room of the school
and he comes out
- Tina?
- And it hit me with full force.
Like that is a scary character.
But up until that moment,
I hadn't really given much thought to Freddy Krueger.
I didn't really think the movie was going
to make him into a star.
- Let's face it, like your nightmares
are just your brain turning on yourself.
It's all of your intellect and everything that you know
and fear about the world, turning on you.
And I think that's who Freddy is to Wes.
This is the kind of dark side of his brain,
carried by Robert Englund
who brought his Shakespearean wherewithal
and his wit and his talents
to create an incredibly scary
and yet compelling and charismatic character.
- Everything about that character from the way
the makeup works to the way Robert speaks.
- Now, you die.
- It brings that character to life in what is probably
the most terrifying way they could have.
- Freddy wasn't functioning like the other ones
because he was not a corporeal slasher.
He was not just some deranged mad man
who was taking down people at a camp.
He functioned differently.
He had admit those to him where he was hunting in dreams
and there was no real clear cut way to kill him.
And that was horrifying.
- Wes was always adamant about the fact
that the bad guy had to be as smart as the protagonist.
And I think, the thing about Freddy
is that he's smart so he's relatable and he's funny.
- How sweet, fresh meat.
- Freddy has it all, man.
I mean, he's just the coolest monster.
He's the coolest, bad guy ever.
He moves well, he's got all these kind of great poses
that Jason never had.
I mean, I love Jason, but sorry, Jason.
- The whole Freddy Krueger's, you know,
thrust is about killing these kids with this sense of glee.
- He will throw in these one-liners as he's killing you,
as he's about to kill you, or after he's killed you.
And he wants you to know that he enjoys it.
- Bon appetit, bitch.
- We loved Freddy for his comedy and his timing.
- Want to suck face? - No.
- Freddy was a character who didn't rely on his size.
He didn't rely on his speed.
He was toying with people psychologically.
- Welcome home, Taryn.
Look familiar?
- Freddy is in there with those private thoughts,
those private fears.
He knows what makes you tick.
- Let's get high.
- Freddy Krueger, more than any of the other icons,
is much more personally involved
with the people that he's killing.
- Yeah. - He gets to know them.
He gets to understand them.
Like he puts a lot of time and energy
into making the perfect nightmare.
He's trying to kill you in a way
that is going to terrify you the most.
- I want to draw some blood. - Help!
- As he searches
for your weaknesses. - Searches for it right then.
- He goes right in and he finds it
and he exploits it.
This idea of like, like fucking with his prey.
- Hello?
- I'm your boyfriend now, Nancy.
- The key is that the movies take place in a dream.
It is in fact, the "Nightmare on Elm Street"
and everyone that sees it can identify with that.
Everybody's had a bad dream or a daydream or a nightmare.
- It's interesting because in his world, in the dream world,
he has free reign, he can do whatever he wants,
but once he steps into the real world,
it's like "Home Alone."
Nancy was able to set up all these traps.
Like, he's one of the sticky bandits.
- Ow!
- It's ridiculous.
- The idea that we grow up with is,
oh, there's a monster under my bed.
There's a monster in the closet.
Will, you just go into bed
and you put the covers over your head
and you close your eyes
and it's all going to be fine,
but that's literally what's going to kill you in Elm Street.
- All day long I've been seeing that guy's weird face.
And hearing those fingernails.
- Fingernails?
That's amazing you saying that,
that made me remember the dream I had last night.
- And I think everyone found that idea
so fresh and exciting and invigorating and terrifying.
- This is just a dream, he isn't real.
He isn't real.
- Wes came to New York to do all the post-production
for "Nightmare on Elm Street."
My sister and I went to visit him one weekend.
He's like, "Meet me at the editing room."
So, we go up to Times Square and he's like,
"You know, we just put together a cut
and I really don't even know if we have a film here."
I mean, honestly, he was very unsure about it.
- Did anyone ever think that movie was going to be a big deal?
Not really.
Bob was hoping it would make $2.46 cents for the company.
So, the fact that there were articles written actually
in the "New York Times.'
- When I really sat in a movie theater
and watched with an audience
is when I saw how other people really responded to it.
And it was fabulous because everyone just was yelling
at the screen and screaming it,
the characters to not go in,
"Don't go in the basement!"
And I realized that this was a new age.
Like this is horror movies, different than regular movies
and everyone's there to have a great time.
- Our first weekend, Wes called me and said,
"We just kicked "Beverly Hills Cop" off the top spot
and I'm like, "You're kidding me."
What is it about this thing?
- I know you're there, Freddy.
- Freddy Krueger does not really appear in the advertising
of the first films.
You saw the glove in the posters and in the newspaper ads,
but by the time the second film came out,
he had really taken hold
and they were putting him front and center.
Watch out for him.
May be in your neighborhood soon.
A "Nightmare on Elm Street," part two.
- It was obvious that Bob Shay ar New Line
would want a sequel
because the first film was such a success.
It did so well, it set up this fantastic character,
this incredible story, this great world,
but there's a part of a lot of people that believes
that maybe they didn't know enough
of what they were getting into
with regard to the character, with regard to the story.
A successful film is one thing,
but a character breaking through
the way Freddy Krueger broke through
did not happen as quickly as maybe
that movie went into production,
which is why Freddy as a character is all over the place
in Elm Street two, compared to the first film.
- He's inside me.
I'm scared.
- Jesse, who is doing this to you?
- Fred Krueger.
- With part two, you know,
him being awake and Freddy kind of living inside of him
and growing inside of him.
It's almost more of a "Hellraiser" concept.
And I think it didn't work.
- I think sometimes Nightmare two is unfairly dismissed.
In Nightmare two, Freddy's still really scary.
In fact, it's actually one of the most disturbing movies
I've seen, especially when I was young,
because it was a body horror film.
It's very Cronenbergian, emerging from the physical body
of this young man.
You're like, ah, what are you doing?
You know, there's something still dangerous
about the character.
- When I got hired to do Nightmare two,
what I wanted to bring to the character
was I wanted to give it more bone structure.
I bought burned books and I studied all this,
the actual people who had been scarred completely
from head to toe.
And you know, what I noticed was that some bone structure
was coming through, cheekbones, brows, things like that.
Sometimes the nose was gone.
I kind of embraced that because I always saw Freddy sort of
as a male witch.
- I'll get you, my pretty.
And your little soul too.
He has the hat with a big wide brim.
He's got fingernails sort of, with claw hand
and he's got sort of a hook nose.
And I kind of went off of that
and made it look more like a witch.
We do a lot of promotions after part two.
So, we would go in video stores we'd go
and Robert would sign a bunch of stuff.
I mean, he was getting big and in New York City,
they're incredible, great fans.
I mean, they'll scream out, "Robert!"
They all know him by his first name.
"Freddy!"
I thought, you know, what is this?
He kills kids and here these kids are all running
to touch him and say hi to him.
So, I think that's kind of when I knew something's up
with this character.
- You've got posters and magazine covers
and they started talking about consumer products
and things like that.
And they were going to be the launching pad
for the next step, which of course was "Dream Warriors."
- Nightmares, they have a way of coming back.
"A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors."
- Everyone knew that because of this franchise
and particularly "Dream Warriors,"
Freddy Krueger was cool.
- I said, where's the fucking bourbon?
- Mom?
- Wes Craven didn't really have much of a hand
in "Nightmare on Elm Street," part two, but in part three,
it's a fan favorite because we're seeing Freddy
become a little more self-actualized
as like this showman murderer.
- A circus needs a ringmaster and that's what Freddy became.
He was our guide through all this kind of stuff,
making the jokes about them.
And people really responded to that.
- Welcome to prime time, bitch.
- He takes the chick and he puts her head in the TV,
pandemonium, screaming, laugh, I mean,
it's just like you went to see Freddy for those moments.
- It was still dark, but it had gone beyond revenge.
There was a sense of enjoyment in the killing of the kids
that was new to Freddy to me.
It was like, it wasn't just to make amends
for the past injustices that he felt
had been perpetrated against him.
- Sorry, kid, I don't believe in fairy tales.
- Freddy is a world-class world builder.
He takes full advantage of the powers
that the dream demons have given him.
- The fact that he is limitless in his powers
also means things keep getting bigger.
They get a little more sensationalized.
They make jokes and put them on TV
and talk shows in the movie.
- Can I ask you something?
- Certainly.
- Who gives a fuck what you think?
- Freddy became this character that was like live on stage.
Like almost like at all times.
And as a drag icon, we can relate.
- He had catchphrases
and it was very like delivery like this.
- What's wrong, Joey, feeling tongue tied?
- Well, maybe at first you don't realize
what a huge imprint and what a huge impact
your character is going to make.
But, then I think they quickly realized
like we've created like a horror icon.
He was ready for prime time, bitch.
- Nightmare three, the total grosses,
so to speak, are now over 40 million.
It scored the biggest opening
for any independent film, ever.
Why?
Why you ask?
Freddy Krueger, that's why, sucker.
- When that hit,
and it was a huge hit,
it made more money than the first two.
It was like, all right, now we know what this is.
It's Freddy and teens, boom.
Let's go forward.
- Believe it or not,
some people still don't recognize me.
That's why I carry this.
- He was doing MTV spots, music videos, you name it.
Freddy became this huge mainstream success.
- 80s horror characters stopped being relegated
to just what we saw on the silver screen.
They became pop culture phenomenons
and celebrities of their own.
You would turn on MTV and Freddy Krueger,
not Robert England,
but Freddy Krueger would be hosting a block of music videos.
- Right now it's Los Lobos with the case
of those "Shakin', Shakin' Shakes."
- And don't even get me started
with Freddy's phone sex line.
- So, dial this number now, if you dare.
Tell 'em Freddy sent ya.
- You know, I know you weren't supposed
to call him and jerk off,
but I mean, it was all set up like that, right?
- $2 the first minute,
45 cents each additional minute,
children get your parents permission before you dial.
- Freddy just became this merchandising monster.
He had 1-900 numbers.
He had his own TV series for a little while.
- Remember, we make house calls.
- As the editor of "Fangoria,"
I knew every time I put him on the cover,
that issue was going to like double in sales.
We did spin off magazines, licensed magazines.
It was Freddy, Freddy, Freddy.
That's kind of maybe what pissed the readers off.
He no longer belonged to just the fans now.
Now mainstream America embraced Freddy.
- We loved Freddy from the beginning.
We subscribed to "Fangoria" magazine.
I had every issue.
There's this point when something becomes too popular
and all the dickheads that I hated, you know,
started being Freddy fans.
And it was like this thing that was mine,
this thing that was uniquely mine
and the other people who loved it were like me.
When it became so popular
that Freddy was hosting shows on MTV,
I have to say, I resented it.
- I mean, it probably made the character
much less terrifying, but you know,
he had to do what he had to do.
I'm sure he was like,
how do I rise to the occasion?
- He was just a complete success
in every pop culture way you could think about.
I mean, limousines with rock stars,
going places and having a great time.
- You see in the next couple of movies, it was always like,
let's copy the three formula, let's showcase Freddy.
- How's this for a wet dream?
- Four, "The Dream Master" is my favorite
because it had jokes, it was also weird
and it was also just kind of really exciting to me.
- Freddy was not just the funniest,
but Freddy was also the most maniacal.
He was so in charge of his universe.
And when you were sucked into it,
anything that could happen, did happen.
- You can check in, but you can't check out.
- They check in, but they don't check out.
- It is incredible.
- I think it may be the only franchise where the box office
went up with each successive film for the first four films.
Each of the first four films made more
than the one before it.
- Oh, and a movie will cheer you up.
- What are you seeing?
- Nightmare on Elm Street 4."
- Do you have to see one, two, and three to appreciate it?
- No, Rose, it stands alone.
- By the time you get to comic book Freddy in the fifth one,
the subtlety was gone
and the subtlety is what made it scary.
- Faster than a bastard maniac.
- Told ya comic books was bad for ya.
- Who's ever had a dream where they were paper?
And fighting Superman?
Like, no one has that dream.
- I like "Freddy's Dead"
because it's so silly and outlandish
and so far off the beaten path.
Freddy is at his most clownish in this film
And he's really taunting the teenagers
that he's actually killing in it.
- Hey, Spence, let's trip out.
- Even when the movie's kind of bad, like the sixth one,
there's the video game sequence.
- Now I'm playing with power.
There's the kid with an ear implant thing
that is intensifying all the sounds.
- Oh please, no.
- There's a whole big thing to it that kind of, oh,
they could do anything.
- This is my dream and I do what I want.
- Might be your dream, but it's my rules!
- You do get a very specialized way of death.
That's for sure.
- Nice hearing from ya, Carlos.
- This is where it turned into Freddy sitcom.
The whole thing.
It has punchlines like sitcoms.
You could put a laugh track behind that movie
and I think it would make a lot more sense to people,
but that said, it was not well-received.
- Questions?
- Yeah, what are you on?
Looks like a frying pan and some eggs to me.
- "Freddy's Dead" was I think the low point of the series.
- Kids.
- I got a call from Bob Shaye out of the blue,
he said, "Look, we killed Freddy.
We said he was dead forever,
but we thought maybe, maybe there's one more film there.
And we wondered if you would like to come up with an idea."
- I'm sure people ask you this all the time,
is Freddy really dead?
- Of course he is, Freddy's dead and gone.
- Sort of came to me in a bolt.
We all have these incredible stories
about how this movie changed our life
and how we've not been able to shake it in a sense.
What if we did a film about everybody involved
with the film?
- He just started thinking about Freddy
and what it had been to him
and how it was now kind of torturing him
'cause he didn't know where to go with it.
It's like, "It's killing me right now.
I can't let, Freddy's, you know?"
And then you're like,
"Wait, Freddy, me, killing, wait, yes."
- When he finally thought it out
and really thought about this idea
of having it be Heather Langenkamp as this actress
who played Nancy getting tortured and haunted
by Freddy Krueger, he must have been so excited
he came up with this superb idea.
- How would you like to join us in the definitive nightmare?
- I thought you killed Freddy off?
- We did, but the fans, you know, the fans,
God bless them, they're clamoring for more.
- It's going to be about horror, and horror movies,
and Hollywood, and how they affect the popular culture.
And I said, "Count me in."
- "A New Nightmare" was meta-horror
before meta-horror became a big thing
with "Scream" and the film, Freddy's not really Freddy.
He's really this demon that's supposed to represent
the loss of innocence and that's,
this is a demon that this dislikes the idea of Freddy
and wants to kind of mime him
in order to break into the real world,
but he has to use Heather Langenkamp in order to do it
because she was the original person
to defeat Freddy Krueger.
- I think they'd like to see us together again.
- In what, a romantic comedy?
- Just because it's a love story,
it doesn't mean you can't have a decapitation or two.
- At some point, there's a choice that is made.
Freddy is going to be fun.
And we're going to have fun with these movies.
And Wes Craven has to bring that back in "New Nightmare"
and say, actually, this guy's gross and disgusting,
and he's a murderer and he killed a bunch of children.
It's not fun.
- Miss me?
- Wes coming back to make that character not just scary,
but self-reflexive, to make it about the creator's journey,
to have Robert Englund playing himself,
to touch on some of the very real trauma
that Heather was having in real life.
- Hello?
- Freddy's coming for you.
- To channel all of that back into something
that was such a big part of their lives.
To try to reclaim that and put it in a movie
and actually scare a new audience
is pretty much unparalleled in these franchises.
- Freddy can break the fourth wall.
He can come after the filmmakers.
- What the hell is going on here?
Cut the effects!
- I think the concept of Freddy coming after the filmmakers
and the actors is his second best sort of concept.
It's really fun.
- I think the only way to stop him is to make another movie.
You're going to have to make a choice.
- Choice?
What kind of choice?
- Whether or not you're willing to play Nancy one last time.
- It wasn't until it Wes Craven's "New Nightmare"
that I just genuinely felt like West had injected it
with something really refreshing, big ideas.
That's where Freddy started getting interesting to me again.
- "There was no movie.
There was only, her life."
- It's hard to argue that Wes Craven
is not a requirement for a Freddy film
when most people would agree that the three
he had some involvement with,
one, three, and seven are the best ones.
- That makes me happy.
I wonder if he felt that.
I wonder if he knew that.
I hope he did.
- Well, then next one is where he fought Jason
and everybody came back and it made
more money than any of them to that point.
- When I was alive, I might've been a little naughty,
but after they killed me,
I became something much, much worse.
- It was an epic battle, it's the Avengers,
it was the Avengers before the Avengers.
- Oh no!
- It shouldn't be surprising that
that character versus Jason became the kind of icon
of the 80s and 90s that he became.
- "Freddy vs. Jason" has been incubating
since the first 14-year-old boy came up to me
and said, "Dude, do you think you could kick Jason's ass?"
That's really a fan-inspired film.
And that's probably one reason
it did a hundred million worldwide,
but it's just a fun movie.
- When a film starts to create an event,
which nightmare did because of Freddy Krueger,
it becomes a group event and people want to be
a part of something.
- Nobody actually loves Freddy Krueger
in the sense that they're like,
I want that man to be my father or best friend.
You love him as an idea, a concept, a piece of amusement.
And ultimately as the character becomes more legendary
and more iconic, you love him as a piece of pop culture
that's become a part of you, a part of your life,
your life's experience.
- The Freddy phenomenon, I look back and I'm like,
that is weird, man, I mean, it probably wouldn't,
I wouldn't have questioned it at eight or nine,
but I look back and it's just like, why was there pajamas?
- There were things like toasters that imprinted
the face of Freddy.
I really liked the lunchbox with the thermos inside.
- I wanted the toys of a guy who was murdering kids like me.
I had trading cards with Freddy on it, I had a shirt,
I wanted to dress up as Freddy, had the glove.
- And then from that,
we get the sexy Freddy costumes
and we get the red and green mini dress
with the like perfectly put slash marks
right across the breast, which are very sexy.
- Sexy damn Freddy Krueger.
- Anybody who thinks they're above it
hasn't found themselves on Halloween realizing
that it's actually kind of perfect.
- Like today.
I still dress up as Freddy Krueger as a 46-year-old man.
I do my peaches version of it, of course.
- Today we have like Nike making Freddy Krueger sneakers.
You could take those colors and those patterns
and you can put them anywhere.
And you know that they are Freddy Krueger.
They're just, they're so iconic in those positions.
I think that they're always going to be able
to be referenced in fashion and pop culture
because there are so developed.
We know their entire history,
we know their wardrobe.
And I think that that's something that you can't escape.
- It's just that that sweater and hat combination
looks exactly like Freddy Krueger.
- Wow.
Oh yeah, that do not cross my mind.
- The iconography of Freddy Krueger will stay with us
for a long time,
but Robert Englund embodies Freddy
and he was who we identified with
and he evolved the franchise.
- Robert is so tied into Freddy.
They tried to do a reboot.
- I don't know Jesse.
- You think you can turn back time?
Answer me! - No.
- That actor is a brilliant actor,
but he just isn't Freddy.
- It was dead in the water because the character
just didn't have the same life.
- Fuck you.
- Ooh, sounds like fun.
- It doesn't have the thrill, the relish,
the charm, the charisma,
the little extra Freddy sparkle that made us fall in love
with him in the first place.
- I'll see you in hell.
- Tell 'em Freddy sent ya.
- There's something so iconic about Freddy
that stands outside of the films.
- I thought I was doing a pretty damn good job here.
- No, you're great with the knifey hands
and the melting candle face.
- Get ready to taste your own blood!
- He could just pop up and you know who he is
and you know what he stands for.
- He had a personality, which is fun.
- There's a real hoot for ya, Woodsy.
- You pasted my head on Freddy Krueger's body?
- You could turn on TV and see Freddy in incongruous,
very weird mainstream situations.
- Every Halloween I tell him the same thing,
you can't bring weapons into the office.
- I made this for you, Uncle Robbie.
- Ah, thanks, Freddie Krueger.
- Just who are you?
They call me Creepy Eddie, but I'm your worst nightmare!
- He just became like the friendly killer next door.
- Say your prayers, Simpson.
- How do you spell your name?
- Krueger, with a K, like Freddy.
- I'm Scary Terry, you can run, but you can't hide, bitch.
- Freddy has become a part of American mythology.
- Krueger!
- Well, it ain't Dr. Seuss.
- 20,000 years from now
when they look back on our fallen civilization,
they'll remember Michael Jackson,
and Freddy Krueger, and George Washington.
- I
am
eternal.
- Because I don't know that anyone
can remember Fred Krueger as one thing
because he's been so many different things.
He has been a scary, in-the-shadows guy.
Fred Krueger has been an in-your-face, wise cracking,
MTV generation rollercoaster ride,
- I'm here to help you.
- Help yourself, fucker!
- He has been the evil entity that is coming back
through a child to destroy all of us.
- It's a boy!
- And I think it's what we put into that character
that we're ultimately going to get out.
- I literally ask myself the question,
why do people love this franchise so much every day?
And every day I come up with a new answer for it.
- What is seen is not always what is real.
- I mean, whoever would have ever in my wildest dreams
thought anybody would ever remember that role,
let alone, you know, ask me for an autograph about it.
- So, I think your legacy is sort of determined
by other people,
which is kind of creepy when you think about it
a little bit, but I'll take it.
- I want to thank the fans for their loyalty.
Freddy's been very, very good to me
and Wes taught me to respect the genre
and I'm glad I listened.
- It's really a profound, enigmatic sort of phenomenon
that even though I was kind of the originator of it,
I have no idea exactly how it works.
- Freddy will always exist because we dream.
- Yeah, he will.
- So, he'll always be there. - He will.
I feel like Freddy fandom gets re-found every single day.
- Every generation I think, - Everyone will always love it
- is going to re-pick up Freddy.
- Freddy's my first horror love.
The very first thing that scared me,
like really scared me, nightmares for months
that turned into a deep and abiding love over time.
You know you shouldn't, but you kind of just can't help it.
- I don't think he's ever become less scary, actually.
He's just become kind of more crazy scary to me.
I don't think there'll be another character like him.
- Freddy came into my life, I didn't come into his life.
I believe that when Wes Craven let him out
of a cage somewhere or this spirit out of a cage somewhere
and I collided with those atoms.
- Freddy's the only our icon out of all of these,
as far as I'm concerned, that could get laid on his own.
- I don't know about that.
- I really do think that-
- He's a janitor, not to malign janitors,
but it's not like-
- I'm talking about post-death.
Again, I feel like pre-death and post-death,
for all of these people is a game changer.
- Did you see when he opened up his shirt
and it was all the screams of the souls?
- Chicks dig it,
they love body mods. - The little mouths.
- They do, boys love them too.
- Okay.
- Freddy Krueger is charming.
I love his hat.
- If he wants to be charming.
- If you really got into like the idea of like,
he can make a jacuzzi into a big mouth, that's fun.
- Well, if you wanted to use his powers for good,
I suppose that's true. - Yeah.
If he decides he just wants to like,
see what it's like to date, he'd do very well.
- I don't know.
There's something about not being able-
- He's a funny guy.
- Well, he is funny.
- Pick up artists always talk about wearing
a big hat in order to get attention at the bar.
So, he's got the big hat.
So, girls are already asking him like,
"What's up with the hat?".
And he's just like, "I kill kids."
And they're all like,
"Oh, you're hilarious.
You're funny." - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And he negs 'em a little bit.