Freddy Krueger Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Horror fans will be slipping back into a new Nightmare on Elm Street on April 30th, 2010, but we're already being teased with new Freddy Krueger toys, thanks to Entertainment Earth and Mezco Toyz. You can buy a little Freddy of your own in plastic or vinyl next April just in time for Jackie Earle Haley's debut as the mutilated monster who haunts our dreams.

The first question I had when I saw the plastic toy was, why does he look like those little dolls with dried apple heads that are sold at craft fairs by sweet grandmas? But thanks to a wily blogger over at Albotas and the wonders of Photoshop, you can see that Earle Haley's Freddy definitely looks more like this toy than Robert Englund's Freddy.



I'm not sure which I prefer -- the menacing creep with a big smile or the flat-faced, expressionless killer. An early review from a test screening posted at Ain't It Cool News praises Earle Haley for his performance (although not much else in the movie), but will old fans be won over too?

Either one is sure to give me, well, nightmares. It's too bad that Johnny Depp won't be there this time around.

Do you collect movie toys? And, more importantly, do you leave them in the box or take them out?

Check out a larger version of the toy after the jump.

(Via Dread Central)

Michael Myers has his own Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, a certain hockey masked maniac has His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th, even Jaws has the incredibly elusive The Shark is Still Working, but no one has yet chronicled with any depth the behind-the-scenes adventures of everyone's favorite fedora sporting, sweater wearing, knife-glove loving, dreamscape-haunting pedophile. But fret no more, all it takes is a big Hollywood remake to give an icon of fright his very own documentary, and thus we shall soon have Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.

From the creators of the fantastic and comprehensive His Name Was Jason, Never Sleep Again has already begun filming in Los Angeles, which has long served as the shooting location for the fictional street. The documentary will be narrated by the series' most notable final girl, Heather Langenkamp, and span everything from the original 1984 film to its six sequels (seven counting the missed opportunity, Freddy vs Jason) to the upcoming Platinum Dunes remake directed by Samuel Bayer. Considering how vast their documentarian scope seems to be, I'd also prepare yourself for some coverage of the 1988 TV series "Freddy's Nightmares" as well as all the Freddy lunchboxes and Pez dispensers the crew can find.

For me, this is fantastic news. I love both of the Halloween and Friday the 13th documentaries, as well as the franchises they cover (save for a certain rocker-led two-film reboot I'd rather not talk about for fear of foaming at the mouth), but Krueger has always been my favorite cause for insomnia. And if there are any doubts that the filmmakers will be phoning in Never Sleep Again simply to coincide with the remake, co-director Andrew Kasch would like to dissuade you of that notion right now:

Read the rest over at Horror Squad

We asked, and you delivered. After counting more than 100,000 votes, we can reveal the winners of our super-duper, stunningly creative Ultimate Fan Polls! (Cue drum roll.) May I have the envelopes, please?

Winners of The Ultimate Horror Movie Fan Poll:

1. What is the best horror movie franchise of all time? Nightmare on Elm Street.
2. Which horror movie classic deserves a reboot? Poltergeist (narrowly edging The Shining).
3. Who is the best all-time scream queen? Jamie Lee Curtis (with a decisive 51% of the vote).
4. Who is your favorite slasher of all time? Freddy Krueger.
5. Who would you like to see take a turn as a scream queen? Megan Fox (ahem).

Winners of The Ultimate Sci-Fi Fan Poll:

1. What is the best sci-fi movie franchise of all time? Star Wars (decisively).
2. What is the best sci-fi film of 2009 so far? Star Trek (with 69% of the vote; no robots for you).
3. What is your most anticipated upcoming sci-fi film? District 9 (beating out Avatar).
4. Who is the all-time best sci-fi action heroine? Ripley (Alien).
5. What is the greatest all-time sci-fi creature/alien? Alien (Alien). (Sorry, Chewbacca.)

Big thanks to everybody who voted. You can view all the nominees and the breakdown of votes at Horror Squad and Sci-Fi Squad. In addition, Reuters has a nice story on the poll results. I'm glad to see Jamie Lee Curtis recognized for her multiple roles, but a bit startled that the Star Wars franchise still holds sway. Any big surprises for you? Outrage? Joy?

So amidst yesterday's set visit preview and our first little look at Freddy Krueger, it would appear -- according to Fangoria -- that the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street has been pushed back a bit from April 16th to April 30th, 2010, the same weekend that happened to bring in nearly $30 million for Obsessed this year.

And the same Fangoria piece brings up a move for Josh Brolin's scarred gunslinger, Jonah Hex, up from August 6th to June 18th, 2010. It seems like a vote of confidence, either because Megan Fox is such a big box-office draw now or because Will Arnett will be once G-Force drops this Friday.

We've also confirmed that Nimrod Antal's heist thriller Armored has been bumped from this September 4th back to December 4th. The week after Thanksgiving is usually somewhat of a no-man's-land for the holiday flops to fall away and the awards magnets to work their way up and out, but for every Aeon Flux, we get something fun like Punisher: War Zone, and early rumblings on Armored are that we might not have a dud on our hands. Having enjoyed Antal's Kontroll and 98% of Vacancy, and knowing that this flick helped him land the gig directing Predators, here's hoping.

Indiana Jones ... Ferris Bueller ... James T. Kirk ... Harry Potter ... Freddy Krueger ... Sam Witwicky? This summer has certainly seen it's fair share of iconic characters returning to the big screen, most notably in Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And next year we'll see new incarnations of Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street and the titular Alice in Wonderland. More often, though, it seems that memorable characters have been crowded off the stage in favor of interchangeable "types" rotating through a stock collection of cliches. The robots were better defined in Terminator: Salvation and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen than the people. Where have all the great characters created expressly for the screen gone?

True, most of the great movie characters of the past sprang either from real life or the fertile imagination of novelists. Yet Charles Foster Kane, J.J. Gittes, Travis Bickle, Rocky Balboa, Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, and Ferris Bueller were all original characters, even if they were influenced by various literary works. We still see larger-than-life characters that emerge fully-formed from the pages of a novel, like Harry Potter. And independent films are filled with indelible portraits of an incredible range of realistic characters. Why, then, have so few distinctive original characters entered into our popular consciousness from Hollywood studio productions in recent years?

Are Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Bruno the best we can hope for? Why can't we remember any other character's name from this year's crop of popular titles? Are event movies driving memorable characters from the screen in favor of CGI and action sequences? Are great original characters -- not based on a pre-existing property -- gone for good?

As first looks go, it's remarkably ... minimal. The first image of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger in the upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street has been released, showing a shadowy Freddy ready for action. The full image is available at Trailer Park (with another one arriving on IGN later today we're told).

Having in mind that this is strictly a teaser pic, with more on the way, I like it. It's got Freddy's signature sweater, his signature hat, and his signature knife-claws. Freddy's face is in the shadows, but that can wait for a later reveal. To be frank, I haven't been terribly enthusiastic about this remake / re-imagining, but Haley has been very good in his recent roles, especially in Watchmen.

Add to that the positive feelings emanating from the brief report by William Goss this morning, in which Haley acknowledged the challenge of stepping into the child-killing shoes of Robert Englund, and producer Andrew Form indicated that the new Nightmare would indeed try to be "terrifying" and "unsettling." The original series of Nightmare films devolved from scary to slick to stupid, so at least they're heading in the right direction. And with Haley, there's a chance that he can bring an added dimension, beyond what Englund would have brought to the role as such a familiar icon.

A Nightmare on Elm Street heads to theaters next April.

A couple of us onliners got an up-close look at the fresh flesh of Jackie Earle Haley's Freddy Krueger last month on the Chicago set of the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, and from the sound of things, he'll be making his first public appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con later this week. Though the bulk of our set visit coverage will have to wait until closer to the film's release next April, we can share a bit on what Haley's bringing to the legendary character and what the producers are bringing to the franchise...

Haley: "Robert Englund's done an amazing job over the years playing Freddy. Everybody's that's a fan of Nightmare loves Robert and, you know, that's a challenge when you've got to step in a big man's shoes like that, so it's scary but also exciting. You can't please everybody. All I can do is really just try to work from the heart and do the best job at playing Freddy that I can and hope for the best."

More on HorrorSquad!

On a recent visit to the Chicago-based set of the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form gave us online types a good hour with which to poke and prod about that film and countless other projects in the works. The Elm St. stuff will have to wait until the time is right, but at the moment, you're just a hop, skip and jump away from finding out where Platinum Dunes currently stands with a Friday the 13th sequel, their present involvement in reported remakes of The Birds and Rosemary's Baby, and how exactly the little-seen Horsemen ended up slipping through the cracks last spring...

Read the full interview at Horror Squad!

Now here's a crafty bit of casting news that should make the horror hounds happy: Latino Review caught wind a while ago, and Bloody-D got on the case most recently, so while this news is not yet OFFICIAL*, I'm making a judgment call on this one: Jackie Earle Haley is going to be playing Freddy Krueger in Sam Bayer's upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Speaking as only one guy (one guy who's seen all** of Haley's work and all of the Elm St. flicks three times each), I'm going to say it now: This is an EXCELLENT choice!

Obviously Jackie Earle Haley has the acting chops to carry a dark, devious, devilish villain -- but, in the right light and coated with the appropriate goo, this guy makes for one SCARY-looking mofo. Comic bookworms know Mr. Haley as Rorschach of the Watchmen, art-housers recall his chilling turn in Little Children, and a whole bunch of us remember his flick-stealing performance in Steve Zaillian's All the King's Men.

But *ahem* old people like me still know (and love) Jackie from his monumentally colorful performances in Breaking Away, Losin' It, and all three Bad News Bears flicks. I call this great news for the horror faithful, and yet another feather in the cap of a damn good actor who vanished from Hollywood -- and then "came back" with both guns blazing. One expects (nay, demands) a nice little role for the awesome Robert Englund, but if Haley is indeed the new Krueger, then my confidence in this remake has just doubled.

They started off with Leatherface, which makes sense if you think about it: Horror flicks don't get much more "classic" than TCM. So when Platinum Dunes announced a do-over on Friday the 13th, nobody was all that much surprised. Plus the Dunes boys keep talking about remaking The Birds, so I guess that means all bets are off. So don't act all surprised when you learn that the production company is looking at a spring start date for, yep, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Producer Andrew Form spilled a few early details at Shock, but here's the part that should keep horror fans (at least partially) sated for the time being: "It's not Freddy cracking jokes. We want to make a horrifying movie. The concept is so scary, don't fall asleep or you'll die. This guy gets you when you're most vulnerable, in your sleep. We love that." Sounds good to me, Andrew.

So not only will the new* Freddy start shooting relatively soon ... it also looks like Platinum Dunes have found themselves a screenwriter in veteran word-maker Wesley Strick, whom the genre fans will remember from Arachnophobia, Cape Fear, Wolf, and Doom.

*And yes, it definitely looks like a NEW Freddy will hit the scene, although the producers seem open to having Robert Englund stop by in some capacity.