bonus
BONUS: Will Bryan Cranston be the Next Freddy Krueger?
In this special bonus episode, following the recording of 'Who is Freddy Krueger?', Liam and special guest Noel Mellor discuss their favourite horror films, the future of Freddy, and our ideal castings - Jack Black, anyone?
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Special guest for this episode:
- Noel Mellor, a former marketing professional, now Programme Leader on the BA Digital Video Production and Marketing at University of Salford. As a writer and podcaster, he's extensively covered 1980s film and popular culture for over a decade across podcast and book projects like Adventures in VHS and Beyond the Neon - and he is now researching movie marketing past, present and future. His papers for the Montréal Monstrum Society Journal and University of Nottingham's A Nightmare on Elm Street @ 40 conference this year, explored Freddy Krueger's role as the leader of a new pack of 80s slashers - or 'Brand Boogeymen' - and their impact on popular culture.
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Highlights from this episode:
- Noel Mellor reflects on his early horror experiences and how he first watched Freddy Krueger.
- The conversation highlights the evolution of Freddy Krueger from horror icon to pop culture figure.
- Dream Warriors is celebrated as a beloved sequel due to its fun and imaginative approach.
- The meta-narrative in Wes Craven's New Nightmare is discussed as a pioneering horror concept.
- Both hosts agree that horror movies can deeply affect viewers through discomfort and unsettling themes.
- The possibility of Freddy's return in a new adaptation raises questions about casting and character development.
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Additional Resources:
The souls of the children… Give me strength”: 1980s Horror Movie Marketing and the Life and Death of the Brand Boogeymen by Noel Mellor
The Cultural Influence of Nightmare On Elm Street | Horror Cult Films
The Sociology of Freddy | Retro Junk
Wes Craven: the scream of our times
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And if you like this episode, you might also love:
Why Do Americans Love Halloween?
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to this bonus episode of A History Recorded straight after our recently published episode.
Host:Who is Freddy Krueger?
Host:I'm joined now by the guest from that episode, Noel Mellor, to discuss this a little bit more.
Host:Noel, thank you for hanging on.
Noel Mellor:Thank you very much.
Noel Mellor:Yeah, looking forward to it.
Host:Yeah, really, really enjoyed our chat on the podcast and anyone listening to this, if you haven't already, go back and check out the full episode right now.
Host:If it was just really great to talk about slashers and horror and Freddy Krueger.
Host:And I'm just really interested to know, when did you first watch A Nightmare on Elm Street?
Noel Mellor:So I was trying to figure this out recently because we sort of, you know, obviously been 40 years of 40 year anniversary of the film and I was at the sort of University of Nottingham 40 year conference that they had and part of the paper that I sort of delivered there was talking about how I came to Frank Freddy and stuff like that.
Noel Mellor:And I.
Noel Mellor:The more I thought about it, the more I thought, the more I realized, I think I saw the second film first.
Host:Really?
Noel Mellor:Yeah, I think so, because so obviously the film came out in 84 and it was released on home video in 85 or 86 even maybe in the UK.
Noel Mellor:And so that would have meant that I was eight or nine years old.
Noel Mellor:And I think, you know, a little bit like we were saying in the main podcast, Freddie was already sort of part of the culture at that point.
Noel Mellor:He was talked about in the playground and what A Nightmare on Elm street apparently was, was such a terrifying thing that I just don't think I would have watched it.
Noel Mellor:I think when Freddy's Revenge came out in 87, by that point I was watching a lot of horror movies.
Noel Mellor:Even though I was like sort of 9, 10 years old at this point, I was watching a lot of horror movies and I think I'd have watched Elm Street 2 and then watched Elm Street 1.
Noel Mellor:So I think I watched Freddy's Revenge first.
Noel Mellor:So it would have been 87, like I said, I'd have been about 9 years old.
Noel Mellor:I was very, I was very good at that age at sort of pushing myself with horror movies because I knew I liked horror movies, but I was still scared of them.
Noel Mellor:So yeah, it was around that time because I would have been watching an awful lot of stuff at that point and you know, a lot of stuff that I probably shouldn't have been watching quite.
Host:Yeah, I'm with you there.
Host:I was maybe a little bit later to the horror game.
Host:I was, I think like early teens When I really started watching horror, I don't remember when I first watched Elm street, but I do remember buying the box set.
Host:And it's probably right behind me here.
Host:Listeners can't see it, but there's a whole wall of DVDs behind me.
Host:And I've got the box set of Nightmare on Elm street because I decided one day I'm going to just binge the whole franchise.
Noel Mellor:How did that go?
Host:It was good.
Host:Like, I mean, trust me, it was a bit of a slog by the, like, the eight Show.
Host:But Dream warriors was, in my opinion, the best sequel.
Host:And that seems to be quite a popular opinion, but absolutely, yeah.
Noel Mellor:I did a podcast a couple of years ago with a friend of mine where we just did the whole show on Dream Warriors.
Noel Mellor:His podcast is called the Iron Sequel, which was purely just about sequels that people love.
Noel Mellor:And when it came time to do Dream warriors, he immediately contacted me.
Noel Mellor:I was like.
Noel Mellor:Like, I've got to have you on this for this.
Noel Mellor:But it is.
Noel Mellor:I think Dream warriors is.
Noel Mellor:Dream warriors is definitely the one that people love the most because it's the most fun.
Noel Mellor:And it's the.
Noel Mellor:It's the one where.
Noel Mellor:I mean, first of all, the first film, you know, it's very much about Freddy in the dream world.
Noel Mellor:And then the second film, they sort of break their own rules a little bit and bring Freddy out into the real world.
Noel Mellor:So the third film, they sort of.
Noel Mellor:They almost.
Noel Mellor:Well, they double down on the dream world stuff and they go, right, no, he's only in the dream world and he can do this, this and this and this and this.
Noel Mellor:So it's the.
Noel Mellor:The third one's very much the one where they really start to have fun with the concept.
Noel Mellor:And I think that's what made it such a sort of memorable one for people.
Noel Mellor:It's.
Noel Mellor:Yeah, it's the most fun and it's got the most fantastical sort of elements in it.
Host:Yeah, I agree.
Host:I think it's.
Host:It's.
Host:It's.
Host:It's.
Host:It's a great culmination of, you know, the previous two.
Host:And I was listening to a podcast, actually, at Scream by Ryan C.
Host:Showers.
Host:And as the title suggests, they're a podcast that looks specifically at the Scream franchise, but they dipped out to discuss Nightmare on Elm street, which is also Wes Craven.
Host:And he made the good point that the Dream warriors is kind of the end of the sort of Freddie and, oh, my God, the main character has got up my mind.
Host:Is it Nancy?
Host:Heather.
Noel Mellor:Nancy, yeah.
Host:Yeah, it's sort of.
Host:It's the end of their kind of trilogy, ar and the end of, like, Nancy's story.
Host:Yeah.
Host:And I think that's why those first three just hit a bit differently, maybe.
Noel Mellor:Yeah, absolutely.
Noel Mellor:I think, you know, it's the sort of.
Noel Mellor:It's an early example of bringing the original Final Girl back.
Noel Mellor:Obviously, we've seen other franchises do that since Halloween, has done it a couple of times now, and I think that that works.
Noel Mellor:I think, obviously, they brought Nancy back, or Heather Langenkamp back, I should say, for New Nightmare a few years later on.
Noel Mellor:And I love New Nightmare, but I think the decision to sort of bring her.
Noel Mellor:Heather Langenkamp back as Heather Langenkamp, I don't think people were ready for that at the time.
Noel Mellor:If I think it was.
Noel Mellor:It probably not confused people.
Noel Mellor:It was just a bit strange to people.
Noel Mellor:And.
Noel Mellor:And I think the fact that she's not a teenage Final Girl in that she's a mum who's sort of thinking about what's best for her kids and stuff like that, it's a.
Noel Mellor:Again, it's a great message and a great concept, but I don't know if that's what people wanted at the time.
Noel Mellor:But, yeah, that idea of sort of bringing.
Noel Mellor:Bringing the main Final Girl back is.
Noel Mellor:It's always a winner, really.
Host:Yeah.
Host:And Wes Craven obviously did that in such a meta way with New Nightmare a few years later.
Noel Mellor:Yeah.
Noel Mellor:And I think that was.
Noel Mellor:You know, I've always sort of referred to New Nightmare as being.
Noel Mellor:It's almost like the blueprint for the Scream franchise.
Noel Mellor:It was his first attempt at, you know, addressing sort of meta anxieties around film in the real world, horror film in the real world.
Noel Mellor:So, yeah, I don't think people were ready for it at the time.
Noel Mellor:But a few years later, when he did it in Scream, or I did a version of that in Scream, I think people got on board with it a lot more.
Noel Mellor:And, you know, he was able to change horror all over again and sort of usher in a new era of horror just on.
Noel Mellor:Based on his.
Noel Mellor:His.
Noel Mellor:His ideas.
Host:It's interesting, really.
Host:Like, Wes Craven really does enjoy this.
Host:This theme of, like, life imitating art and art imitating life and sort of that playing out in his films.
Host:Because, yeah, like, New Nightmare really did that and.
Host:And then Scream kind of took that to another level.
Host:But he's always.
Host:I think in all of his films, he loves playing with this idea of, like, reality and.
Host:And sort of sort of straddling that line.
Host:And I think it's what makes Craven such a.
Host:Such a Great horror filmmaker because he's sort of bringing very, very sophisticated sort of filmmaking to a genre that typically has always been quite a cheap conveyor belt genre to make.
Host:Right.
Noel Mellor:I think that's it.
Noel Mellor:And I think he, you know, in terms of his career, I think it's something he kind of struggled with a little bit because he did have ambitions outside of horror that he sort of tried to explore a little bit, but then people just wanted more Wes Craven horror movies.
Noel Mellor:So, so when he does come back to horror, he, he goes, all right, well, I tell you what, then.
Noel Mellor:If horror is what you want, I'll make horror, but I'll try and put some thought into it and I'll try and do something a little bit interesting.
Noel Mellor:And I mean, it's also, you know, new Nightmare as well, is it's an opportunity for him to air his grievances about the way the franchise was treated.
Noel Mellor:So, you know, there's, there's scenes in, featuring Wes Craven himself where he's literally talking about, well, you know, Freddie wasn't.
Noel Mellor:We, we misunderstood Freddie and we, we took him the wrong way and we made him into a clown.
Noel Mellor:And that just made him more dangerous and stuff like that.
Noel Mellor:But it's his way of sort of twisting the knife and going, hey, man, you balled up my flat.
Noel Mellor:You, you balls up my franchise.
Host:Yeah, no, I, I do, I do love that.
Host:And I, I guess there's, there's a podcast episode in future there to sort of look specifically at Wes Craven because what, what an absolute, like, pioneer of the horror genre.
Host:I'm keen to know that we've talked a lot about Nightmare on Elm street and Freddie, what's your favorite horror movie?
Noel Mellor:My favorite horror movie.
Noel Mellor:I think I, it may surprise you to sort of hear it, actually, but I'm less enamored with slasher movies than I am sort of more thinky horror movies.
Noel Mellor:I, that said, I do sort of, I love Brian De Palma.
Noel Mellor:I think Kari is one of the greatest horror movies ever made.
Noel Mellor:And Blowout, I'd put that in there as well.
Noel Mellor:But I, I, I do tend to get an awful lot more from horror movies that are disturbing.
Noel Mellor:So things that sort of are unnerving as opposed to just out and out gore.
Noel Mellor:I think that's, I'll be honest, it's an age thing as well.
Noel Mellor:I just, you know, I grew up watching a lot of gory horror movies and I thought they were great when I was very young, but I guess by the time I reached my 20s, I'd seen, I'd Seen everything.
Noel Mellor:So I was like, all right, well, what else is there?
Noel Mellor:But yeah, if I had to pick one, I'd probably pick Carry or I'd pick Blowout.
Noel Mellor:Probably just something a little bit more.
Noel Mellor:A little bit more thinking, a little bit less gory.
Host:Yeah, that's interesting.
Host:I.
Host:I actually love the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original.
Host:And I think for that it's.
Host:It's maybe not a thinky horror, but I think it is a really uncomfortable horror.
Noel Mellor:Yeah.
Host:And I think the way that Toby Hooper made that film and just.
Host:It just if it.
Host:You feel like you're doing something wrong by watching it.
Host:And I love that kind of horror.
Noel Mellor:I think the whole aesthetic of Texas Chainsaw Massacre is just very uncomfortable.
Noel Mellor:And it's interesting hearing him hearing Tobe Hooper talk about it when he can remember making the film.
Noel Mellor:That is.
Noel Mellor:You know, he.
Noel Mellor:He talks about how it was painfully hot and it was painfully uncomfortable to make.
Noel Mellor:And I think it is a.
Noel Mellor:It is a discomfort in film.
Noel Mellor:I think it's.
Noel Mellor:It's gooey and sticky and just a bit gross.
Noel Mellor:And I think that's what works so well for it.
Host:Yeah, I think that's a really good way of describing the film.
Host:Do you think we're ever going to see now sort of Freddie make a return when we touched on it in the main episode about, you know, maybe it could find its way onto tv, but, you know, will Freddie come back realistically?
Host:And if so, who do you think might play him?
Noel Mellor:It's tricky.
Noel Mellor:I mean, I think it's inevitable.
Noel Mellor:I think he has to come back.
Noel Mellor:It's.
Noel Mellor:It's too much of a cash cow.
Noel Mellor:It's too much of an obvious win.
Noel Mellor:It's too much of a strong core idea that translates, you know, as I've said, I think, particularly well to a TV series.
Noel Mellor:It's difficult to kind of think of individual names of.
Noel Mellor:Of people who.
Noel Mellor:Actors who might give this a go.
Noel Mellor:But I would think that whoever it is, they would need to be a relatively physical actor.
Noel Mellor:I think the Jackie Earl Haley was obviously chosen for.
Noel Mellor:For similar reasons.
Noel Mellor:I think, you know, being able to act behind a mask was something that he was known for at the time.
Noel Mellor:So whoever it is, I think he needs to be physical.
Noel Mellor:I think he needs to have comedy chops.
Noel Mellor:It's difficult because some of the actors that come to mind who are able to sort of manage physicality and comedy are probably not actors who would physically look like what we.
Noel Mellor:What we need Freddy Krueger to be.
Noel Mellor:But, yeah, whoever it is, it needs to be I think the.
Noel Mellor:The.
Noel Mellor:And this is the reason that I point to tv.
Noel Mellor:We need to get to know that person, and we need to get to know that actor, and we need to explore that character a little bit just to sort of really understand him and.
Noel Mellor:And get on board with him all over again.
Noel Mellor:So, yeah, I don't know.
Noel Mellor:It's.
Noel Mellor:It's a difficult one because, again, you're probably talking about.
Noel Mellor:It would need to be somebody who is in his at least late 30s, early 40s.
Noel Mellor:And if you think about most of the male actors in that age bracket at the moment, they're probably far too big and busy to get down and dirty as Freddy Krueger.
Noel Mellor:So we will see that.
Host:I mean, this.
Host:The guy that I'm about to say is probably, you know, maybe a bit too old now, or maybe not with good makeup, but kind of ticks the boxes that you were just saying.
Host:Someone like Bryan Cranston, he would be a bit of an out of casting, but he brings that theatricality to it.
Noel Mellor:Absolutely.
Noel Mellor:Yeah.
Noel Mellor:Yeah, that's a good one.
Noel Mellor:Yeah.
Noel Mellor:And he.
Noel Mellor:He can sort of get away with, you know, looking a little bit feeble and a little bit old and stuff like that, but actually, he's still got.
Noel Mellor:He's still got juice in the tank.
Noel Mellor:I mean, if we're looking for physicality, we could just get Jack Black to do it.
Noel Mellor:He does everything else, doesn't he?
Host:Can you imagine?
Host:Can you imagine?
Host:Yeah.
Host:What.
Host:What a reboot that would be.
Noel Mellor:There's rarely a franchise left for him to touch, is there?
Noel Mellor:So if it's.
Noel Mellor:If it's not him, then it's the Rock and.
Host:Yeah, yeah.
Host:And out of the two, let's.
Host:Let's go with Jack.
Noel Mellor:Yeah, let's stick with Jack.
Host:Yeah.
Host:No, thank you for.
Host:For chatting all things Horror and Nightmare on Elm street with me.
Host:It's been a real pleasure getting you on the podcast.
Host:Do remind our listeners if they do want to get in touch with you directly where they can do that.
Noel Mellor:Yeah, you can reach me directly or check out any of my old or new stuff just over@noelmellor.com awesome.
Host:Thanks, Noel.
Host:And if you are listening to this episode right now and enjoy it, do check out the links we've put in the show notes and follow the show rate review and all that lovely stuff so that other people can find us.
Host:And remember as well, you can support the show from as little as $1.
Host:Just follow the links in the show notes and all the info is there.
Host:Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.