Who is Freddy Krueger?

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:01

In: 1984

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:09

And in doing so, he gave rise to one of the most iconic movie characters of all time.

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:15

So in this episode, I want to know who he is, the impact he's had on popular culture, and what makes him so darn scary.

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:22

As I ask, who is Freddy Krue?

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:32

Welcome to America, a history podcast.

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:36

I'm Liam Heffernan, and every week we answer a different question to understand the people, the places, and the events that make the USA what it is today.

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:56

r who has extensively covered: 1980

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:04

His papers for the Montreal Montrum Society Journal, and University of Nottingham's A Nightmare on Elm street at 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.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:19

So there really is no one more perfect to have joining me for this discussion.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:23

Welcome to the show.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:24

Noel Mellor.

Noel Mellor: 00:01:25

Thanks very much for having me.

Noel Mellor: 00:01:26

It's great to meet you, Liam.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:27

Oh, really good to have you on the podcast.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:29

We were just saying before recording this that I love a bit of horror and I love Nightmare on Elm street.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:33

So it makes me so happy that we can finally talk about this on the podcast.

Noel Mellor: 00:01:37

Excellent.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:38

So I guess there'll be some people out there listening to this who maybe aren't as familiar with horror or with Freddy Krueger.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:45

So give us a bit of background on the Nightmare on Elm street franchise and what kind of impact, particularly it had at the time it was released.

Noel Mellor: 00:01:54

Yeah, I mean, it's.

Noel Mellor: 00:01:55

To be honest with you, it's kind of interesting that it had any impact at the time, really, just because of the timing of it.

Noel Mellor: 00:02:03

So it came around in.

Noel Mellor: 00:02:05

In: 1984

Noel Mellor: 00:02:06

It landed in: 1984

Noel Mellor: 00:02:10

Had been around for a while and had been sort of deeply explored in the culture in different ways.

Noel Mellor: 00:02:16

We had three Halloween films at that point, although one of them didn't actually have a slasher in it.

Noel Mellor: 00:02:21

We were on to our fourth Friday the 13th movie.

Noel Mellor: 00:02:25

We'd obviously had Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Noel Mellor: 00:02:28

And I think creatively speaking, it was kind of felt like slasher movies were a bit spent and they'd kind of done as much as they could.

Noel Mellor: 00:02:35

You know, there are even articles about that period.

Noel Mellor: 00:02:39

o's written quite a bit about: 1984

Noel Mellor: 00:02:51

He also saw talks about at this point, you know, the, the question of how slasher movies were, were misogynist, like how much that was sort of being discussed at the time.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:02

So: 1984

Noel Mellor: 00:03:08

So as you kind of mentioned, it was, you know, based on an idea by Wes Craven, who had a little bit of heat on him at that time from, you know, some of the cult movies that he'd been putting out.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:19

Last House on the Left, Deadly Blessing, couple of Hills have Eyes movies.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:24

So he had this idea for, you know, what if there was a serial killer who killed you in your dreams.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:30

He approached a number of different people about it, including Disney, famously.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:35

So that could have been.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:37

I've always sort of wondered what that would have been.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:39

But yeah, we will never know.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:42

But producer Bob Shea of New Line Cinema said that he'd get behind it.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:47

But the.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:47

There was sort of a compromise built into the discussion.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:50

Sort of Bob Shea said, look, I'll give you full creative control.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:53

You can make the film that you want to make, but I just want you to build in a sort of sequel hook for me.

Noel Mellor: 00:03:59

I want this to be a franchise.

Noel Mellor: 00:04:01

So, yeah, that was where it kind of came from.

Noel Mellor: 00:04:03

It was obviously a huge success.

Noel Mellor: 00:04:07

It was always intended, as I say, to be a franchise, at least by Bob Shea.

Noel Mellor: 00:04:11

I don't think Craven was hugely comfortable with the idea, but he, he knew that that's what was going to get it made and it was a massive success.

Noel Mellor: 00:04:18

I mean, I, I don't think they knew just how successful it was going to be, to be perfectly honest.

Noel Mellor: 00:04:23

I think that took them by surprise.

Noel Mellor: 00:04:25

But yeah, a massive, a massive success financially, especially for a small studio at the time like New Line Cinema.

Noel Mellor: 00:04:33

It's obviously a lot bigger brand now, but yeah, something that took off very quickly on the back of that culturally.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:42

Obviously, as you say, slashes themselves were maybe sort of coming to a little bit of a natural end because the market had been sort of saturated with franchises like Friday the 13th and Halloween.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:53

So I wonder if there was a bit of a kind of Wes Craven effect because Craven himself was very much a genre filmmaker by that point anyway.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:03

And if anyone listening to this has watched Last House on the Left and the Hills have Eyes, I mean, these are, these are not your sort of typical kind of mass market horror fan.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:13

They're gritty, gruesome films.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:15

Absolutely so do you think that that had an impact, sort of Craven bringing his sort of trademark and name to a franchise?

Noel Mellor: 00:05:24

I mean, it's possible.

Noel Mellor: 00:05:25

I think it's very difficult because we tend to look back at the 80s and judge it by our own sort of standards.

Noel Mellor: 00:05:31

And I don't know how much of a household name Wes Craven would have been at that time.

Noel Mellor: 00:05:36

It's very difficult to know because, you know, film was.

Noel Mellor: 00:05:41

And cinema was.

Noel Mellor: 00:05:43

And horror cinema, genre cinema was largely just stuff that ended up in cinemas that people would go and see.

Noel Mellor: 00:05:49

It wasn't like there were fan forums dedicated to discussing the.

Noel Mellor: 00:05:52

The films of Wes Craven or, you know, podcasts and stuff like that.

Noel Mellor: 00:05:57

So horror culture, you know, there would have been fanzines and there would have been people having discussions about horror movies, but it just wasn't the same.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:05

I think Craven, as I say, did have some heat on the back of those initial.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:10

That initial run of films that he had, but it probably would have been quite limited.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:13

I think what really helped Nightmare on Elm street and really made it took off is something that I talk about quite a lot in the.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:22

In the context of, you know, how the film was marketed is it's the core idea of the film itself.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:28

It's such a strong concept.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:31

think, you know, back in the: 1980

Noel Mellor: 00:06:39

Whatever people were posting on social media, being able to tell people about a film, hey, I saw this film and this was the.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:45

The basic idea of it was really important.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:49

I think that's what.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:49

That's what really made it took off.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:51

You know, it's.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:52

We all sleep, we all dream.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:53

We've all had that feeling of being unable to wake from a nightmare.

Noel Mellor: 00:06:58

And so, you know, a killer who strikes in your dreams is just such a strong concept that everybody can get behind.

Liam Heffernan: 00:07:05

Yeah.

Liam Heffernan: 00:07:06

And I think just the whole idea of, you know, it's just a dream, that it was really playing on that to bring out some sort of really innate fear in people.

Liam Heffernan: 00:07:15

And, you know, this is an American history podcast, but I don't think that that fear is particularly American or even Western.

Liam Heffernan: 00:07:22

I think, you know, it was really tapping into something that.

Liam Heffernan: 00:07:25

That felt quite universal.

Noel Mellor: 00:07:27

Yeah, absolutely.

Noel Mellor: 00:07:27

And I think, you know, Craven has.

Noel Mellor: 00:07:29

Has said that the visuals for Freddy were.

Noel Mellor: 00:07:33

Were built on an experience he had where he saw somebody in shadows who looked that way.

Noel Mellor: 00:07:37

But the idea for the actual film came from a sort of news article that he'd seen.

Noel Mellor: 00:07:42

I think it was a guy in Mexico who was sort of suffering from really bad nightmares and then one night didn't wake, didn't wake up.

Noel Mellor: 00:07:51

And that sort of idea of, you know, not waking up from a dream or not waking up from a nightmare is something completely global.

Noel Mellor: 00:07:59

So, yeah, absolutely.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:01

I thought when I was sort of giving this episode a lot of thought, I was thinking, well, it must have been sort of part the right place, right time for a franchise like Nightmare on Elm Street.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:10

But actually, from what you've said, there was almost a bit sort of fatigue around the slasher genre.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:17

And that was probably reflected in the fact that from what I understand, New Line didn't give Nightmare on Elm Street a huge budget, mainly because they didn't really have much money.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:26

But if they knew it was going to be such a commercial success, you would have thought maybe they would have pumped a bit more into it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:33

So why did they take this risk?

Noel Mellor: 00:08:35

It's a good question.

Noel Mellor: 00:08:36

I mean, again, I think it comes down to that, that relationship between Shea and Craven.

Noel Mellor: 00:08:41

You know, I think Bob Shea was always a very.

Noel Mellor: 00:08:45

A very smart.

Noel Mellor: 00:08:47

He's a very smart, but very shrewd guy.

Noel Mellor: 00:08:50

So he looks at film, you know, from a.

Noel Mellor: 00:08:53

From a profit perspective, and he obviously saw something that was worth investing in.

Noel Mellor: 00:08:58

Like you say they, you know, New Line at the time didn't have an awful lot of money to.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:02

To play with to put into this.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:03

And I think the vast amount, you know, the majority of the budget, which, you know, again, looking at it from through today's eyes, you might have thought had gone to Johnny Depp, but it really didn't.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:12

The budget was.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:13

Most of it was spent on keeping the makeup on on England's face.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:17

So, yeah, I mean, I think, I guess, you know, Shay just saw the strength of the concept and was willing to back it because he.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:27

I think he'd seen the success of the Friday the 13th films.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:30

These were go.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:32

The Friday the 13th films were going into their fourth film by 84, and the.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:37

The trajectory of profitability for those films was still kind of on the up.

Noel Mellor: 00:09:42

So I think he just wanted a slice of that, frankly, and saw this as an opportunity to do that.

Liam Heffernan: 00:09:49

Yeah, and, you know, of course, you know, horror itself is a very commercially driven genre, but there is a link there between, you know, tapping into sort of real fears, because it's.

Liam Heffernan: 00:10:00

It's that resonance that makes money.

Liam Heffernan: 00:10:03

So.

Liam Heffernan: 00:10:04

And I think with a franchise like Nightmare on Elm street, it's all about Freddie, isn't it?

Liam Heffernan: 00:10:08

So, you know, let's talk about Freddy Krueger, because what made him different to other horror villains.

Liam Heffernan: 00:10:17

That has sort of helped him to endure this, this length of time.

Noel Mellor: 00:10:21

Yeah, I think if we compare him directly to, you know, Jason and Michael Myers and Leatherface who were around at the time, I think the biggest difference is obviously he's kind of already been dealt with.

Noel Mellor: 00:10:34

He's dead.

Noel Mellor: 00:10:35

He's, you know, he's, he's, he's been dealt with.

Noel Mellor: 00:10:38

You know, the parents of Elm street gathered together and stopped this child murderer and killed him.

Noel Mellor: 00:10:45

I think what makes him compelling in that is that death hasn't stopped him.

Noel Mellor: 00:10:49

It's, it's made him more deadly.

Noel Mellor: 00:10:51

It's made him more agile and able to sort of work around killing children an awful lot easier without anyone to bother him.

Noel Mellor: 00:10:59

So, so that's what kind of makes him different to those guys.

Noel Mellor: 00:11:04

I think it goes back to that sort of concept.

Noel Mellor: 00:11:06

I mean, how do you kill something that only exists in dreams?

Noel Mellor: 00:11:11

One of the great problems that slasher movies have is how do you kill a character?

Noel Mellor: 00:11:17

Or how do you kill your main villain every time and then bring him back?

Noel Mellor: 00:11:20

Freddy kind of doesn't have that problem because he can't really die.

Noel Mellor: 00:11:23

It's such an intangible thing for this guy to exist in dreams.

Noel Mellor: 00:11:27

But also, how do you stop something?

Noel Mellor: 00:11:28

And this is a big part of the franchise.

Noel Mellor: 00:11:31

It really kicks in in the third film as well, is, is how do you stop something as inevitable as sleep?

Noel Mellor: 00:11:38

You, you know, as the rhyme goes, Freddy's coming for you.

Noel Mellor: 00:11:42

And it might not be tonight if you drink enough Diet Coke and coffee, but it'll be tomorrow night.

Noel Mellor: 00:11:48

And, and, and I think what makes Freddy so much fun and so sort of dangerous is he knows that he, he knows he's already won.

Noel Mellor: 00:11:58

It's all right.

Noel Mellor: 00:11:59

You might, you might be able to dodge the, the dream tonight, but I'll get you tomorrow.

Liam Heffernan: 00:12:02

So, and I, I, I think that's why, like, Freddy is such a compelling character, because he has more depth than the likes of, like, Freddie or Michael Myers, because, you know, he's a funny guy.

Liam Heffernan: 00:12:14

And actually, you know, and maybe part of that is due to Robert England, you know, the actor who played him.

Liam Heffernan: 00:12:18

But I feel like when you're watching Freddie, it's so easy to forget that he's a, he's a bad guy.

Liam Heffernan: 00:12:26

Like, he's, he was killed for a reason.

Liam Heffernan: 00:12:29

Yeah, but he's got quite a charm about him, isn't he?

Noel Mellor: 00:12:34

Yeah, that's it.

Noel Mellor: 00:12:35

And I think, you know, it is easy to forget that.

Noel Mellor: 00:12:38

And it's, it's what makes him fun and it's what makes him dangerous.

Noel Mellor: 00:12:40

At the same time, you know, that the idea.

Noel Mellor: 00:12:42

He knows that you'll have to sleep sometime.

Noel Mellor: 00:12:44

He knows you can't stop him because he's already dead.

Noel Mellor: 00:12:47

But I think that sort of allows him to be an extra level of malevolent almost.

Noel Mellor: 00:12:53

It allows him to, you know, he.

Noel Mellor: 00:12:55

I think I've heard people say this before, but he sort of chooses to play with his food a little bit.

Noel Mellor: 00:12:59

Unlike, you know, so unlike Jason and Michael, when they kill, they do it silently and coldly, and they're hidden behind a mask and everything's very quick and violent.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:09

And Freddy's not going to do that.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:11

He's gonna.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:11

You know, he's.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:12

He's.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:13

When.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:14

When he kills, even in the first film, he's doing it with a smile, and very often he's doing it with a laugh.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:19

And.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:19

And then as the films go on, he gets more creative and starts to make the kills a lot more personal and a lot more tied into the individual fears and.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:29

And problems of the.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:30

Of the children he's going after.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:32

And.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:32

And, yes, that makes him more terrifying, but to us, the audience, who end up sort of almost being on his side in many regards, it just means we can have more fun with the kills as well.

Noel Mellor: 00:13:42

And that's what slasher movies are all about.

Liam Heffernan: 00:13:44

Exactly.

Liam Heffernan: 00:13:45

And I think that it kind of mitigates this problem in slasher films of having entertaining enough kills that it keeps you as a.

Liam Heffernan: 00:13:53

As a viewer hooked, but without kind of crossing that line into just pure, like, farce.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:01

Nightmare on Elm street doesn't really have that problem because everything takes place in a dream.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:06

So there are no limits to what could be plausible in that.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:10

In that world.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:11

Right?

Noel Mellor: 00:14:12

Yeah, absolutely.

Noel Mellor: 00:14:13

And, you know, it allows Freddie a sort of.

Noel Mellor: 00:14:16

Again, it's that word agility or sort of malleability that he can sort of play around in culture a little bit.

Noel Mellor: 00:14:22

It's.

Noel Mellor: 00:14:22

It, you know, it makes sense that he can.

Noel Mellor: 00:14:25

We can see him in our world.

Noel Mellor: 00:14:27

It makes sense that he's, you know, in the toy aisles or wherever he can be anywhere.

Noel Mellor: 00:14:33

Again, unlike.

Noel Mellor: 00:14:34

Unlike a lot of his peers, I've.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:37

Always argued the fact that the best horrors are those that leave the most to the imagination of the viewer.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:44

And the great thing about this concept is, okay, maybe.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:47

Maybe it doesn't quite do that in the films, but it's sort of sowing those seeds with viewers of don't fall asleep because your worst fears, your worst anxieties will be exploited by Freddie in your dreams.

Liam Heffernan: 00:15:00

And it's Sort of.

Liam Heffernan: 00:15:01

I think it's really preying on that fear.

Liam Heffernan: 00:15:05

Not so much when you're watching the film, but.

Liam Heffernan: 00:15:06

But once you leave.

Liam Heffernan: 00:15:08

Right.

Noel Mellor: 00:15:09

Yeah.

Noel Mellor: 00:15:09

And I think that's, you know, the strength of any good slasher movie or horror movie generally is the relationship that it has with the audience and, you know, obviously the way it can tap into your individual fears.

Noel Mellor: 00:15:21

But the, the thing that makes, the thing that makes A Nightmare on Elm street such a fascinating case study for me, looking at it from the sort of brand perspective and the marketing perspective and stuff like that is, you know, when I'm talking to students about, about how brands behave, I talk a lot about, you know, brands need to listen to their audiences and reflect back what, what, what the audience expects of them.

Noel Mellor: 00:15:46

And that's what really gave A Nightmare on Elm street its strength was New Line Cinema leaned into what people liked for the sequels.

Noel Mellor: 00:15:55

They, they knew what it was that people enjoyed about the first film.

Noel Mellor: 00:15:59

They did it a little bit more.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:00

You know, New Line did what all good marketers do.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:03

It listens to.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:04

It listened to the audience, and it, it delivered what they expect.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:07

So as audiences wanted Freddy to become more of an anti hero, they, they gave him space to do that.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:14

There's more, you know, more quips.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:16

The kills get more personalized, as I say.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:18

And, and they did that because that's, they knew that that's what people were responding to.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:22

And I think that ultimately becomes the strength of the series.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:26

But, you know, maybe further down the line when people have decided they don't want Freddie to be that anymore, it sort of becomes its, it sort of becomes its, its downfall because you kind of can't go back from where Freddie ends up.

Noel Mellor: 00:16:40

You can't suddenly say, okay, now he's going to be mean again.

Liam Heffernan: 00:16:42

That's it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:16:43

And I wonder if, you know, like with any franchise, I guess it does get to a point of exhaustion where, you know, you, you sort of lose sight a little bit of that initial character.

Liam Heffernan: 00:16:55

Because I think you're right, you know, characterizing Freddie as an anti hero is, is sort of spot on and, and exemplified in, in films like Freddy vs.

Liam Heffernan: 00:17:03

Jason.

Liam Heffernan: 00:17:03

Because in that film, that's, I, I.

Liam Heffernan: 00:17:07

Tell me if you disagree, but I, I think that's part of the Nightmare on Elm street canon more than the Friday the 13th canon.

Liam Heffernan: 00:17:13

And you're rooting for Freddy in that film.

Noel Mellor: 00:17:15

Yeah.

Liam Heffernan: 00:17:15

So he becomes, he becomes the hero trying to defeat.

Noel Mellor: 00:17:20

Yeah.

Noel Mellor: 00:17:21

And it's funny because, you know, that film was, that film was kind of inevitable.

Noel Mellor: 00:17:26

It was, it was teased at the end of I can't remember which Elm street, sorry, which Friday the 13th film it was now.

Noel Mellor: 00:17:32

But there's a tease at the end of it where you see Jason's mask sort of pulled under the ground by Freddy's glove.

Noel Mellor: 00:17:38

And that was actually years before this film got made, Freddy versus Jason got made.

Noel Mellor: 00:17:43

So, you know, it was always coming, it was always inevitable.

Noel Mellor: 00:17:46

And I think, although it was an insane concept to see on film at that time, you know, two of these titans of a genre from, from different areas sort of coming together in a film, you know, by today's standards, that kind of thing would be expected.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:04

c book readers of the, of the: 1980

Noel Mellor: 00:18:13

d of thing were everywhere in: 1980

Noel Mellor: 00:18:19

So, you know, you'd have Terminator versus Alien and Alien versus Predator and Predator versus Ash and all that kind of thing as well as.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:27

So, you know, Batman versus Spider Man.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:28

All that kind of, you know, that kind of thing was normal in, in.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:32

In comic books.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:33

But seeing it on film was quite a big thing at the time.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:37

And I think what's probably more surprising is we've not seen it more since then.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:44

I think there was a vet, There were vague plans to do a Freddy vs.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:48

Jason vs.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:49

Ash from the Equal Dead, a sort of sequel that would bring him in as well.

Liam Heffernan: 00:18:53

Yeah.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:54

And then ultimately they just did that as a comic book.

Noel Mellor: 00:18:57

But I think there were plans to sort of do that as a, As a film as well.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:01

But yeah, I mean, you know, by today's standards, you know, looking at what Marvel's done and looking what.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:07

At what Universal's tried to do and other sort of, it feels inevitable that if, if Freddy and Jason and his peers were, were more prominent in the culture at the moment, I think there would almost certainly be a universe of those films.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:24

I mean, there may still well be.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:27

That may still happen.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:28

But the other thing is, I think Freddy's.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:31

Freddy's existence outside of reality as well kind of allows for it and it sort of allows him to almost be the one who, who does the movement from, you know, be the hero almost move from.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:44

From universe to universe.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:46

He.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:46

He exists in a non reality, so it makes sense for him to do that.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:50

And I think it throws up some, some nice concepts as well.

Noel Mellor: 00:19:53

I mean, you know, does Michael Myers dream?

Noel Mellor: 00:19:56

Does Leatherface dream?

Noel Mellor: 00:19:58

And if so, what does that look like?

Noel Mellor: 00:20:01

And, and what happens if Freddy enters those nightmares and takes on those characters in their own spaces and stuff like that.

Noel Mellor: 00:20:07

It's goes back to that thing of, you know, the dream reality having this sort of limitless potential.

Noel Mellor: 00:20:12

So you would have thought that something like that would have happened by now.

Noel Mellor: 00:20:16

I know, I know there's legal reasons.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:17

Why it probably hasn't, but, I mean, that's a great concept.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:20

And if that now happens, I'll be invoicing new life.

Noel Mellor: 00:20:23

If anyone's listening.

Noel Mellor: 00:20:24

That was my idea.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:27

But you're right, though.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:28

Like, Freddy actually has the freedom to crop up in pretty much any franchise or film that producers care to.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:37

To use him in.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:38

And I think it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:40

It makes it so easy for the character of Freddy Krueger to sort of saturate popular culture.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:47

But also with that comes a risk that he's used so much and commercialized to such an extent that he no longer is scary.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:57

And that's counterintuitive because then the appeal of Freddy Krueger goes.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:02

Right.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:02

Yeah, it's for.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:04

I think a lot of people blame the films for that and for sort of, you know, Freddy becoming less scary.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:11

And I know Wes Craven has been very open about, you know, he didn't like the direction that the films went, and Freddy became sillier and stuff like that.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:20

I think it's a bit more complicated than that.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:22

I.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:22

I think people focus on the films a little bit too much there.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:27

He does become more of an antihero as the films go on.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:30

But I think the sort of saturation, if you like, of Freddie sort of happens outside the films.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:38

And I think what was happening outside the films was kind of more responsible for that, that saturation, really.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:44

I mean, shortly after the second film, New Line Cinema, was starting to noticeably realize that there was a lot of money in merchandising and licensing that was being just left on the table.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:55

Again, Bob Shea is not a guy who likes to leave money on the table.

Noel Mellor: 00:21:59

So they started with photo shoots of Freddie sort of in different poses and stuff like that that they could sell as posters.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:06

And then there were T shirts.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:07

And I think the marketing manager for New Line at the time said that they started to treat Freddie like a rock star and market him like he was a rock band.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:16

So you get posters, you get, you know, pin badges, obviously, there's hats, jumpers, plastic toy gloves, model kits, board games.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:24

You know, the merchandise really ramps up there.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:27

So if you think about it, that's the stuff that's.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:31

That's the stuff that's going out there into the world.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:33

And landing in people's homes and making Freddie a sort of a household name.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:38

He then starts spilling out of the films onto TV because you've got the.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:43

There's the Freddie telephone hotline where you can sort of phone up Freddie and have him sort of abuse you for 30 seconds for a small fortune, you know.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:53

So that's being advertised on TV.

Noel Mellor: 00:22:55

Then in: 1988

Noel Mellor: 00:23:01

So by this point, and quite literally with the TV series, Freddie is invited into people's homes.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:07

He's, you know, he's breaking the fourth wall.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:09

He's speaking directly to them, he's conversing with the audience directly.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:13

And, you know, because of the nature of the show, it's.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:16

It's all about people who get their comeuppance and stuff like that.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:19

Because of the nature of the show, it's almost like Freddy is making the viewers complicit in the killing.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:26

So, you know, Freddie joining the audience and being such a prominent part of the culture is less about the films for me.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:36

It's more about the supporting materials around the films that sort of really do that.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:41

I mean, you.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:42

It doesn't take long at that point for Freddie to just become that household name.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:47

He's, you know, he's been name dropped in game shows and in sitcoms.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:52

He's.

Noel Mellor: 00:23:53

Even Ronald Reagan is referring to sort of historical democratic policy as being a Nightmare on Elm street and stuff like that.

Noel Mellor: 00:24:01

So it's in the culture at that point.

Noel Mellor: 00:24:03

And, and yes, the films have a big hand in that.

Noel Mellor: 00:24:06

But you, you can't help thinking that maybe, you know, the board games and stuff like that that were just knocking around people's houses just make him seem a little bit less of a worry.

Liam Heffernan: 00:24:18

Historically, though, it's a real testament to just how powerful a good horror concept can be.

Liam Heffernan: 00:24:27

And indeed, you know, credit is due here to Robert Englunds because, yeah, you know, were it not for his particular characterization of Freddie and how he brought him to life, maybe he wouldn't have resonated as.

Liam Heffernan: 00:24:40

As much as he did.

Liam Heffernan: 00:24:41

And I mean, I feel like now people talk about Freddy Krueger in the same way that they talk about real, live historical figures.

Liam Heffernan: 00:24:49

He's just become part of the national psyche, hasn't he?

Noel Mellor: 00:24:53

Absolutely.

Noel Mellor: 00:24:53

I'm surprised, I'm surprised Trump didn't wheel him out as an example of a great guy judging the way, the way things were going at one point.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:01

He is, he's, you know, it's, it's very it's kind of difficult to say what his.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:08

Is.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:09

hasn't been around much since: 2010

Noel Mellor: 00:25:15

The.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:16

The remake.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:16

The: 2010

Noel Mellor: 00:25:21

So, you know, I think it made $115 million globally.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:26

So it.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:26

It suggests that the.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:28

There is still a market for Freddy and.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:31

And people still know who he is and are still interested to see what he does.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:35

ort of cultural status is the: 2018

Noel Mellor: 00:25:44

Knifey Hands, and it had Robert Englund back in the makeup for what he claims is.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:49

Is the very last time.

Noel Mellor: 00:25:50

er, you know, being online in: 2018

Noel Mellor: 00:25:59

It was popping up on socials a lot, and it was, you know, it was a ratings hit.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:04

So it's obvious that Freddy Krueger is.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:08

Is still a known quantity and something that people will probably want to see again.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:15

But it kind of goes back again to that.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:17

It goes back again to the Robert Englund question.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:20

You know, he's 77 years old now.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:22

It's clear that it's not going to be him.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:24

What do you do from there?

Noel Mellor: 00:26:26

I mean, it's.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:26

It's what we're saying about the strength of crew, the strength of Freddy Krueger as a brand is also his weakness.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:31

You know, he was a product of his time, and he played right into.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:36

He came along when home video was.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:39

Was.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:39

Was emerging and becoming just.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:42

Just a part of our culture.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:43

So he benefited from that as well, or they benefited from that new line, was able to listen to audiences and allow Freddie to be what he wanted to be.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:50

But I don't know how you do that again.

Noel Mellor: 00:26:53

It's a difficult, difficult thing to recreate.

Liam Heffernan: 00:26:56

You know, you mentioned the episode of the Goldbergs.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:00

Maybe we're not celebrating Robert Englund as much as we should here, because Freddy Krueger, sure, he's.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:08

He's become just an iconic character, but clearly when they tried to reincarnate Freddie with a different actor in Jackie O'Haley, something didn't quite hit.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:21

, that anyone who's seen that: 2010

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:31

The previous franchise.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:33

But when Robert England then reprises his role in a TV episode of the Goldbergs, it's a huge hit.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:41

So is it actually.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:43

Is it Robert Englund?

Noel Mellor: 00:27:45

I Think it's.

Noel Mellor: 00:27:46

Yeah.

Noel Mellor: 00:27:46

I mean, you know, I don't think it could be understated how much he brought to that character.

Noel Mellor: 00:27:51

You know, he.

Noel Mellor: 00:27:52

He is that character.

Noel Mellor: 00:27:53

Jack Shoulder, the director of Elm Street 2, Freddy's Revenge, at the time of making that film, said, you know, to New Line Cinema, it's pretty obvious that Freddie is the franchise here.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:07

Bob Shea was.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:09

You know, it's not the first time that they tried to replace Freddie.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:13

In: 2010

Noel Mellor: 00:28:16

Bob Shea basically said, well, why do I need to pay this guy, Robert Englund, so much money when I can just stick somebody else in the makeup?

Noel Mellor: 00:28:23

And they did screen tests, and the.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:25

The guy who replaced Freddy was.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:30

Was very.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:30

He was doing it in a very sort of.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:32

He did it like a sort of Jason performance.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:34

Very sort of, you know, not very loose and performative, a lot more sort of.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:40

And so, yeah, they tried to replace Robert Englund, then it didn't work.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:43

They then decided to pay him what he was worth, and he's been there ever since.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:47

Jack Shoulder thinks Freddie was the franchise.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:49

I'd go one step further.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:51

I think Robert Englund is the franchise.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:52

He certainly has been up until this point.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:55

He's still out there keeping the brand alive.

Noel Mellor: 00:28:57

He is very happy to turn up at conventions all the time and, you know, pretend to cut people's throat open for a.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:05

In a selfie.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:06

And he's appearing everywhere, and people always ask him about, and he never seems tired of talking about it.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:12

But, yeah, I mean, like I say, he's 77 years old.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:15

He won't be back, but it's gonna take someone very special and very specific to replace him.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:21

I.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:22

you to know I don't like the: 2010

Noel Mellor: 00:29:24

I don't know many Nightmare on Elm street fans that do, but I don't blame Jackie Earl Haley for that, to be honest with you.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:31

I think he's possibly the least guilty party there.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:35

I think the remake was an attempt to, once again, sort of listen to audiences and go, all right, what do you need Freddie to be now?

Noel Mellor: 00:29:44

And the general sense was, well, we don't like Freddy because he's not scary anymore.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:48

And I think they kind of made him too scary.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:50

They sort of leaned into a forgotten part of his character that was maybe a bit too real.

Noel Mellor: 00:29:57

And I think, tonally, that's where they went wrong.

Noel Mellor: 00:30:01

I think.

Noel Mellor: 00:30:02

same sort of aesthetic of of: 2010

Noel Mellor: 00:30:11

That makes sense, I guess.

Noel Mellor: 00:30:13

But what we know from looking at the remake and what we know from looking at the Goldberg's episode is people want Freddy to be scary in the way that, you know, in a boogeyman kind of way.

Noel Mellor: 00:30:25

We want to be scared of Freddy, but we also want to like him.

Noel Mellor: 00:30:28

And the: 2010

Noel Mellor: 00:30:36

So we didn't want to see him again.

Noel Mellor: 00:30:38

We don't want to see that guy anymore because that's a thing that we're not comfortable with.

Liam Heffernan: 00:30:43

And do you think that that's the key to a horror villain that does endure in wider popular culture?

Liam Heffernan: 00:30:51

Because I immediately think of comparisons to Tobin Bell and Jigsaw.

Liam Heffernan: 00:30:57

Yeah, you know, he's also quite a tragic character and very dislikeable and quite scary, but he also has a vulnerability there and he has, he has a, a depth to his character that creates an appeal that maybe, you know, these other villains like Michael Myers and Jason lack.

Liam Heffernan: 00:31:17

And that's perhaps why characters like Jigsaw and particularly Freddy Krueger are able to break out of their franchise and become figures across pop culture.

Noel Mellor: 00:31:29

I think.

Noel Mellor: 00:31:29

So, you know, you got, you know, if you think about the best, the best Batman villains and the best Spider man villains, they all have a reason for being who they are.

Noel Mellor: 00:31:38

And that's kind of what we want to see.

Noel Mellor: 00:31:41

With Freddie.

Noel Mellor: 00:31:42

It was, you know, it wasn't.

Noel Mellor: 00:31:45

They obviously the sort of initial idea that Freddie would be a child molester was something that was owned, that only ever really existed in an early draft of, of Wes Craven scripts.

Noel Mellor: 00:31:58

There were some quite high profile cases in LA at the time around sort of schools where accusations of things were going on.

Noel Mellor: 00:32:08

And so the decision was taken very early on.

Noel Mellor: 00:32:11

Okay, we're not going down that route.

Noel Mellor: 00:32:14

So this idea that Freddie was a child molester, it's never really existed in the films, so we never needed to address it.

Noel Mellor: 00:32:21

We could have fun with Freddie and not feel the guilt of supporting someone who, who's a childbirth.

Noel Mellor: 00:32:27

at the, the decision that the: 2010

Noel Mellor: 00:32:43

I quite like that as an idea.

Noel Mellor: 00:32:45

I quite like the idea that maybe the parents, you know, maybe that's.

Noel Mellor: 00:32:49

Again, I'm giving away my best ideas here.

Noel Mellor: 00:32:51

Maybe, but maybe if, you know, in the era of social media where it's very easy for, for people to get canceled in the real world.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:00

The idea that somebody could be accused of something and then these parents could do something horrible and that would motivate him to come back and kill their children.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:08

That's an interesting idea.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:10

Unfortunately, I remember it very vividly watching the film for, for the first time, the remake, and just, they don't do that.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:17

They sort of go, oh, no, he was a child molester.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:19

And then you suddenly, well, I can't, I don't, well, I don't like him then, you know, so you're right.

Liam Heffernan: 00:33:26

It takes the fun out of Freddy.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:27

It does, it does.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:28

That's it.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:28

And, and that's what the Goldberg's episode didn't do.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:32

You know, they got the old Freddy back because that's what people wanted.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:35

I can't imagine there was ever a discussion on the table that they would get Jackie Earl Haley.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:40

So, you know, they brought him back and they made it fun.

Noel Mellor: 00:33:42

And it was about, you know, it was about the boogeyman, not the, you know, the evil child molester.

Liam Heffernan: 00:33:49

Yeah.

Liam Heffernan: 00:33:50

And so what does the franchise do from here?

Liam Heffernan: 00:33:53

And what, what happens to Freddy Krueger?

Liam Heffernan: 00:33:56

I mean, it's this conundrum with anyone who's sort of rise to fame, fictional or not, is built on, on fear that when, when that starts to go a bit, do they, do they just die off?

Liam Heffernan: 00:34:11

You know, is there, is Freddy just going to be one of those characters from late 20th century American pop culture that we remember in history?

Liam Heffernan: 00:34:20

Or can he, can he come back?

Noel Mellor: 00:34:22

It's really difficult to say because on the one hand, you know, you sort of look at the, you look at the bankability of it and you look, you look at the strength of the idea and you go, you know, he can't be gone.

Noel Mellor: 00:34:34

Like, you know, if somebody owns.

Noel Mellor: 00:34:37

Well, we know that the rights to the franchise have passed back over to Wes Craven's estate.

Noel Mellor: 00:34:42

And apparently conversations have been happening for a very long time with HBO and Blumhouse and other sort of people about what to do with it.

Noel Mellor: 00:34:50

So I think it's inevitable that he comes back.

Noel Mellor: 00:34:53

I, I really, really do.

Noel Mellor: 00:34:54

Just because Hollywood, again, like Bob Shade, they don't leave money on the table.

Noel Mellor: 00:34:59

So he will be back.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:01

As I say, England is 77 years old.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:04

It's not going to be him.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:05

So what comes next is going to be interesting.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:08

I'm a, I'm a movie guy more than I am a TV series guy.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:13

So unusually for me, I, I, I would say I think maybe a TV series might be a better option.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:21

I think a movie now, a horror movie now would have a lot of pressure on it.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:26

And because it would, people would be expecting it to be a franchise and put one foot wrong like they did with the, the remake, and that all goes out the window and suddenly the, the franchise is dead for another 10 years.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:39

A TV series.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:40

And I know that there's been discussions of maybe HBO doing something, a TV series might allow us to get to know Freddy again and get to, you know, have the space to allow him to become part of the fabric of culture in a different way.

Noel Mellor: 00:35:55

You know, people are comfortable with episodic tv again, being quite a high profile thing.

Noel Mellor: 00:36:02

And I feel like.

Noel Mellor: 00:36:04

And again, this is not normally the kind of thing I'd say.

Noel Mellor: 00:36:07

I'd be like, please don't make a series, make a movie.

Noel Mellor: 00:36:09

But I just feel like in this case, a, a TV series might be that soft introduction, soft reintroduction to the character that we need.

Noel Mellor: 00:36:16

Who they get to play.

Noel Mellor: 00:36:17

It is, is, is gonna be a real tough one.

Noel Mellor: 00:36:21

But I think whatever they do, it has to be fun because that sort of, that mean version of Freddy, I don't know that anybody's rooting to see that again.

Liam Heffernan: 00:36:31

Yeah, I agree completely with you and I.

Liam Heffernan: 00:36:34

Anyone that, that thinks that they should go back to, to a movie, I would urge to watch the, the TV series of Scream that they did around about sort of what, five, five to 10 years ago now, which was actually a really solid adaptation of the franchise.

Liam Heffernan: 00:36:51

And I think they could do something very similar with not Run Elm street.

Liam Heffernan: 00:36:54

But.

Noel Mellor: 00:36:54

But yeah, well, I've been, I've been told as well this, the Exorcist TV series apparently is great.

Noel Mellor: 00:37:00

You know, there is precedent for this stuff.

Noel Mellor: 00:37:02

I wouldn't, I wouldn't say the Nightmare on Elm Street TV series is a great example of translating, translating movies to the screen, but it is possible and yeah, I'd like to see it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:13

Yeah.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:13

And I think there's something to be said for just being able to like, watch something scary on your sofa, you know, at night.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:20

Maybe that's, you know, that's, that's the way now that people want to, want to watch scary stuff, which is maybe why there's a bit of a transition to series over films, but.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:29

Right.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:30

That about wraps up the conversation for this episode.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:34

No, thank you so much for joining me for this.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:38

Thank you.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:39

No idea how long I've been sort of hoping to do an episode on Freddy Krueger, and I'm gonna search endlessly for excuses to get you back on.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:47

So we can chat more about this.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:49

Yeah, we're gonna leave some useful links in the show notes as well.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:52

So if you are listening to this and want to find out more, you can check out all of that.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:56

But no, if anyone wants to connect with you directly, where can they do that?

Noel Mellor: 00:38:00

Yeah, so I'm a little bit off social media these days, but if you had to noemeller.com there will be all my old sort of 80s pop culture podcasts and links to everything that I'm up to there.

Noel Mellor: 00:38:11

And if anybody wants to get in touch with me, then there's, there's links on there as well.

Noel Mellor: 00:38:14

So yeah.

Noel Mellor: 00:38:15

Noelmellor.com awesome.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:17

And you can find me on X just about hanging in there, but I'm now on blue sky on LinkedIn.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:22

Just search for my name and you will find find me.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:25

And if you enjoy this podcast, do just take 10 seconds out of your data, leave a rating and a review and follow the podcast as well so that all future episodes appear in your feed.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:35

Also, if you follow the links in the show notes, if you really love what we do, you can support the show from as little as one simple dollar.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:42

And that really helps us keep making it and makes everyone involved very happy indeed.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:46

We're going to record a bonus episode straight after this as well.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:49

So if you are a subscriber, you get access to that at the same time that you can listen to this episode without having to wait.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:57

Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.