The news hit like a scream, jolting you out of a peaceful sleep: Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights to do a reboot of the historic slasher franchise A Nightmare on Elm Street. This shouldn’t come as TOO big a shock, of course. The culture of the entertainment business is absolutely OBSESSED with intellectual property – they would much rather take something that was popular at one point and try to resurrect it than put in the work to cultivate anything new. And to be honest, I don’t even object to the reboot in principle. Of all the horror icons of the 1980s, Freddy Krueger is probably my favorite. It was going to be done sooner or later; it’s just a question of whether or not it will be done the right way.
“Didja miss me?”
And that brings us to the real difficulty in doing any kind of Nightmare reboot: finding a new Freddy Krueger. The reason that Freddy is my favorite of the icons is that he’s the most unique – a nasty sense of humor, a quick wit and a menacing tone of voice that isn’t present in most of the other slashers of the era. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, or Leatherface can be entertaining, but they’re all masked, silent killers. That’s not to say that they don’t have personalities of their own or that some performers aren’t better than others, but because of the nature of what those characters are, it’s far easier to accept a new actor putting on one of those masks than somebody else playing Freddy.
But Robert Englund, the actor that made Freddy who he is, is 79 years old. Although he’s still a working actor – in fact, he’s poised to play a major role in the upcoming sequel to the classic Behind the Mask – he has made it quite clear that he just doesn’t feel capable of the stunt work and long, torturous hours in the makeup chair that playing Freddy requires anymore (although he HAS said he would be willing to return to voice the character should there ever be an animated version of Nightmare). This won’t be the first time that Freddy was recast, of course. In 2010 there was a remake starring Jackie Earle Haley as the “Springwood Slasher.” That movie turned out to be something of a train wreck, though, and although most of the fans will concede that it wasn’t Haley’s performance that was lacking, they would also rather wipe the slate clean rather than be reminded of it.
Why is it so hard to imagine somebody else as Freddy Krueger? Other iconic characters have been recast in the past. In fact, for some characters it’s outright expected. There have been six official James Bond actors, and when one retires nobody questions IF the part should be recast, but only with WHO. The same thing goes for Superman, Batman, and several others. Granted, there are always people who are adamant that “their” version of the character is the only one, but that’s a really narrow minded point of view. It’s fine to say that Christopher Reeve is your favorite Superman – I ain’t here to argue with you – but to say that he’s the only one who should ever be allowed to play the character is absurd.
“You fellas have room for one more?” — David, being unfailingly polite.
On the flipside, Marvel fans love to point out that only one actor has played Wolverine in live-action movies, Hugh Jackman. These fans always forget the necessary caveat with a statement like that: “So far.” 20th Century Fox got extremely lucky with Jackman, casting an actor who had the physicality and personality to make the character work for DECADES, not to mention a willingness to keep returning, even after “retiring” once. But had he decided not to come back at the time that they were planning the soft reboot of X-Men: Days of Future Past, the character would almost certainly have been recast along with Cyclops and Jean Grey. And now that the X-Men are finally joining the MCU, everybody knows it’s only a matter of time before somebody else puts on that pointy mask of his.
This particular problem, this permanent association of a role with a singular actor, is a product of the film era. On stage, there is no presumption that a character will be forever associated with a single actor, no matter how good they are. I think the reason for that is that every theatrical production is a unique experience, something that cannot be reproduced (barring filmed versions of the stage play, of course). That ethereal quality is one of the things that makes theater magical. Movies, however, feel more permanent. If you go into ten different theaters with live performances of the same play, it will be different every time. If you go into ten theaters showing the same movie, it won’t change. If it were possible to go into a theater and watch the same live performance of a play forever, people might still be adamant in saying that Julie Andrews is the only person who could ever play Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady rather than immediately associating that character with Audrey Hepburn from the film.
It would have been a different movie, but you can’t tell me it wouldn’t still be good.
But as so often happens, Eliza Doolittle leads us back to Freddy Krueger. Now that Paramount has announced their intention to move forward with the new film, the question of who should play Freddy has to be asked. And I’m going to say something that may or may not be a hot take – you tell me. If the person suggested is an actor you are aware of without having to look them up, they’re probably the wrong choice for the role. This is a case where we need an actor that can be fully immersed in the character. Putting Tom Holland (to throw out one truly terrible suggestion) in the makeup will not give us Freddy Krueger, it will give us Tom Holland cosplaying as Freddy Krueger. And this isn’t a knock on Holland’s acting abilities, it’s just that he’s too well-known for us to completely lose ourselves in the character.
The best choice for Freddy is probably somebody that nobody reading this has ever heard of before, someone who can embody the character and whom we’ll all accept without the baggage of previous roles or celebrity personality. The cult of celebrity isn’t as powerful as it once was anyway, after all. There are few faces in Hollywood that are guaranteed to open a movie on their own anymore, and those that ARE in that club are highly unlikely to consider the Freddy role. Besides, horror as a genre has never been as obsessed with that as the rest of the industry. That’s not to say that horror fans don’t have their favorite actors – we’ll line up for the likes of Kane Hodder, Jamie Lee Curtis, or Robert Englund himself. But we’re JUST as likely to throw our support behind a movie that has nobody we recognize if the premise, writing, and acting are good enough.
One of the biggest hits of the year was Backrooms, a horror movie based on a creepypasta, of all things. The biggest name in the cast is Chiwetel Ejiofor – a fine actor, and a great addition to any cast, but nobody looking at his filmography would call him a horror icon. The closest thing in the movie to a horror “star” is Mark Duplass of the Creep franchise, but even he’s hardly a household name.
“Wait, is somebody saying I should play Freddy?”
All of this is to say that while horror fans DO show up for certain names, there are a lot of other reasons they go to the movies too. And in a case like Freddy Krueger, it’s far more important to get somebody who can play the role than it is to get somebody the audience recognizes. What Paramount should do, if they’ve got any sense at all, is cast as wide a net as possible, find the best Freddy out there, and then build the movie around his performance rather than his number of social media follows.
Do they have that kind of sense? We can only hope so.
If they do it right, maybe in a couple of years it’ll be hard to get to sleep again.
Blake M. Petitis a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure seriesOther People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. He’s also started putting hisLitReel videos on TikTok.For more discussion of casting, go into anyDungeon Crawler Carlgroup on Facebook, ask who they think should play any given character in the upcoming TV show, then hide under a desk.
Yesterday, September 19, when I got home from work, my wife was ready and waiting for something we’ve been looking forward to for months: putting up the Halloween decorations. Oh I know, some people may scoff. Some may say it’s too early. Some may say that preparing for Halloween before October is a terrible breach of seasonal etiquette. To these people I say, bite my gourd. Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year, and I’ve been waiting for this day since I went back to work from summer vacation on August 1. It is well past time, as far as I am concerned.
Our decorations aren’t terribly complex, because we can’t afford anything terribly complex. Nor are they terribly scary, because we have a seven-year-old and we don’t want to give him nightmares. But Eddie does love monsters and creepy crawlies, so we’re not above hanging a few ghosts from the trees, wrapping the posts in front of our door with LED lights, and setting up inflatables of the likes of Slimer and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. We’d have more if we could, but we’re happy with what we got.
Pictured: Not Complex Decorations
As we were decorating, though, I started to think about just which horror icons I would adorn our home with if money was no object. If I could grab the icons of terror from any time period, who would they be? In short, what creatures belong on the Mount Rushmore of Monsters?
It was honestly too hard to narrow down all the different monsters from throughout history to a simple quartet, so I decided instead to do three different mountains dedicated to three different eras: the Universal Monsters, 80s Slashers, and 21st Century Terrors. Obviously there are plenty of other ways I could subdivide things, but restricting myself to these three keeps me from going overboard (and gives me an excuse to return to this topic later, should I so choose).
I’m making my decisions based on how iconic I think the monsters are – how far have they come in terms of penetrating popular culture? For example, no matter how good a movie I think Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is (and it IS a GREAT movie, and you should all watch it) the fact that he’s kind of faded away since then is going to keep Leslie off the list.
But enough of that. Who HAS made the cut?
Universal Monsters
Universal Studios didn’t invent the horror movie, and in fact, most of their iconic creatures came not from them, but from the annals of public domain. That said, when people think of these classic monsters, the average member of the public is picturing the versions that came from the Universal monster flicks. The Universal Monsters are still known worldwide, a valuable brand that even kids will recognize without ever having seen a single one of their films. Their versions of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Invisible Man, and many more are absolute legends. How in the world do you narrow it down to just four?
Well, you do it by deciding which ones are the MOST iconic, which ones are known by EVERYBODY – even people who hate monster movies or don’t like Halloween. And for that reason, I think the first two spots have to go to the Frankenstein Monster and his lovely Bride, as portrayed by Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester, respectively. Karloff wasn’t the only actor to play the creature for Universal (Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, and Glenn Strange each had turns as well), but he was the first and there can be no denying that he was the most memorable. It’s his picture that you see on the merch, his face that the Halloween masks are based on, and his rendition that has informed pretty much everything from his three successors to Frankenberry cereal. As for the Bride, despite the fact that she only appeared in the one film – and only in the final scene of the movie at that – she has become as iconic as the Monster himself. The tall hair with the white streak, the bandage-wrapped body draped in gossamer, and Lanchester’s wide eyes and legendary scream have earned a permanent place in pop culture.
“Still a better love story than–” Ah, you know the joke.
Spot #3 on the mountain couldn’t possibly be given to anybody but Bela Lugosi as Dracula. People don’t often realize that Lugosi only played the count twice, in the original 1931 Dracula, then not again until 1948 in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. But like Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster, his is the most recognizable version of Bram Stoker’s bloodsucker. Everything we accept about Dracula’s hairstyle, his clothes, and his accent (a remnant of Lugosi’s own Hungarian background) come from this version of the creature. Even today, when you watch a Hotel Transylvania movie, it’s Lugosi that Adam Sandler is doing a parody of. Like Karloff, his depiction of the monster is so famous that anybody who tried to do a novel-accurate version of Dracula would probably be met with confused looks as people asked why the hell he has a mustache.
“Sometimes I do, in fact, say ‘Blah, blah, blah’.”
And then there’s the final spot and…guys, this is hard for me. REALLY hard. Not because there isn’t an obvious choice, but because it means I’m going to have to sideline one of my favorites. I love Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolfman. I think he’s got some of the best, most nuanced performances in the entire Universal monster canon, and if this mountain was just my favorites, he’d be right up there. But in terms of how ICONIC he is…well…there are a lot of werewolves in movieland, and he doesn’t quite have the complete dominance over his version of the monster that Karloff and Lugosi do. But you know which monster IS instantly recognizable as the one and only Universal creation? The Creature From the Black Lagoon.
And he never needs a moisturizer either. Guy is legit.
80s Slashers
It has been said by many a horror fan that the slashers of the 80s are the spiritual successors to the Universal Monsters. Granted, they’re far gorier and less kid-friendly than the classics; I’ll sit down and watch a Universal classic with my son, but we’re not going to be sharing a Nightmare on Elm Street marathon any time soon. But at the same time, many of these creatures have achieved the same level of cultural awareness as the creatures of the golden age of cinema. In other words, although not everybody may have watched all of – or ANY of – the Friday the 13th movies, I don’t think there is anyone in the western world who can see somebody wear a hockey mask and pick up a knife without thinking, “JASON!”
Which is why, by the way, he gets the first spot on the 80s Mount Rushmore. Jason Voorhees is synonymous with slasher movies. Even though he wasn’t the bad guy in the first movie and he didn’t get his iconic hockey mask until the third, the version of Jason we’ve had since then has made his mark on our culture. It’s a go-to Halloween costume for bigger dudes (guilty) because it’s so simple – the mask, a weapon, some old clothes and everybody knows who you are. He’s a lumbering monument to the iconic nature of the 80s slasher. Also, the question of which version of Jason is most iconic is largely moot, since no matter who plays him, the mask makes him look pretty much the same. Besides, the best one was Kane Hodder and you know it.
The downfall of the summer camp industry began here.
Next to him will be his one-time sparring partner, Freddy Krueger, and this time the creature IS permanently associated with one actor, Robert Englund. (Jackie Earle Haley played him in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, and although I don’t think anyone really blames that movie’s failure on his performance, it’s still a version we’d rather forget.) In an era where most of the slasher icons were silent killers – hulking brutes who were just as capable of breaking your bones as slitting your throat – Englund’s Freddy is svelte, agile, and with a wonderfully wicked sense of humor that has made him as beloved in the real world as he is terrifying to the teens of Elm Street. Even before the two characters faced off in the movie Freddy Vs. Jason, people would often say their names in a single breath as the two most well-known movie monsters of the era.
The only guy on this list to have recorded a song with Will Smith.
The third slot belongs to another quiet killer, Michael Myers from the Halloween franchise. (I know, the first movie came out in 1978, but he’s part of that 80s echelon of horror regardless.) Like Jason, many actors have played the role, but unlike Jason I don’t know that there’s necessarily a consensus as to who did it the best. That said, the creepy killer in a William Shatner mask painted white is indelibly linked to the holiday of Halloween. If you weren’t afraid he might stick a knife in their stomach, you might be sending your kids to sit on his lap for a picture like we do Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Jason and many other killers over the decades have taken their cues from John Carpenter’s creation, and few have done it better.
The original strong silent type.
The fourth spot is a little tougher this time. There’s an argument to be made for Leatherface, gruesome titan of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, but A) only ONE of his films actually came out in the 80s, and B) I don’t think he’s nearly as recognizable to the general public as Freddy, Jason, or Michael. But you know who is? CHUCKY.
“Chucky, I appreciate your offer, but I’ve considered the situation and…well…I have decided that I do not, in fact, ‘wanna play’.”
Charles Lee Ray, the bloodthirsty serial killer played by Brad Dourif who has possessed the body of a child’s “Good Guy” doll and, in the process, made us all afraid of our kid’s toys, has earned his spot on my Mount Rushmore. Okay, only one of Chucky’s movies (the original Child’s Play) came out in the 80s, but he’s a MUCH more recognizable figure than Leatherface. In addition to his film series, he’s the star of a TV series that is currently on the air and – let’s face it: the merch. Chucky’s as much a brand as he is a character at this point. Everybody knows who he is and what he looks like, and the name “Chucky” is now permanently associated with a red-haired pint-sized whelp who brings chaos and despair in his wake, although part of that may be attributable to the cartoon Rugrats.
21st Century Terrors
This last mountain of mine is going to be the most challenging, mostly because the pop culture penetration part is a little harder to say for sure with modern monsters. Lots of things are popular when they’re NEW, but will they still be instantly recognized 40 to 90 years later like the monsters I’ve talked about already? Only time will tell. That said, these are the four that I would currently put on the mountain, based on how popular they are NOW and how popular I think they are likely to remain. I’ll go in chronological order of their first films for this batch.
First up is Victor Crowley, the hatchet-wielding killer of Adam Green’s…well…Hatchet series. Victor is a good ol’ Louisiana swamp boy, accidentally killed by his own father as the result of a cruel Halloween prank gone tragically wrong and transformed into a murderous, vengeful spirit that allows no one to leave his home in Honey Island Swamp alive should they be so foolish as to venture there after dark.
“No, Victor, you’re still a…a handsome young man…”
I admit to a little bias on this first choice – I’m a big fan of Adam Green and his work in general, so I’m always ready to promote it a little bit. Regardless, I think Victor (who has ONLY been played by Kane Hodder) is highly deserving of this spot. The first Hatchet movie, in 2006, came at a time when virtually all horror was a remake or reboot, either of an older franchise or of a Japanese horror film. Green had the guts to come out with an 80s-style slasher in a time when they weren’t in vogue and created a popular, beloved franchise. It’s been a few years since his last outing (in 2017’s Victor Crowley) but he’s still filling toy stores and turning out new comic books from American Mythology, keeping him alive until Green and Hodder are ready to polish up their hatchets and bring him back to the screen.
Next, from 2009, I’m picking Sam from writer/director Michael Dougherty’s anthology film Trick ‘r Treat. This is one of my favorite Halloween movies, an annual must-watch featuring four delightfully scary stories that all center around the same small town on the same Halloween night, with the diminutive orange-and-burlap clad creature called Sam serving as the common element to all four of them. The movie has a highly devoted fan base, and every few years we get our hearts broken all over again as news of a sequel is announced and then, sadly, nothing happens. Despite that, though, Sam has only become more and more popular as an icon, with costumes, decorations, and toys filling the shelves of a Spirit Halloween near you even as we speak – and really, is there a better measure of an iconic monster than that?
The cutest lil’ lunatic of the season.
The psycho that gets the third spot comes from 2016’s Terrifier by writer/director Damien Leone: Art the Clown. (And let me just say for the benefit of those readers who happen to be my wife that I intended to include Art BEFORE you looked over my shoulder and saw the title of this column and said, “You better include Art the Clown.” You’re welcome.) Art actually appeared in a couple of short films and the 2013 anthology All Hallow’s Eve, played then by Mike Gianelli. But it wasn’t until the 2016 Terrifier, when David Howard took over the role, that the character really started to get stratospheric popularity.
If you weren’t scared of clowns already, this guy will change that.
What is it, exactly, that makes Art so creepy? I suppose part of it is just our cultural fear of clowns, which has only gotten worse in the last decade. Part of it is the unnerving design of the character and his ghastly makeup. But a lot of the credit has to go to Howard’s performance. His Art is lithe, quiet, menacing, and probably the single most brutal horror to yet appear on my list. Seriously, if one of my Mount Rushmore Monsters was coming after me, there’s nobody I’ve mentioned that I would be more disturbed by than Art the Clown. Art, like Sam, has begun to ascend that Mount Rushmore of Merchandise as well, with costumes, decorations, and tchotchkes appearing everywhere this Halloween season in anticipation of the upcoming Terrifier 3 which, amusingly enough, is going to be a Christmas film. My wife got a stuffy of him when we made our first Spirit trip this year. It’s adorable.
The last monster on my last mountain? It’s going to be a controversial choice, I know, but I challenge anyone to make an argument that Bill Skarsgård’s rendition of Pennywise the Dancing Clown doesn’t belong there. Like Art, the villain of Stephen King’s It has that creepy vibe to him, but unlike Art, he’s a chatterbox. He’s as likely to talk the terror into you as he is to jump out from a closet. Whereas Art is an anomaly, a creature of unknown origins who is all the more horrible for it, we know what the deal is with Pennywise. He’s a nightmare out of time, a beast from another universe that preys on our fears and surfaces every 27 years to do so. And Skarsgård is flawless in the role – sly, charming, compelling, and an absolute terror every second he’s on the screen.
This is the guy who WOULD say “yes,” when Chucky asks if he wants to play.
I know some of my Stephen King purist friends will turn on me for this one. And look, I love Tim Curry as much as anybody. But he’s be honest here, Skarsgård’s version of the character has completely eclipsed Tim Curry in terms of cultural awareness. Children of the 80s and 90s remember Curry as Pennywise, but if you ask anyone who didn’t see that miniseries in their formative years, the vision of the character they come away with is Bill Skarsgård.
And damned if I don’t think he earned it.
There you have it, friends, three Mountains of Malevolence. But lists like this one are intended to INSPIRE discussion, not settle a debate. So tell me, who would YOU put on each of those mountains? And what other mountains would you build? Let me hear all about your Quartets of Corruption!
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. Other mountains he considered were Hammer Horror, Final Girls, Horror Heroes…ah well. Next time.
Blake M. Petit 