A Nightmare On Elm Street - Freddy Krueger reborn

You know Freddy Krueger... The red-and green sweater. The beat-up fedora. The bladed gloves. The evil dreams. Twenty-six years ago, Freddy Krueger emerged to haunt a generation in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare On Elm Street. But now, a new Freddy is born

"Real horror, when you think about it, relates to things on a very human level,” says Samuel Bayer, director of a new reinvention of A Nightmare on Elm Street, “and we all dream. It's universal."

"One of the things about this movie that's so exciting for us is the concept that if you sleep, you die," adds Platinum Dunes’ Brad Fuller, who produced the film with Michael Bay and Andrew Form. "Growing up, I always felt that if I died in my dreams, I would actually die, and that didn’t come from hearing it on the news - that came from seeing the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.” Adds Andrew Form, “A Nightmare on Elm Street is the movie I grew up on and that scared the hell out of me as a child.”

Jackie Earle Haley, Oscar-nominated for his 2006 role in Little Children, commanded even greater attention with his portrayal of Rorschach, the dark walking enigma of Watchmen. Most recently memorable for his brief but riveting turn as an inmate in Scorsese's Shutter Island, Haley is the actor chosen to don the bladed glove and grimy striped sweater that are Krueger's trademarks. "The first I heard that people were even thinking about me for this role was on the internet," says the actor. "And that was the fans, suggesting that I might be right for this role. My immediate reaction was, 'Hmm, that’s kind of cool.' And then, when the producers called and actually offered me the role, I was flabbergasted. It's such an amazing, iconic character, and just an absolute honor to be offered the role, and to get to play Freddy."

Director Bayer, a twenty-year veteran of commercials and rock video, is a man with a reputation, in part, for his unrelenting pursuit of perfection, while in equal measure being a savvy filmaker who knows how to make each penny of a budget appear on screen. Bayer's strong suit in his commercial work has been an ability to relay big concepts with just a few snippets of film, cut together in a staccato style that makes the few words of his subjects loom large. That 's the strength of his short films and award-winning commercial work, such as the Nike spot, "If You Let Me Play..." in which a series of young girls in sports gear tell how sport can change or even save a life. Bayer has also shown a deft hand for nightmare imagery in his music videos, including "Anybody Seen My Baby," made for the Rolling Stones and featuring then-22-year-old rising star Angeline Jolie; and Nirvana’s zeitgeist-shifting video “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Bayer can, indeed, spin a nightmare.

Fuller notes that Bayer's video portfolio promises to bring something extra to Elm Street's intersecting worlds of nightmare and reality. "Sam’s sense of visual style was something that we all responded to, and have for years," says Fuller. "But I feel that the drama that happens in between those dreams - he really wants to nail that too. And that’s really refreshing, where someone can portray both sides so powerfully.”

With a screenplay by Wesley Strick (Cape Fear) and Eric Heisserer (the forthcoming The Thing), the filmmakers were thrilled to get Fuller involved. “Sam was an untapped resource,” Form says. “In the commercial video world, he's at the top of that game, but the guy had not made a feature yet and it was just crazy that for 20 years I watched this guy’s commercials and videos, and he had never taken his visual style to the next level to make a feature film. It took us five years to get in business with him and actually make a movie, but it was well worth it and I’m glad we convinced him to do this one.”

Form and Fuller’s history with fellow producer Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes production company goes back to their 2003 hit Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Re-imagining A Nightmare on Elm Street is something their company has wanted to put on its roster for a long long time, the goal being to create a whole new vision that redefines the story of Freddy Krueger while remaining true to those elements that made it so timeless.

In this spirit, the filmmakers set about casting the film with fresh faces that would bring authentic qualities to their teenaged characters. Several of the young actors of A Nightmare on Elm Street were convinced after their first auditions that they had been passed over for their roles, because none received immediate callbacks. Producer Fuller explains that Nightmare involved a highly deliberate process, “The DNA here is that these are real kids, having real problems.” Part of that effort toward "realness" was spent in finding talented actors who were close to the characters' ages. “We wanted it to look real, so that what’s happening in these kid’s lives really can be meaningful to the kids who we hope will go to see the movie."

One of the first to be cast was newcomer Rooney Mara in the central role of Nancy. "Rooney’s got something that is absolutely special,” says Bayer. “She photographs amazingly well, and she’s got a really introspective quality. I think she’s a great heroine, I really love her."

In person, Rooney Mara is a delicately lovely young girl, but she also has the look of someone harboring a secret - perhaps the "introspective quality" that Bayer mentioned.

"I saw the original A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was 12 years old," the young actress recalls. "I wasn’t supposed to - I saw it at a friend’s house and it really scarred me. I was terrified, especially by Tina’s death scene. Tina’s death really sat with me, I was horrified by it. But I loved it, I loved the first one -- I didn’t see the others, but that first Nightmare was one of the horror movies that I saw when I was younger that really stuck with me."

"Our picture,” she is quick to note, “is so much darker you can’t even compare. It's scarier. I think there definitely are some moments of comic relief, but not nearly as many and it’s a really interesting, new side to the story that we haven’t seen. You get a lot more background story."

Many of the scenes glimpsed in the trailer are clearly touchstones that connect Nightmares old and new - Nancy and Freddy's shared scenes in the boiler room, for instance, and in Nancy's bath; and we know that the death scene that scarred the then-12-year-old Mara has been re-imagined using state-of-the-art 21st century effects and gallon upon gallon of movie blood.

But Bayer’s A Nightmare on Elm Street hinges on characters, their chemistry, and - since nightmares are the point of entry for the film’s very real killer - their inner lives.

Mara’s character, Nancy, is at the center of the story. "Sam likes to describe Nancy as the loneliest girl in the world, and I think that’s a pretty good description of her,” says the actress. “Nancy starts off very disturbed, from things that had happened in her childhood, and, because of that, she has a really hard time forming any sort of relationship with anybody. She keeps to herself and is a very quiet type, socially awkward and timid and really unable to connect with people.”

But as the nightmare-killer begins to stalk a group of teenagers at Nancy’s high school, she detects unseen connections between them and the same touchstones - the bladed glove, the sinister voice, the scarred face - in their increasingly violent dreams. In trying to understand the very real danger of the man that stalks them, Nancy is forced out of her shell.

"In the course of the movie you see her grow and form a connection with Quentin,” Mara continues. “She learns to open up and reach out to people. Ultimately, she gets to show what she’s made of, and really become a strong woman."

Quentin, who forms a tentative connection with Nancy as their situation grows more dangerous, is played by Kyle Gallner (The Haunting in Connecticut).

Independently of each other, the group of teenagers are desperately trying to stay awake. In Quentin’s case, that means relying on pharmaceuticals. “My character is the kind of guy who relies on substances to stay awake,” says the young actor. “He pops Adderall, and he steals adrenaline from the hospital. He’s a mess, more jittery and a more 'out there' than Nancy is. She’s genuinely tired, while Quentin is irritable and strung out in addition to that.”

As we catch him, Gallner has spent time in the makeup chair, where the artists add stress to his boyish good looks. "This is Quentin's sixth day up, so, you know, you have the crappy eyes and not as much makeup,” the actor laughs. “We’re sweaty and all torn up.”

But one thing they find out is that the body does not take sleep deprivation lightly. In researching for the screenplay, screenwriter Eric Heisserer notes, “I learned that after a certain number of days going without sleep, your brain will just start to force sleep on you in the form of 'micro-naps,' where for a few minutes at a time, even though you’re still conscious and awake, part of your brain goes to sleep. I found that this worked really well for the A Nightmare on Elm Street story, because then, Freddy can start to get you even when you’re awake. He can just show up in the middle of wherever you are and go after you, and I realized that was really our hook."

"We actually learned that staying up for a prolonged period can itself be fatal,” adds Bayer. “If you stay up for a number of days the brain starts to suffer, and one of the symptoms of that suffering is hallucinations that can happen while your eyes are open - and that’s a truly terrifying idea for us, because if Freddy can kill you in your dreams, and you can dream without closing your eyes, then you’re not safe at any time...so really, it’s a great thing to tie in some real lore that makes it that much scarier."

Katie Cassidy (Taken) plays the role of Kris, a vivacious young woman who is the first to suspect how all the teenagers are connected. Her terrifying struggle at the hands of Freddy Krueger was, for the actress, a fun but strenuous feat. "The whole shoot was a great experience,” Cassidy reflects. “I got to do some of my own stunts, so that was fun. I got hooked in a harness and thrown around a room - I have the bruises to prove it. The day I was thrown around the room in the harness, I was getting a little antsy, being covered in blood. And one day my hair was dyed fuchsia from all the blood, because we didn’t use a wig that day, so we had to bring a colorist in right after and spend something like four hours to re-color my hair! But it was fun, a cool experience, and I got to work with amazing, wonderful people, so I’m thrilled.”

Kellan Lutz plays Dean, a popular young "jock" who is among the first to learn of the life-threatening aspect of the night-time encounters with Freddy. Lutz is well-known to young horror fans from his portrayal of the vampire Emmett Cullen in the massively popular Twilight series of films.

Dean, says Lutz, is “a character that you can tell has a lot of issues going on just by looking at him. He’s mentally messed up and determined not to go to sleep, so he’s on pills; he comes to this diner to drink coffee and stay awake and, in the diner, he falls into a dreamlike state and actually ends up falling asleep and has an encounter with Freddy, where he is actually wounded."

Once Dean realizes that the bladed madman in his dreams can actually draw blood, he becomes the messenger who places the other teens on alert. "My character describes his visions and his nightmares of Freddy to Kris, Katie Cassidy’s character," Lutz recounts.

Growing up, Lutz not only saw the original Nightmare, but was well-versed in the full breadth of the genre. "My father let my older brother and me watch horror movies growing up,” he remembers. “We would be on the couch while he’s watching the horror movie and we’d be peeking and he’d check on us and we’d play possum, that type of thing. But we were fascinated with it. Friday the 13th, I had the Jason mask; Child's Play, I had the "Chuckie" doll - all of these things I laughed at, they weren’t scary, they were funny for me.

"And then there came Freddy. When I watched Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street, the original, it was one of those things where I was a tough kid - I had older brothers; I'd get in fights with them and I learned to defend myself - but this character that can attack you in your sleep, you can’t protect yourself! I mean, you can’t beat someone up in your sleep. So, that terrified me. It’s like the first thing I remember that really put fear into my eyes. I really give Freddy the credit of me not sleeping much. And I don’t sleep; I sleep a couple of hours a night."

Thomas Dekker, who has been acting since the age of six in a series of projects that run the gamut from John Carpenter's 1995 Village of the Damned to playing John Connor in the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, plays Jesse, whom he describes as “a kid who really knows what’s going on but refuses to believe it. He’s a nice guy though. He’s in love and I like him. He’s been fun to play."

Dekker has had a long acquaintance with Freddy and the Nightmare films. "I saw the first film when I was about 10 years old, with my father, and it seems to me that everybody knows him.”

Playing opposite such a striking bad man inspired the young actor. “I think it’s a strange word for me to use, but there’s kind of a delicious nature to his evil,” says Dekker. “He takes such joy in killing that it almost puts the audience on his side, as opposed to the victim’s side."

As Dekker says, Freddy Krueger is A Nightmare on Elm Street. To a great extent the appeal of the film will rest on the dark charisma of the transgressive creature at the film's core - Freddy Krueger as embodied by Jackie Earle Haley.

Jackie Earle Haley's current position as an actor uniquely acclaimed for playing anti-heroic roles is a surprising twist in Haley’s career. Years before his startling return to film, Haley was catapulted to international attention playing Kelly Leak in the original Bad News Bears series of films, and Moocher in 1979's Breaking Away.

In the case of A Nightmare on Elm Street, the choice that loomed large from the start was the actor that would bring Freddy Krueger to life. "Jackie was the only choice," says director Bayer. "I’ve always been a fan of Jackie, a fan of his work in All the Kings Men and Little Children, but seeing him in Watchmen was amazing.”
"There are a lot of characters along the same lines as Freddy that are much less multi-dimensional," Haley tells us. "They don’t hold a lot of interest for me, while getting to play Freddy was exciting and challenging because, as this mythical boogey man that we all love to be scared by, there’s a lot that makes him tick. There’s a lot of dimension to this guy, and it’s fascinating, maybe in a perverse way, but that’s what’s so interesting about the culture of horror films.”

Haley is particularly insistent that his predecessor in the role, Robert Englund, be given credit for crafting much of the dark charisma that Freddy has aquired over a quarter of a century. "It's been a very cool process for me, trying to figure out how to make Freddy my own,” he comments. “Robert did an amazing job portraying Freddy over the years. He made him who he is, an iconic, malevolent boogey man. What we’re doing with Freddy with this new approach is still trying to be true to those things that piss him off, the things that fill him with rage, and the specifics that make him the killing boogey man that he is - the fedora, the sweater, the glove. But I think we’re trying to capture him in a new way that’s a darker, and a little bit more serious, less jokey, and, hopefully, more scary.”

“Jackie Earle Haley really made the character his own,” adds Bayer. “It’s not often that you have an Academy Award-nominated actor portraying a monster. I can’t help but give big respect to Robert Englund and what he did with the character, but this is something different - this is Jackie's take. This character that you’re going to have empathy for, that you’re going to hate, that you’re going to be scared of - it’s all what Jackie has done with it."

Haley has relished the process of crafting an ell new embodiment of the nightmare-killer. "Freddy Krueger is definitely a fun character to play, just because he’s so not of this world - a guy that comes and stalks you in your dreams - he’s everybody’s worst nightmare. That, and the whole larger-than-life aspect of the character, is what drew me. I thought that this would be fun to play, and he really has been. I mean, this is the character in the campfire story, the classic boogey man.”

Each day of shooting means several hours in the makeup chair for Haley, but the actor doesn't let the emotional content of that experience go to waste. “You sit there for three-and-a-half hours, as these guys meticulously glue stuff all over your entire head, and the last thing they do is put these contact lenses in your eyes; they’re oversized; they burn and scratch,” he describes. “Then, they add the fake fingertips, and I’ve got knives on this hand. You come out of that, and it really helps put you in the head-space of Freddy Krueger. So, I really tried to use every bit of that and just hand it all over to Fred.”

Building Freddy's face on top of Haley's features is the job of Andrew Clement, special makeup effects artist, whose past credits range from Saturday Night Live to Frankenhooker to Star Trek. Clement's most critical task on this film has been creating an entirely new look for Freddy Krueger, while adhering to the iconic image the name demands.

The human face is something we learn to recognize in infancy, and throughout our lives we use the most subtle of visual cues to distinguish one face from another; for that reason, Clement's craft is an exacting one, calling for extreme precision. "It is important to get everything really right," Clement agrees. "I wanted this to be really textural and real and, in keeping with horror makeup traditions, there are elements of it where we really went for a horrific design, while being real at the same time.”

Working closely with director Bayer and Haley himself, Clement executed a series of tests to evolve the look based on how Bayer chose to light and photograph him.
Seeing the final product, says Haley, was quite a shock. “At first, it was pretty alarming,” he says. “Freddy was burned in a fire, so it draws from that, but they put in undertones of 'boogey man' on top of it. Andrew absolutely nailed the design, and I know he gave Sam Bayer what he was going for in terms of what he felt it should be."

Though Haley initially researched serial killers in preparation from the role, he ultimately abandoned research in favor of an "inner process" for reaching his interpretation. "I realized I’m not playing a serial killer,” he explains. “I immediately started to focus on the boogey man aspect of this guy and trying to be true to who Freddy Krueger is and yet still bring a little bit of realism to his backstory and what it was that turned him into this.

"It was very freeing for me when I realized, ‘Man, we’re playing a boogey man, your worst nightmare. This is the guy that’s the main point of focus in any campfire story. To me, that's what A Nightmare on Elm Street is: a super high-end glossy 'E-ticket' ride of a campfire story."

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