Robert Englund might have sworn off playing Freddy Krueger again, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is completely done with A Nightmare On Elm Street. In fact, he’s stated that he would be interested in returning if a remake were ever made of the series’ third installment, Dream Warriors.
Although now considering himself too old to do justice to his iconic character, he would be eager to reappear in a supporting or cameo role, his presence acknowledging his essential contribution to the franchise.
“I would love to come back and maybe play the dream analyst (the character of Dr. Elizabeth Simms, played by Elizabeth Pointer), the woman in the therapy sessions who doesn’t believe that there can be such a thing as a collective nightmare that’s common to a group of people. I think it would be fun for the fans, it would be fun for me to play the part originally played by a woman and do a flip on that. I think there’s kind of a tradition in the horror genre of cameos like that, so that would be fun for me.”
The story follows Kristen Parker, one of the few surviving Elm Street teenagers, as she is sent to a mental institution after her wounds from a nocturnal attack by Freddy are mistaken for a suicide attempt. Along with several other young adults, she’s tormented and hunted in her nightmares, but after it transpires that she can pull others into her own dreams, they gain powers drawn from idealized versions of themselves and are able to fight as a group against the fear demon in the hope of destroying him once and for all.
Dream Warriors was one of the better of the Elm Street movies, reinvigorating the franchise after the disappointing sequel, even if Wes Craven intended it as a conclusion to the story. The film saw the return of the original movie’s Nancy after being absent from the sequel, and gave Freddy some backstory in a tormented existence stemming from being the “bastard son of a hundred maniacs.”
The future of the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise is unclear at the moment. The rights have returned to Wes Craven’s estate, who are now actively taking pitches, but no solid decisions have been made over what direction any further movies will be taken. However, they could certainly do worse than a remake of Dream Warriors, continuing the importance of highlighting issues surrounding mental illness, and the notion of dreamscape superpowers being limited only by a writer’s imagination.