The details of Freddy Krueger’s ratty red-and-green sweater and knife-tipped glove will look extra horrific when A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven‘s 1984 slasher classic, arrives on 4K UHD just in time for a spooky season re-watch. To mark the occasion, io9 got to speak with its stars, Heather Langenkamp (who plays smart yet sleepy final girl Nancy Thompson) and Robert Englund (the dream demon himself), about their experiences making the film—and whether they’d be willing to get back in character again.
Cheryl Eddy, io9: Which scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street do you think will benefit the most from the 4K UHD upgrade?
Robert Englund: Here’s the thing. What we have to remember—and it’s difficult for me because I always wanted to be a movie actor—I always imagined Nightmare on Elm Street playing in a movie theater. But most of our fans discovered this film as part of the video generation. So they saw it less than perfect. Their memories of it are less than perfect. They have great memories of sharing it with mom and dad, or a stepdad or a step-mom, or brothers and sisters, you know, fresh from the video store, running home with a copy. But a lot of them also saw old, dog-eared copies that had been lying around in the bookshelf for a while or passed around the dormitory. This is an opportunity to see this better than Heather and I’ve ever seen it. To see it absolutely pristine and enhanced, you know, ultra high def 4K. I just had this experience with the old Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window; it was mind blowing to see it in my living room, that perfect and wonderful. And I’m so looking forward to this. And there’s some new stuff [in the “uncut” version, included in the remastered release along with the theatrical version], right?
Heather Langenkamp: The new stuff is in Tina’s death scene. So [there] will be even more footage in there. Plus, that scene is so moody, all the blood. I’m just imagining that it’s going to be extra vivid. The opening scene where Tina is having her dream with the lamb scurrying across the boiler room floor—like those really magical, dreamy scenes, I think are going to obviously look so beautiful.
Englund: Also, I think all of the people that worked in the art department were incredible, and they went on to do another 50 movies for New Line Cinema. But the lighting in the boiler room and in the dreams is just a little different. And I think that’ll be more pronounced, you know, in this new version.
io9: If the right script and filmmaker came along, would you be tempted into a re-teaming of Freddy and Nancy?
Langenkamp: I think so. I mean, why not? I’m game.
Englund: I’d love to work with Heather again. I mean, it would be fun.
Langenkamp: For anything!
Englund: I’d love to direct Heather. Yeah. And there might be some kind of pun and some kind of value to playing us against each other, me as a nemesis and she as my prey.
Langenkamp: [Interjects] Or the opposite!
Englund: Even in a thriller or something like that. You know, Heather is a psychiatrist who has a patient that’s acting up and has some really psychotic problems. And I start to pursue her. And the fun of that would be, “Oh yeah, and then also, we’re Freddy and Nancy.”
Langenkamp: Wait, I get to pursue you. We have to turn the tables!
Englund: So I’ll be the psychiatrist!
Langenkamp: You be the victim, I’ll be the Freddy!
Englund: Okay, I got you. [Both laugh]
io9: Do you have a favorite memory about working with Wes Craven?
Langenkamp: Well, I always say that it’s the bathtub scene, which was such an interesting, unusual day of work. Nobody ever expects to go to work and have to sit in a bathtub all day with bubbles. It just was Wes at his best, kind of thinking on his feet. A lot of it was on the fly, and just I think how he ended up shooting that with the glove coming in and out of the water was—I think it was better than he even expected. So that was probably my favorite scene to shoot.
Englund: On Nightmare [part] seven, [New Nightmare], it got a little actually surreal. We were shooting, Heather and I and the child, Miko [Hughes], and instead of using snakes, they used albino eels. And it was just so strange. Wes, me, Heather, the kid, the albino eels. And Wes couldn’t stop making jokes about it, and he was worried that he was gonna have to pay the crew extra because he shot into lunch hour. And Wes yelled at everybody, “We have to get a shot or there’s going to be an eel penalty!”—instead of a meal penalty.
And that’s the true Wes Craven, always coming up with those goofy puns and jokes. I had him in my apartment once on location. [We were] watching Saturday Night Live, and he laughed so hard he was crying at an episode of SNL. “Massive Head Wound Harry” was the sketch, with Dana Carvey, but he fell off the couch. And for Wes—we all know he was this erudite gentleman—for Wes to fall off a couch laughing and crying at an SNL sketch and allowing me to see that. I think that was really his gift to me, of saying, you know, “I’m not your boss anymore. I’m not your director anymore. I’m your friend.”
A Nightmare on Elm Street hits 4K Ultra HD on Digital October 1; it will be available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play, Fandango at Home, and more. The Blu-ray 4K UHD arrives October 15. The 4K UHD remaster includes both the theatrical and uncut versions; the latter features eight additional seconds of unrated footage.
Other previously released special features included are as follows, according to a Warner Bros. press release:
- Ready Freddy Focus Points
- Commentary with Wes Craven, Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Ronnie Blakely, Robert Shaye, and Sara Risher.
- Commentary with Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, and Jacques Haitkin.
- Alternate endings
- The House that Freddy Built: The Legacy of New Line Horror
- Never Sleep Again: A Nightmare on Elm Street
- Night Terrors: The Origins of Wes Craven’s Nightmares
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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