Freddy ten years ago!

By Paul Anthony

Ten years ago a horror legend returned to the big screen and at first it seemed like everyone was happy but sad that Robert Englund was no longer going to play the league character a role that he played from 1984 to 2003. The film had Jackie Earle Haley play Freddy. Up to this point Haley has been around in Hollywood since the 70s but mostly in roles you may have forgotten about, now by all accounts he made for the right person to take on the role of Freddy. With the cast locked up and the film only cost 35 million and with the previous year having a new Jason film that which the fan base was happy with, it only seem natural that we would strike oil again and have another hit on our hands. In truth the film did become a hit and made 116 million from the 35 million dollar budget. However the fanbase decided to start turning on the film for a few reasons.

One reason was because fans didn’t like the use of CGI for the face of Freddy even though it actually made it look more real then the cartoon make up that he had for a face before. Sure maybe there could have been a mixture of both but to me there was nothing to that really. I started to hear about people complain about how there wasn’t any humor like the previous films now this is use true but the producers made it clear that they were going with a darker tone, a more scarier Freddy. To me that was the only way to go in today’s horror genre. The comedy of Freddy was no longer carrying the franchise just look at the numbers they began to drop once the story pretty much ended. Sure Jason vs Freddy was a modest hit mostly because people been craving to see these two go at it since the early 90s, on top of that you had two fanbases coming together. The final reason was many people blamed Jackie who in my mind was the best part of the film, fans came out and wanted Robert Englund back but here is the thing when producers said reboot at that point you knew Englund was done and trust me it was time to move on.

The film itself overall wasn’t bad by any means, sure it wasn’t biggest hit for a horror film but still good. The truth is many people wanted fresh stuff and Freddy is a legend there is a place for him and always will be but that is in the past. I am sad to see Jackie be one and done, we know the studio wants to reboot the film again and after ten years its a good gap to do so. The biggest rumor that Kevin Bacon is being eyed to play Freddy, which is a good choice he has the talent to honestly mix the two Freddies but we will see in the near future if this comes to be. In my final words I do say this enjoy the 2010 reboot and see the good that the film with making Freddy scary and not making him a joke!!