Nightmare on Elm Street: Wonder Con Exclusives!

By Sam(The Horror Man)

Our buddies at Ain’t it Cool News just gave us some spicy good tidbits from this years Wonder Con, about Nightmare on Elm Street.

They showed a scene from the flick, the full version of the scene that opens the trailer, with the dude that falls asleep at the diner.

Watching the full scene a few things stood out to me, details that I hope indicate a very thoughtful reboot of the series. For instance, whenever the guy falls asleep the light changes, grows darker and the flashing neon from the diner sign is exaggerated and alternately flashing red and green, Freddy’s colors.

When we jump into the scene the waitress walks by as he asks for more coffee. She ignores him and he follows her into the kitchen which is filled with chopped up animals, mostly pigs. Pig heads were everywhere! And the stove’s flames are crazy high.

The dude hears a screech behind him and the instant he turns around Freddy’s glove drops into frame. The camera stays on it as Freddy approaches the turned back of the victim. Two of the claws rub together almost excitedly, as if the anticipation of the kill is getting to Freddy.

Sensing something, the guy spins around and there’s nothing there. Instead Freddy pops up next to him (causing screams from the crowd in the ballroom) and slashes down, cutting his hand as he jerks awake, the waitress giving the line from the trailer about how he’s going to be kicked out if he keeps falling asleep.

Turns out the waitress is Nancy, the guy is her best friend, Kris’, newly ex-boyfriend. Nancy takes the guy’s plate. It’s bloody, but he apparently ate a steak, so she doesn’t notice it’s coming from his hand. He does, though, and patches it up quickly.

Kris comes into the diner to talk with the troubled guy. We find he has been awake (or trying to stay awake) for 3 days and she mistakes it as a kind of insomnia, asking him to get it checked out, to go a psychiatrist.

He did, apparently, and he was able to trace the nightmares back to his childhood, but then the dreams changed and became real. His sleep-deprived caffeine jitters cause him to spill his coffee cup. When Kris leaves to clean up the guy puts his head in his hands. Mistake.

The lighting changes again and suddenly it’s back to nightmare land, red and green pulsing diner lights. Except this time it’s not a stalking. Almost immediately Freddy is upon him. The guy grabs his steak knife and tries to use it to defend himself, but Freddy immediately turns it around on him.

Nancy and Kris see the guy standing up, struggling, but from their point of view it just looks like he’s holding the knife up to his throat. Kris pleads with him not to do it, but the knife goes into his jugular.

In this final tussle we got a really good look at Freddy and I’m liking the lower half of the face more and more, but the way the burns sit around the eyes almost make him look cat-like. I’m not sure I like that too much, but we’ll see how it all works in context.

Here’s the question and answer post as well that followed the clip.
- Jackie Earle Haley paid tribute to Robert Englund and how daunting it was to step into the part because the character’s so iconic and has only ever been embodied by one actor.

- When asked about how he got the part, Haley said he was asked by the producers and found out “some of you guys suggested me for the part. I guess you think I’m kinda creepy or somethin’.” He got a laugh.

- Rooney Mara made a joke about some of the role reversals in the movie.“Kyle (Gallner) kind of plays the damsel in distress.”

- Mara on the changes to her character from the original. “Our Nancy’s slightly darker than the original Nancy. She’s a tortured, lonely soul.”

- Katie Cassidy never saw the original film and I think the implication was she still hasn’t seen it. I’m fucking old.

- Thomas Dekker, on the other hand, said he was “obsessed” with the original film from his early childhood viewings of it.

- Haley rewatched the original film, but didn’t watch any of the sequels because of the comedic tone the series took.

- He was very clear that he studied the original film again, but it was more a tonal study. He remembered seeing the movie in the theaters and loved the feeling of the film and the way Freddy felt. He didn’t want to study Englund’s performance too closely, but wanted t make sure he had the basics so the character would be recognizable. Haley didn’t want to imitate Englund and hoped to be free enough to make the character his own.

- Haley also said there is some slight humor to Freddy, but he’s no jokester. He even said they might be taking it more seriously in tone than even the original movie.

- It was a very physical shoot for Jackie. “The make-up was a real challenge. It started at 6 hours.” That was in the early days of applying the prosthetics, when they were still playing with the design of the make-up and testing various artistic application. They soon got the make-up application down to 3 ½ hours and it took an hour to get out of it every day.

- Freddy’s glove isn’t just a slip on. It went on in pieces and had to be secured by crew members with screwdrivers applying every claw. So, after the glove was put on it stayed on for a while.

- Haley said “Thankfully I never cut myself! Nobody got cut on the movie…” to much protest from Kyle Gallner, who apparently got sliced in the belly once during the shoot. Haley just shrugged.

- For prep, director Samuel Bayer sent Haley a detailed book of serial killers, but he found getting into that headspace was personally torturous and it wasn’t until he realized that Freddy isn’t a real world serial killer, but a boogeyman, that he was able to dive fully into the character.

- SPOILER Dekker also fielded a question about the most exciting thing about doing the movie and dropped a big spoiler. “My most exciting scene is when I get killed. Hope you like it!” I’m sure the producers loved that.

Well there you have it fans.Hope to see you all at the primer on April 30th. I’ll be at the midnight showing at the AMC 20 Puente Hills, if ya see me ill be wearing my Cujo shirt and classic paperboy hat.