Five Reasons Why the New 'Nightmare On Elm Street' Reboot Needs Robert Englund

"Uh...wanna cut the cake, Dad?"

THE INTERNET IS ABUZZ with the news that Hollywood is rebooting the legendary New Line Cinema horror series A Nightmare On Elm Street once again, only five years after a very good actor (Jackie Earle Haley) gave his best effort to a...let's just say, "inconsistently" scripted remake. It wasn't for trying; Haley did everything he could with the role, but whether the public wasn't ready for a new Freddy or whether the filmmakers just weren't up to the challenge is up for debate.

Very little has come out regarding any details for the newest attempt at remaking Elm Street, but several things occurred to me as soon as I read the news, and they all led me to settle in on one kind of "well, duh" notion: Robert Englund should play Freddy AT LEAST once more.

Now, I'm not in the corner who thinks they absolutely CAN'T make an effective film without Englund. Surely, a good horror movie is only as good as it's script and respective director, and there is always a chance that the new ANOES flick could be decent (or even better). Wes Craven's core idea is still solid and there is plenty of room for improvement over the 2010 remake, of course. I feel like the likelihood of making a spectacular new Elm Street is fairly slim, but even a mild improvement over the earlier reboot might feel like a success.

What I am saying is that having Englund back for one more go round sure would help.

Hear me out:

1) THE DREADED ORIGIN STORYIn order to "reboot" or "re-imagine" or whatever other word they try to toss about to keep us from saying "remake", they are going to have to start at the beginning...again. Remember when you watched the Spider-Man trilogy, and then a few years later you were sitting through Pete's origin story AGAIN for the Amazing Spider-Man reboot? Well, another Freddy origin story would mean the THIRD time for Freddy (FOUR if you count the kind of flashback-y rebirth thing in Elm Street 5: The Dream Child). Englund as Fred makes it possible to give a reason WHY he's back without recounting the entire tale YET AGAIN.

2) HIS AGE COULD HELP CREATE A FRESH SCRIPT
 Now, the one thing you hear ALL THE TIME when people clamor for Englund's return as Freddy is that he's "too old". Here is where a bit of Elm Street history rushes to the rescue: Wes Craven initially envisioned Krueger as an old man (doubtless because of the dude who "inspired" the creation of Freddy in the first place, a nameless old man who scared Uncle Wes as a lad). If the notion of a kind of Dark Knight Returns-ish Freddy story doesn't appeal to you, then I don't know what to say. It sure does to me. At this point, that could be such a dark, creepy and intriguing story to tell, and we've seen Robert in plenty of films lately that prove his energy is still there.

3) ENGLUND IS PART OF FREDDY'S "MAKEUP"
 One of the biggest reasons why Freddy is such a popular character is something that the reboot completely glossed over, and that is the fact that Freddy's "mask" still fully reflects Robert Englund underneath. Yes, we have the latex and the makeup, but you still "see" Englund; the lascivious personality, the feeling that Freddy relishes "the scare" and "the chase" as a boogeyman, the expressive eyes...that's all Englund. Hell, even that voice. Leatherface, Jason, Michael...they can look different and still be the same dude. Heck, even their masks change from film to film. Freddy is Freddy, even with various incarnations of his makeup resembling pepperoni pizza more and more as the series went on. That's not to suggest that NO ONE else could ever play Freddy, but wouldn't it be more fun if Englund could be a bridge to a reboot rather than trying to pretend he never existed in an all new universe?

4) HE'S TODAY'S VERSION OF BORIS
 Which directly leads to another point. If Universal could have continued to make Frankenstein films with Boris Karloff, would they have tried to replace him? Of course not. They were still trying to get Boris to be the monster as late as 1948, when the core Universal Monsters had their last go around in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Look, obviously this is a different time, but Englund is probably the closest thing we have to Karloff in terms of being a celebrated horror actor who embodies an iconic character. Karloff portrayed the Monster with his own expressions and facial aspects shining through as well, and the Frankenstein Monster and Freddy Krueger are probably the TWO most recognizable and enduring makeup jobs ever portrayed in horror franchises. Whether you like him or not (I admit I don't understand how you couldn't), don't take Robert Englund for granted, folks...living legends who can still get the job done are VERY few and far between in today's cinematic horror landscape.

5) IT'S WHAT WE WANT!
 We (a lot of us...a WHOLE lot of us) want to see Englund as Freddy again. Even the box office would be best served by putting the legend back in the part. This is partially because there was a bad taste left in our mouths with the way Englund was kind of just shown the door when so many people wanted AT LEAST a Freddy vs. Jason sequel. We need CLOSURE. Yep, I said it. We need Robert Englund one more time.

Sure, like I said before, they could make a good and interesting Elm Street movie without him. It could happen, for sure. An all new Freddy could be intriguing, there's absolutely no denying that. But it sure would be fun to take my teens to see the real Freddy in the theaters. And it would be EXTRA amazing if it were a dark and creepy reboot with an amazing Robert Englund playing an older, more cynical boogeyman, sneaking around in the shadows with that lithe, spooky body language that he portrays so well.

Come on, New Line, give us one more big Freddy swing for the fences in Springwood. Because yes, every town has an Elm Street, but they're so much more enjoyable when Robert Englund is hanging out there.