8 Horror Movie Remakes That Pissed Off The Original Creators
1. A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)
A lot like John Carpenter, Wes Craven was no stranger to having his movies remade and, whether he was directly involved as a producer or not, rarely had a bad word to say about the filmmakers tackling his history. Consequently, when A Nightmare On Elm Street was re-done in 2010, he mostly just distanced himself from the project, rather than criticise it.
The same cannot be said for original star Robert Englund.
Englund, of course, was instrumental to the success of the original series, starring as villain Freddy Krueger in eight movies. So much of what he brought to the role made Freddy so popular in those flicks, and as a result the actor has pretty strong feelings about how the character should be depicted.
The Nightmare remake did have some sound ideas - and the casting of Jackie Earle Hayley was promising on paper - but it didn't hit the mark, and Englund went on record to point out where he thought the production went wrong, saying:
“They decided to take Freddy out of the nightmare, when Freddy is only ever meant to be imagined in the subconscious, in the dream landscape of his victims [...] When you take Freddy out of the dream—we made that mistake ourselves in a sequence of Part 2—it just doesn’t work for the character. When you make Freddy earthbound in some way, you lose part of his power of symbolism.”
It should be said he was very gracious about the production in the interview, heaping praise on the actors involved specifically. He also said there should have been another Freddy vs. Jason before the remake, which I can totally get behind.