Robert Englund, the star of the hit horror movie franchise A Nightmare on Elm Street, has shared why Freddy Krueger’s TV gig fizzled out. Speaking with Bloody Disgusting on The Boo Crew podcast, the actor broke down why the horror anthology TV series Freddy’s Nightmares only had two seasons, and ultimately failed to capture horror fans’ long-term interest.
Back in the ‘80s, the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise was going strong with five movies. Wes Craven’s story became a genre classic and Englund, who played the scissor-fingered villain Freddy Krueger became a slasher icon. On the back of the IP’s success, New Line decided to make a spin-off TV series, Freddy’s Nightmares. The show wasn’t A Nightmare on Elm Street story though, and instead had Freddy Krueger (Englund) acting as the series’ host, like the CryptKeeper in the show Tales From the Crypt, as new stories were introduced for each episode.
However, as we said above, the series didn’t last for very long. In fact, after two seasons and 44 episodes, Freddy’s Nightmares was canned in 1990. While reflecting on his time working on the series’ Englund shared how broadcast syndication and budget cuts led to the show’s downfall.
“The problem was… we were supposed to be on at 11:30 or 12:00 at night. This late night show, and we could get away with murder. And we could be dark and nasty and funny. And yet, when we were syndicated, in the bible belt for instance, they had us on at 4:30 in the afternoon,” the actor explained. “Not a good idea. We got in trouble and we lost sponsors. The budget kept going down.”
“I think originally we were supposed to have ten days and $600,000 an episode… or something like that,” he continued. “Very quickly we were down to a five-day shoot, and the budget was cut way down. So as it progressed it got to be more and more difficult.”
Although Freddy’s Nightmares didn’t work out, we may see A Nightmare on Elm Street back either as a TV show or film sometime in the future. We have recently seen a resurgence in classic horror icons, such as the Chucky TV series, or David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy. It seems like it is only a matter of time before Freddy makes his big come back too.
While we wait for news on A nightmare on Elm Street reboot, here is our list of the best horror movies of 2021.