Freddy’s Dead Director on Learning Life Lessons From A Nightmare on Elm Street | Interview
ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare director Rachel Talalay about the brand-new A Nightmare on Elm Street 7-film collection from New Line Cinema. Talalay discussed how she approached the Freddy Krueger character, what she learned from directing Freddy’s Dead, and more.
“Freddy Krueger, the vengeful child killer burned alive by angry parents, returns to haunt the dreams of their children when this chilling 7-film saga becomes available as a 4K UHD collection for the first time. From his first terrifying appearance on Elm Street to his resurrection through nightmares, Freddy unleashes horror across generations – where sleep is no escape, and dreams become deadly,” a description of the product reads.
The A Nightmare on Elm Street 7-film collection is now available to purchase. Click here for more information.
Brandon Schreur: Rachel, you were a producer on some of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies before you directed Freddy’s Dead. Given that you’ve been so heavily involved in this franchise, I guess I want to start by asking what the Nightmare on Elm Street movies mean to you. What was it about these films that kept bringing you back, to the point where you were eventually directing one?
Rachel Talalay: I now say, even now with my directing, that everything I ever learned about filmmaking, I learned on A Nightmare on Elm Street. They were so unbelievably challenging because they were so inventive. It was the most creative environment you could possibly be put in, in the most challenging way. With not enough money. How could you turn down the sort of learning curve of going from being an accountant to producer to director on a franchise that was so fantastic and had such a fanbase immediately?
Totally. Building off that, given that you were involved with the franchise for so long before directing Freddy’s Dead, I’m curious what you think the most important aspect of Freddy Krueger to get right is. I mean, he’s obviously terrifying; Robert has haunted all of our nightmares for decades, now. But we also love Freddy because he’s funny, and he can be so creative with his kills. When you approached Freddy’s Dead and started working on this movie, what was going through your mind as far as what this horror icon needs the most?
I think that there was a drop-off in the box office. The box office jumped on [A Nightmare on Elm Street] 3, it was doing well on 4, and then dropped off on 5. I think a lot of the humor had gone out of the franchise on 5. Which is a beautiful, remarkable film, but it’s quite different. We were assigned to bring back more of the date movie, if you can call it that, aspect of it.
Balancing that, I think Michael De Luca wrote a very, very funny script as well. It was a very pop-culture-oriented script for the time. Which works, and then sometimes feels dated and doesn’t work, and then sometimes works really well.
In terms of Freddy, there was a lot of conversation with Robert in terms of direction and where he wanted to go. You have to trust the master. Robert Shay, the head of New Line, and Robert Englund, the two Roberts, were the masters of where to go with it.
Sure, totally. I will say, I love all the Nightmare sequels, but I really love yours because it does remind me of the first movie so much, where you do bring it back and balance everything at just the right level — not too funny, not too scary, but the perfect match of both. I think you nailed Freddy’s Dead.
Oh, thank you, thank you. I just wanted to point out that the chair in the background is the chair from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, where Nancy — you’re the first person I told this to — where Nancy falls into the boiler room.
I didn’t even realize, but that totally is. That’s awesome. I’m so jealous, that’s so cool. So, Rachel, you’ve obviously done a whole lot of work in your directing career since Freddy’s Dead. I love Tank Girl, and you’ve worked on some TV shows that I really love. Is there a single lesson, more so than all the others, that you learned from Freddy’s Dead that you brought with you to the rest of your career?
Never say you can’t do anything. No matter how little money there is, and no matter how many times they say no, there’s an incredibly creative way to solve the problem. So, never say no and always come up with — I mean, I built dissolving hands out of little bath bombs, party bath bombs. Never let being told how expensive it is going to be get in the way of actually doing what you want to do as creatively as you come up with.
Thanks to Rachel Talalay for taking the time to discuss A Nightmare on Elm Street 7-film collection.
Source: Comingsoon.net