A female Freddy Krueger?
Before you get too carried away with the idea of that happening, know that it’s not something being actively talked about at this point in the news cycle for the upcoming remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street .
However, that’s clearly something that could change as news of a reboot was just brought up in the last few weeks, and the original Freddy (Robert Englund) has proven difficult to replace.
Just ask Jackie Earle Haley, who tried doing it in the 2010 remake. While that film had problems outside of Haley’s performance, he was never able to gain traction to the point where a new generation of filmgoers would clamor to see his reimagining of Krueger a second time.
Englund is, essentially, irreplaceable in the eyes of most horror fans, so the folks at Bloody-Disgusting decided to take a crack at a new idea: turn Freddy Krueger into a woman.
While the site’s Chris Coffel has a couple of inspired suggestions in his thoughts on a female Freddy — former film series star Patricia Arquette being his best and Rosamund Pike a close second — most of the list is an example in what is wrong with recasting Krueger as a woman.
For starters, his other suggestions have more of a “final girl” feel to them than one of antagonism. Secondly, they fall a little too far into the supermodel camp. Read the rest of Coffel’s suggestions for a female Freddy Krueger here .
Arquette was at one time too pretty to be Freddy. While she is still an attractive woman, age has given her face the character to stretch beyond her good looks and portray a tough and potentially menacing force — see Boardwalk Empire .
Pike is gorgeous, but she also has an eeriness to her that would allow her that same stretch necessary for taking on an iconic horror role.
If you were to recast Freddy as a female, it would only work if you stepped a little further outside the comfort zone of traditional good looks and went with someone less Hollywood.
To that end, Lin Shaye ( Insidious ) would be a casting suggestion with potential. Lorna Raver would probably be the best suggestion, though it could be ill-advised to stake a new franchise on the longevity of a 72-year-old woman. Perhaps the best bet would be Blanche Baker from the film version of Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door . She’s only 59-years-old, and if you’ve seen that movie, then you know just how horrible she’s capable of playing.
The Inquisitr recently took a stab at recasting Freddy in the traditional male mold — you can read more of that here.
[Image of Freddy Krueger via Blastr ]
