Robert Englund says Freddy Krueger deserves his place amongst horror icons such as Dracula and The Wolfman.
The 76-year-old actor was the name behind the mask who was responsible for bringing to life the scarred supernatural killer in the ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street’ franchise, which started in 1984 with Wes Craven's horror classic.
Englund insists Freddy deserves to be treated with the same reverence in pop culture as other classic horror characters such as the two Universal monsters who have frightened audiences in countless movies.
Speaking to CBR, he said: “Along with the merchandising, and along with Freddy being a theatrical hit in movies, and then a video hit for a generation, and then a DVD hit for another generation, and then a cable hit, and now a Halloween holiday hit, and having existed as a film hit for 20 straight years -10 years boom, boom, boom. From '84 to '94, and then 'Freddy vs. Jason' in 2004, he sort of, by happy accident, captured two generations. Then, because of the merchandising and because of the discovery on the internet, and on streaming and on holidays, he's now on to his third generation of fans. He's sort of definitely one of those horror icons like Pinhead, like Jason [Voorhees], like the Wolfman, like Frankenstein, like Dracula. He's one of those.”
Englund believes that Freddy has endured as a pop culture icon because he was the face of the franchise and also has appeared in other media, even getting his own MTV special in 1991.
He said: “Part of it is that Freddy is the logo for the experience of receiving the storytelling of the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' stories. So he is the logo of that experience. He's the symbol of that experience, and he's a great, original, fresh symbol. Burned man in a kind of shadow, comic book Fedora dipped strategically beneath one eye.
"For illustrators - both graphic novel style, cartoon style, realistic style, fantasy style - he's a great subject. Over the years, 10s of 1000s of illustrators all over the world have put their own hand print on Freddy's look and changed him slightly and altered him slightly and exaggerated moments from their own imagination and their own memory of seeing him."
