Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | October 23, 2025
Between 2007 and 2010, there was a trio of big horror movie remakes. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger all got dusted off (some more than others) by different creators and given new life. There was potential with all three. Rob Zombie taking over Halloween seemed like a fun match, but then he delivered an ugly, mean film with unnecessary backstory for Myers. Friday the 13th ended up being fun, if not a bit disposable.
The Nightmare on Elm Street remake started on an interesting note, with Jackie Earle Haley cast as Freddy Krueger. Of the three films, Nightmare was the only one where the person playing the villain really mattered (no offense to Tyler Mane or Derek Mears). Freddy Krueger is all about his personality, and Haley seemed like an intense choice who would be less fun than his predecessor’s later films (early Freddy ain’t that funny). Instead, he proved that this was a losing effort from the jump.
Haley’s Krueger was a bland, CGI mess. There was a brief attempt to add a different layer to the character, but that was quickly cast aside. We were left with an incompetent knockoff that seemed more interested in crafting dream landscapes that looked like sleek screensavers. It was a bummer, but it taught us a valuable lesson: no more Freddy Krueger.
I’m sorry, but it can’t and shouldn’t be done! There’s always a different fan-casting every few years, and those always misunderstand that Robert Englund and Freddy Krueger are indelibly linked. There is no replacing him. We tried with someone who is a very talented actor with decades of experience, and it failed. Much of that falls at the director’s feet, but Haley’s Krueger was so dull that he is not blameless.
It helps that he tried something different. There was zero attempt to recreate Englund’s performance. But that just exemplified how important he was to the role. Instead of trying to recreate a true original, it would be best to just create another character that invades kids’ dreams (like what’s seemingly going on in Black Phone 2). Freddy Krueger is never coming back, even if you get someone like Jim Carrey to play him.
Chuck Russell directed the 1987 film A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. He also helmed the Jim Carrey juggernaut The Mask. Russell appeared on the Development Hell podcast and explained how he thinks Carrey would make a great Freddy Krueger. What’s nice is that it sounds like he just kind of likes the man known as Ace Ventura and would like to work with him again.
“Jim, in my opinion, could almost do anything if he put his heart into it,” the director explained. “For Jim to do it, we’d have to do something that was another leap in the Elm Street series — a little bit like what Wes did with his very meta New Nightmare. I think Jim would only consider it, and I’d only consider harnessing Jim, if there was a bold new direction for Elm Street.”
I agree that Carrey would whip up something interesting were he given the part, but, again, that isn’t the issue. Going in a new direction isn’t even the issue. No one can replace Robert Englund. Jim Carrey playing Freddy Krueger under a new angle would just be a different film. So, just do that! I’m all for Carrey being a horror villain; he’s already kind of done that, so just make something new for him to do.
The snag is that the industry currently runs on draining IP of every available drop. An original horror movie with Jim Carrey might not get made, even if the script is fantastic and he’s willing to take a pay cut. Executives would rather have something they think is already proven, so they mitigate risk, even if that just leads to more failures.
Jim Carrey playing Freddy Krueger is an insane idea, but so is having anyone else play him. His time is done. We have to let him ride off into the boiler room.
