A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Perfect New Freddy Kruger

A Nightmare on Elm Street is an instant classic in the horror genre. Spawning one of the best villains of all time in Freddy Krueger, this fan-favorite hasn’t produced a fair reboot. 2010 was the last attempt and a CGI Freddy was not what people were looking for. Taking nothing away from Jackie Earle Haley’s performance, but the reboot abandoned the classic Kruger with wit and a snarky demeanor and tried to take back the franchise with more of a horror element based on technological advances.

Needless to say, it took the franchise in a direction most weren’t satisfied with and any plans of further installments were quickly scrapped. The hardest part of the reboot is finding a universally loved actor like Robert Englund. Who do you have in mind, you ask? None other than Ryan Reynolds.

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Maybe it was because I was watching Deadpool and he already had the burned face, or maybe it was the quick-witted one-liners that sparked this idea. I know horror isn’t in his repertoire, but like Deadpool, this could be the role he was born to play. Robert Englund put a twist on the character later in the series that gave the character a different life. Adding humor to a murderous villain lent an idea to it wasn’t just someone who came to you in a dream, that he was an actual person who taunted and toyed with his victims.

If Ryan Reynolds could flip the switch from witty charm to snarky condescension when used in an appropriate manner could fit into A Nightmare on Elm Street. Of course, the key to that would be cutting it down from one one-liner after another to some well-timed taunts, but it can be done. Reynolds is as good as an actor as he wants to be, but it’s his unique brand of humor that keeps him shoe-horned into similar roles that he’s perfected so well.

It would be up to the writing staff and the director to make sure the comedy doesn’t outweigh the horror, but strangely it could work. Ryan Reynolds isn’t many people’s first choice for a horror reboot, but with A Nightmare on Elm Street, it might be worth the gamble if done right.