Despite the Nightmare On Elm Street sequels being frequently criticized for their over-reliance on Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger, 1985’s Freddy’s Revenge only features the actor onscreen for a mere 13 minutes. Throughout its history, the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise has had a love/hate relationship with its iconic villain Freddy Krueger. As played by original actor Robert Englund, Freddy is one of the most iconic horror movie villains of the twentieth century and an enduringly popular figure among fans of the genre.
Despite this, though, Nightmare On Elm Street’s sequels were critical disasters (for the most part), with many reviewers claiming that an over-reliance on the memorable villain sank the franchise’s promising prospects. Paradoxically, fans wanted to see more of Freddy Krueger with each new movie, only for every Nightmare On Elm Street installment that centered Freddy to fare worse than the last. As a result, it is no surprise that the first sequel in the series barely used Freddy at all.
What may come as a surprise is the reason why Freddy barely appears onscreen in 1985’s Freddy’s Revenge. Rather than the decision being rooted in a desire to maintain the character’s mystique, the sequel simply didn’t want to pay for the original movie’s star to return. While later Nightmare On Elm Street movies mined Freddy’s backstory to give Englund more screen time, in contrast, Freddy’s Revenge attempted to replace the actor with a stunt double to save on costs and maximize profits for producers. However, when this failed, Freddy’s Revenge ended up featuring Freddy onscreen for a total of 13 minutes of the movie, his briefest appearance in the franchise’s sequels.
However, even this short appearance was double the length of Englund’s role in 1984’s Nightmare On Elm Street, where original director Wes Craven kept him offscreen for all but seven minutes. Granted, the original slasher movie’s motivation for this came less from a fear of Englund racking up a sizable bill and more from an artistic standpoint. Much like Craven’s successful Scream series reignited interest in the slasher sub-genre by adding a whodunit element and meta-humor to the mix, the director’s original Nightmare On Elm Street ensured that its central villain never seemed too silly by keeping Englund obscured for most of the more’s runtime.
With Krueger barely glimpsed for most of Nightmare On Elm Street’s action, his eventual reveal was all the more unsettling for audiences. Not only that, but keeping the villain offscreen for most of the movie meant that Nightmare On Elm Street was able to downplay the silliness inherent in its premise. While the idea of a killer who attacks in dreams could have been as corny as Nightmare On Elm Street’s many ripoffs, hiding Englund from the viewer meant that the movie’s limited effects budget was well masked for most of the runtime. In contrast, Freddy’s Revenge became one of the least-liked Nightmare On Elm Street movies when the sequel failed to build suspense while Freddy was offscreen, resulting in an unintentionally funny, bizarre mess of a follow-up movie.
