Cast This: Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

With Halloween just around the corner, it seems like a perfect opportunity to toss around some casting ideas for a horror movie favorite.

Sooner or later we'll be getting new versions of durable killers Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers in reboots of FRIDAY THE 13TH and HALLOWEEN, but those malicious figures require much more of an imposing presence than personality. An update of Universal's WOLF MAN has been in the works, but the performance of Tom Cruise's THE MUMMY may have put the hairy howler on the shelf for a while longer.

But there's also the guy who is (arguably) the most charismatic horror movie murderer of them all, and he's coming back: the wisecracking razor-fingered slasher Freddy Krueger.

Frederick Charles Krueger (or "Freddy" to his victims) was first introduced in filmmaker Wes Craven's creepy 1984 classic A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET as a crispy-skinned, fedora-topped serial killer who stalked his prey in their dreams, resulting in their vividly gruesome deaths in reality.

Played with zealous malevolence by Robert Englund, the disfigured Freddy carved his way through eight feature films (and hosted the TV anthology "Freddy's Nightmares") over nearly two decades, cutting up various teenagers and other casualties before emerging into the "real" world in 1994's meta Hollywood NEW NIGHTMARE and ultimately facing the infamous hockey-masked butcher in 2003's FREDDY VS. JASON.

The scorched "bastard son of a hundred maniacs" was resuscitated in a 2010 remake of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, with Jackie Earle Haley slipping on the red-and-green striped sweater as the burned murderer. The reboot jettisoned the witty quips of Englund's portrayal to engage in more straightforward slaughter and terror, but it wasn't exactly embraced by critics or horror fans.

Although profitable, that humorless version (produced by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company) didn't prompt a direct sequel. Instead, it looks like we'll get yet another unrelated revamp of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET with a new story from screenwriter David Leslie Johnson (ORPHAN and upcoming THE CONJURING 3).

Warner Bros. and New Line scored enormously this year when they replaced the face of Tim Curry as demonic clown Pennywise in a new adaptation of Stephen King's IT, and while a new NIGHTMARE doesn't appear to be a high priority for them at the moment, Freddy will undoubtedly cause more sleepless nights and sanguine geysers on the big screen again in the not-too-distant future.

So who should swing the bladed glove as the iconic mangler with the penchant for post-carnage zingers?

Many fans would surely love to see Robert Englund return to the role he personified, but the 70-year-old actor may not be spry enough to rejuvenate the franchise for another tenure. Kevin Bacon (who Englund himself has recommended as a replacement) has plenty of genre experience and could easily twist between sinister and droll.

For some other suggestions, Walton Goggins would also be perfect for a menacing mass murderer who can drop bodies and wry one-liners with equal ease. His "Justified" rival Timothy Olyphant knows his way around horror and also exudes a wicked charm for such an alternately amusing and frightening role.

Let us know below who you think would kill it as a new Freddy Krueger!

As for the previous Cast This column, many were reluctant to see anyone other than Hugh Jackman in the role of Wolverine, while others preferred to see X-23 from LOGAN take over the mantle someday. But there were some interesting suggestions for actors to take over as the famous adamantium-clawed mutant:

1. Kit Harington  2. Wes Bentley  3. Zach McGowan ("Black Sails")