Jack Sholder On 40 Years of FREDDY'S REVENGE and the 4K NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 7-Film Collection
- creepykingdom
- Nov 11
- 4 min read
By Shannon McGrew
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is a staple within the horror genre, boasting over seven films within the franchise over ten years and creating one of the most iconic horror slashers to date, Freddy Krueger, personified by the acclaimed and unforgettable actor Robert Englund.
Over the years, the movie and the franchise as a whole have received special-edition releases to satisfy fans’ thirst for the man who visits them in their dreams. However, this year, all seven films in the iconic horror franchise were finally given the 4K UHD treatment for the first time, allowing fans the opportunity to see their favorite slasher clearer than ever before.
To celebrate the 4K release of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 7-Film Collection, Creepy Kingdom’s Shannon McGrew chatted with director Jack Sholder about the 4K release (and 40th Anniversary) of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: FREDDY’S REVENGE. During their chat, they discussed everything from revisiting Freddy’s second nightmare in 4K to the film’s evolving legacy and its lasting connection with fans 40 years later.
First and foremost, congratulations on 40 years of FREDDY’S REVENGE! When you first made it, did you ever imagine it would still be talked about 40 years later?
Jack Sholder: The thought never crossed my mind. I was just trying to get it made [Laughs]. I thought it was a good movie. There are movies made 40 years before I made FREDDY’S REVENGE that I still watch.
If you could revisit the film now, would you have changed anything, or do you like how its legacy has evolved on its own?
Jack Sholder: It is what it is. There’s nothing where I look at it and say, Oh man, you really missed the boat on that, you should have gone back and redone it. I think everything works well. There was a basic flaw in the script, and I didn’t have time to fix it because I was hired six weeks before shooting started. It really wasn’t until the editing that we realized.
If you think about a three-act structure, you have Freddy saying he’s going to do this and he’s going to do that, but he never does anything until the end of the second act. Bob Shea, the head of New Line and producer of the movie, said, It’s not scary because Freddy keeps saying stuff but never does anything until pretty late in the movie. Shea said he wanted us to move a scene up, and I explained it wouldn’t make sense if the coach got killed at the beginning of Act 2. I worked on it to tighten it up and add more music, but it was basically putting lipstick on a pig.
We had a screening, and I invited this kid I knew who went to see every horror film that came out. At the end, I said, "What did you think? Was it scary?” He said, naw, not really, and I thought, Uh oh, we've got a real problem here. I got on the subway and had four stops before I got to my house, and I figured out a way to move that scene up and put in a line of dialogue somewhere that would account for the problem and move a few things around. Then, at the next screening, people thought it was scary. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but I think that if we hadn't made that change, it might not have been as successful as it was. When I hear people say the movie is scary, it always makes me feel good because the big fear we had was that it wouldn’t be frightening enough.
What do you want first-time viewers to know about FREDDY’S REVENGE before diving into the box set?
Jack Sholder: Obviously, there’s more than one interpretation going around about the film, and I think that’s great. Good art can have more than one meaning. As long as the interpretation makes sense internally and you can make an argument about why that’s true, then I think that’s great. I’m happy that there’s a specific audience (referencing the LGBTQIA+ community) that really loves the film for more personal reasons.
The film used to be the ugly stepchild [in the franchise] because it didn’t follow the format. New Line just wanted to make another movie called Nightmare on Elm Street 2 to cash in on the first one, you know? They hoped that it might do well, but they didn’t really know. There wasn’t a template [to follow], so we were making our own film. If you look at it and say, "Why didn’t it follow all the rules of the other films?" then you’re going to have a problem with it. Still, if you look at it on its own, which is really how I looked at it, I thought I was going to make a better movie than the first one; that was my intention, whether I did or not, I don’t know.
The first Nightmare on Elm Street was a breakthrough. I’ve always thought of myself, for better or worse, as an auteur, so I wanted it to be my movie, you know? But, of course, it’s a copy of Wes’ movie. And the new 4K Dolby Atmos version…when you have a chance to see it, it’ll knock your socks off. It’s the movie that we wanted that you’ve never seen before and that you’re finally going to see exactly the way we wanted it to be.
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 7-Film Collection on 4K UHD is now available to own.
