‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ Stars Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund Look Back on 40 Years of the Horror Classic: ‘We Had No Idea’

This year, Wes Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” Wes Craven’s immortal horror classic, turns 40.

The film, inspired by true events (watch the documentary “The Nightmare” for more), follows a group of kids who die after encountering a spooky boogeyman named Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). Freddy is the classic god of mischief – a shapeshifting serial killer with the power to scare teenagers to death. Heather Langenkamp plays Nancy Thompson, one of the terrorized teens who discovers her own familial connection to Krueger.

“A Nightmare on Elm Street” would spawn an enviable franchise, including sequels (Langenkamp would return for “Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors” and “New Nightmare”), a television series, a 1-900 number where you could chat with Freddy (seriously), oodles of merchandise, a spin-off (2003’s “Freddy vs. Jason”) and a remake (among other things). Most recently, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” got re-released in a new, 4K UHD disc from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. And it is a doozy – the movie hasn’t looked or sounded this good in decades.

TheWrap got to speak to Langenkamp and Englund about the movie’s lasting legacy and working with the extremely talented Craven, who died in 2015.

Sometimes people say, “Oh we totally knew we were making something special.” But did you have any inkling when you were on set that you were creating something that we’d still be talking about all of these years later?

Robert Englund: No. I’d love to pretend [that we did]. I was selfish. I was thinking about my TV show mostly, but I knew that we were doing something good and I wanted people to see it. But to lie to you and tell you that I knew we’d be here 40 years later? No. We had no idea.

Heather Langenkamp: I can’t even really think of another movie at the time that I could have compared it to for the kind of success that we’ve had. There were not many franchises, so I don’t think I even had the imagination to think about it at the time.

What was it like working with Wes? People always talk about how he had this professorial mind and was very philosophical.

Langenkamp: There was another side of him too that was a real goof joker. He loved to lighten the mood on the set anytime he could.

Englund: People with high IQs like to do puns and Wes had a very high IQ. But that doesn’t mean the puns were any good. But they did relieve the tension on the set.

And where did the tension on the set come from?

Englund: In a horror movie, there’s so many elements. I mean, I’m walking from here to you, and I’ve got five cables running, out of my rectum, down my leg and out the bottom of my jeans, and four guys dressed like puppeteers that follow me, so that I can rip open my jacket and show you my chest of souls. It gets real silly and it gets real tense, and you do it over and over and over again, and it’s there on a low budget. You got it right, but you don’t have the light in your eye. And now you did it, and the camera was wrong, and now the dolly grip hit a bump and so you got to keep it light.

Langenkamp: Every day was so scheduled. They had so many pages every day that we had to get through. You had to know your lines. There was no stumbling, you had to get it on the second take or third take max…

Englund: … Because they might have to restore the effect for an hour, so you can’t make the mistake.

Langenkamp: That’s just generally on horror movies, actors have to be way more on top of their game, I find, than any other kind of genre, because if you mess up, then the whole effect could go wrong, and then you’re causing three hours delay. You never want it to be your fault.

Englund: You’re opening a can of beer; you’re lighting a cigarette. Those are two elements, right there. You’re talking, you’re exhaling. And on top of all that, you have to set up over here, but you’re going to cut your hand off in a moment. That’ll wiggle across the bottom of the counter. So you’re anticipating that. There is a tension, and it is ridiculous and silly. Sometimes, when you have a guy with it’s got his hand up your pant leg and, and you’re and you’re trying to now act and ou have to be able to crack that joke.

Langenkamp: Wes was a master of relieving that tension, getting us all laughing, and then saying action, and then we’re all just ready to go and much more relaxed and just having a much better time of it.

Englund: he had a very good delivery to he was very droll, which was fun. And just an exceptional man. I remember going to his house once – the old Steve McQueen bachelor pad at the top of Nichols Canyon –and I was looked at all this cool stuff. The next time I went, all the things he was listening to, the vintage albums, the coffee table, they were all different. He was always learning something – there was cool a book of Indonesian tattoos, on top of a book of classic Jaguars. And he would have some great cool jazz playing by Chet Baker, because he just found out about Chet Baker, you know, he was just a renaissance guy. A bit of a Johnny-Come-Lately too, because he had grown up so conservative.

Heather, you were in and out of the franchise, Robert you were a mainstay. But looking back, over the years, what did these films mean to you?

Langenkamp: Well, for me, I played a part that was rare in film history. Still is. I got to play a teenage girl, then I got to play a young woman at the beginning of a career. Then I got to play a mother of a young child. I got to have this incredible arc as a character. I treasured it, not only as a part, but I think what she gave to the fans was this incredible role model, a final girl, Wes created this amazing persona that I did my best to achieve. But in talking to the fans for these 40 years, literally 40 years, I see how important she has become, and it’s really gratifying. I’m so lucky that I got to play Nancy Thompson.

Englund: You know, the through line too is, is there something kind of no nonsense and very real about Nancy through all of these images of lambs and women in body bags and caterpillars crawling into your mouth and girls getting wiped on the ceiling and flames and people being thrown through windows and mirrors. In the middle of that, I don’t want to say calm, because there’s a discrete energy always in Heather’s work. But it was always real easy to bounce off of Heather, and Heather’s reactions to all of this, you know, incredible, nightmarish, surrealistic stuff that’s going on around her.

“A Nightmare on Elm Street” on 4K UHD is out right now and is perfect for your Halloween night movie marathon.