“When people say, ‘Do I know anything you worked on?’ I can always say, ‘Freddy.’”
Rachel Talalay was with the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise from the beginning, working her way up from accountant on the first film to producing the third and fourth installments before making her directorial debut on Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.
“I had the background of having worked on the first five films, so I had that confidence that I wasn’t afraid of the effects or anything. I was afraid of being able to handle the actors. That was the scary part,” Talalay admits.
“Your pressure’s the same. I need to make as good a film as I possibly can within what they’ve asked for and within how much money they give me. It wasn’t specific to it being the last [Elm Street]. It was specific to, how do I make my first film great?”
Although Freddy’s Dead performed well at the box office — at the time, it had the franchise’s second biggest opening weekend after the original — the fan backlash it has received in the years since has taken its toll on Talalay.
“I do get a lot of hate. I’m still surprised when people come and say how much they actually love it and appreciate it for what it is. I think I am a little bit hurt by the accusations that I made the ‘girl version’ of the film and ruined horror films. That’s a classic internet hate thing that I should not worry about,” she admits.
“But I do think that the film stands up. I think that there should be more appreciation for the script that Michael De Luca wrote, for the topics that he took on within it, and less accusations of it just being too funny, which also was very well liked when it came out.”
Talalay continues, “I have the test screening scores, where they asked, ‘How do you rate all the films?’ And among those, it was always number two after the original, which I know is shocking. We worked for our time period, then we didn’t work for a long time period, and now we’ve come back in our own way.”
She adds, “I am both proud of the film, and I would make a completely different film with the same script if I was making it today, in terms of the filmmaker I am.
“And also I would make a scarier film now.”
The new restoration for the Elm Street 4K collection afforded Talalay the opportunity to bring Freddy’s Dead closer to her original vision.
“Re-color timing the film for 4K was both joyous, because you could make it look better, and absolutely frustrating, because all you wanted to do was go jump in and re-edit. But I was able to do some really fantastic work in terms of finally making things look the way I wish they had looked. And the 3D, it’s a complete redo in a way that’s phenomenal.”
She explains, “When you edit for red-blue 3D, you edit slower so the eye can catch up. So all these people who’ve only seen it in 2D get this muted color with slow editing. But when you see it now redone with digital post, it looks incredible. The 3D is so good! I cannot wait for people who’ve never seen that ending the way it was meant to see it.”
Even the 2D version has been improved. “We were able to fix the color on the 2D version. I was able to make the colors more realistic and do all kinds of things. I was just so happy to see it look amazing. To be able to see that 3D, you really have not seen that. If you want to justify your budget for any reason, it’s that 10 minutes being that different.”
Having been involved with Elm Street from the beginning, Talalay has a unique perspective on Freddy’s legacy.
“Who knew? How in a million years could this be something that Ronald Reagan referred to, that, you know, is in everyday parlance? How lucky am I that a lot of the early stuff I worked on still has longevity?” she ponders.
“That’s incredible, because there were a bazillion films made in that time period. And Nightmare was, in many ways, I think, the most creative of the ’80s horror. We weren’t stuck with a man in a hockey mask. We had dreams.”
Talalay adds, “Credit to Bob Shaye for really understanding how creative you could be with it. Credit to Robert Englund for creating a phenomenal character. But I still can’t believe that it has the longevity. I’m so proud of the films.”
A Nightmare on Elm Street: 7-Film Collection is now available on 4K UHD.
The post Rachel Talalay Explains How ‘Freddy’s Dead’ Is Finally Available the Way It Was Meant to Be Seen [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
