Editorials
#RobertEnglundDay: Six Memorable Robert Englund Cameos in Horror
Robert Englund’s most famous role as Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise only scratches the surface of his prolific career. With over 150 credits in film and television and counting, the actor remains a heavyweight in the horror space. That includes cameo appearances, where Englund’s history and experience bring welcome depth to each part, no matter how fleeting.
Some Robert Englund cameos offer a wry wink to horror fans, while others intentionally play on audience expectations based on his more prominent roles.
For #RobertEnglundDay, here are six of the best Robert Englund cameos in horror.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
Writer/Director Wes Craven warmed up his meta-horror muscles with this 1994 franchise entry. Englund plays Freddy Krueger, who crosses over from his fictional film franchise into the real world to torment the cast and crew behind his films. While Englund plays a prominent role as Freddy Krueger, he also briefly cameos as himself. After so many years under a heavy coating of prosthetics and makeup, it’s refreshing to see the man behind the mask.
Urban Legend
Englund channels Freddy Krueger’s impatience and disdain for teenagers as Professor Wexler in this slasher. The professor doles out lessons in American folklore with an irritable dryness, exacerbated by class clowns like Damon Brooks (Joshua Jackson). Englund’s performance and preceding reputation in horror marks Professor Wexler as the perfect red herring; Wexler’s past as the sole survivor of the college campus’s previous massacre ensures he’s a prime suspect.
Wishmaster
Englund plays wealthy art collector Raymond Beaumont, the one ultimately responsible for importing the antique statue that’s imprisoning an evil Djinn. And it’s Beaumont that sets the stage for the climax when his wish for one killer party becomes just that: a bloodbath. Wishmaster packs in the horror cameos, including Kane Hodder, Tony Todd, Tom Savini, Angus Scrimm, Joseph Pilato, Ted Raimi, and Reggie Bannister. Robert Englund’s role technically may be slightly larger than a cameo, but it’s small (and mighty) enough to count.
Hatchet
Adam Green starts his slasher franchise with a memorable opening kill by slasher villain Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder). A father and son are hunting alligators in a Louisiana swamp, only to run afoul of the hulking killer. Green’s clever casting of Englund as dad Sampson means that this opening kill delivered a deceptive Freddy vs. Jason rematch. Hodder may have won this round, but the franchise’s final girl is Sampson’s daughter, ensuring the playing field remains even. Well played, Mr. Green.
The Goldbergs
Englund’s final appearance as Freddy Krueger delivers a hefty dose of warm, cozy nostalgia. Series creator Adam F. Goldberg spent months convincing Robert Englund to come out of retirement to reprise his most iconic role for the Halloween episode of “The Goldbergs” in 2018. The episode “Mr. Knifey-Hands” sees Englund don the makeup one last time to terrorize mom Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey) in her dreams.
Stranger Things
Season four of Netflix’s blockbuster series enlisted Englund as Hawkins’ resident Boogeyman; Victor Creel was charged with the murders of his family and locked up under high security at Pennhurst Asylum. There, he attempted to take his life and his eyes so that he could join them. Englund plays this cameo with a knowing menace, only to subvert audience expectations with a more tragic backstory.
What is your favorite Robert Englund cameo? Let us know below!
And celebrate the horror stalwart with SCREAMBOX Original documentary Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, streaming now.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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