Interviews
[Interview] Mike Flanagan is Dying to Pitch His “Killer Idea” for ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’
Our podcast “The Boo Crew” is back with a new episode, this time with Doctor Sleep director Mike Flanagan and writer/actress Kate Siegel (“The Haunting of Hill House”)!
While the episode is Doctor Sleep-centric, the crew was able to ask Flanagan about two major horror franchises that his name has been connected to, with the first being A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Last week, Bloody Disgusting exclusively told you that Wes Craven’s estate has opened the door to pitches that would resurrect A Nightmare on Elm Street and Freddy Krueger. Flanagan, who often chats with fans on Twitter (he uses IG to post photos of pizza, so give that a follow immediately), quickly raised his hand: “Put me in, coach… I’ve got a pitch!”
“The Boo Crew” asked Flanagan about the tweet, and while he (obviously) couldn’t elaborate, he did tease, “I got a killer idea.”
“Oh, it’s so good,” Siegel adds.
“[I’m] dying to get in there to pitch it,” Flanagan continues. “If I got to do this it would be so cool.”
Yeah, I know, not a lot of meat on the bone there, but fans of Flanagan (that’s me!) are beyond excited about the potential of the filmmaker heading down to Elm Street.
On a somewhat related note, Flanagan was once approached to direct Halloween, which would eventually be helmed by David Gordon Green. If you recall, Bloody Disgusting broke the news, but discussions never got beyond a single phone call that was more-or-less an open invitation.
“Jason Blum called me once and asked me that,” Flanagan reveals. “I tried to come up with a take for a minute when Blumhouse got Halloween.”
When asked what his Halloween would look like, Flanagan would explain.
“The answer to that is, I would do Hush. In a lot of ways, Hush is my Halloween.”
“I found my notes for that very brief period of time when I was trying to come up with a take on Halloween because Jason had said, ‘Hey, if you want to do this we can probably figure something out.’ I’m glad that I didn’t and so glad it did not come to me because the only note that I had scribbled over three days of brainstorming was ‘Dr. Loomis a woman?’ That’s as far as I got on Halloween.”
“They made the right call in not trusting the franchise to me,” he jokes. “In a lot of ways, Hush was my riff on the beautiful, simplicity, silence, tension, suspense that Halloween is. All of my love for Carpenter’s film is poured into that.”
“If Hush didn’t exist, and I was doing Halloween, it would look a lot like Hush.”
You can (and absolutely should) watch Hush on Netflix. As for A Nightmare on Elm Street, let’s all sit back and see how everything unfolds over the next few months.
You can listen to episode #85 of The Boo Crew below!
Only one episode remains in Season 3 of “Chucky,” and what a bloody road it’s been so far, especially for actor Devon Sawa. The actor has now officially died twice on screen this season, pulling double duty as President James Collins and body double Randall Jenkins.
If you thought Chucky’s ruthless eye-gouging of the President was bloody, this week’s Episode 7 traps Randall Jenkins in an elevator that feels straight out of an iconic horror classic.
Bloody Disgusting spoke with series creator Don Mancini and actor Devon Sawa about that ultra-bloody death sequence and how the actor inspires Mancini’s writing on the series.
Mancini explains, “Devon’s a bit of a muse. Idle Hands and Final Destination is where my Devon Sawa fandom started, like a lot of people; although yours may have started with Casper. I was a bit too old for that. But it’s really just about how I love writing for actors that I respect and then know. So, it’s like having worked with Devon for three years now, I’m just always thinking, ‘Oh, what would be a fun thing to throw his way that would be unexpected and different that he hasn’t done?’ That’s really what motivates me.”
For Sawa, “Chucky“ is an actor’s dream in that the series gives him not one but multiple roles to sink his teeth into, often within the same season. But the actor is also a huge horror fan, and Season 3: Part 2 gives him the opportunity to pay homage to a classic: Kubrick’s The Shining.
CHUCKY — “There Will Be Blood” Episode 307 — Pictured in this screengrab: (l-r) Devon Sawa as President James Collins, K.C. Collins as Coop — (Photo by: SYFY)
“Collectively, it’s just amazing to put on the different outfits, to do the hair differently, to get different types of dialogue,“ Sawa says of working on the series. “The elevator scene, it’s like being a kid again. I was up to my eyeballs in blood, and it felt very Kubrick. Everybody there was having such a good time, and we were all doing this cool horror stuff, and it felt amazing. It really was a good day.”
Sawa elaborates on being submerged in so much blood, “It was uncomfortable, cold, and sticky, and it got in my ears and my nose. But it was well worth it. I didn’t complain once. I was like, ‘This is why I do what I do, to do scenes like this,‘ the scenes that I grew up watching on VHS cassette, and now we’re doing it in HD, and it’s all so cool.“
It’s always the characters and the actors behind them that matter most to Mancini, even when he delights in coming up with inventive kills and incorporating horror references. And he’s killed Devon Sawa’s characters often. Could future seasons top the record of on-screen Sawa deaths?
“Well, I guess we did it twice in season one and once in season two,“ Mancini counts. “So yeah, I guess I would have to up the ante next season. I’ll really be juggling a lot of falls. But I think it’s hopefully as much about quality as quantity. I want to give him a good role that he’s going to enjoy sinking his teeth into as an actor. It’s not just about the deaths.”
Sawa adds, “Don’s never really talked about how many times could we kill you. He’s always talking about, ‘How can I make this death better,’ and that’s what I think excites him is how he can top each death. The electricity, to me blowing up to, obviously in this season, the eyes and with the elevator, which was my favorite one to shoot. So if it goes on, we’ll see if he could top the deaths.”
CHUCKY — “Death Becomes Her” Episode 305 — Pictured in this screengrab: Devon Sawa as James Collins — (Photo by: SYFY)
The actor has played a handful of distinctly different characters since the series launch, each one meeting a grisly end thanks to Chucky. And Season 3 gave Sawa his favorite characters yet.
“I would say the second one was a lot of fun to shoot,“ the actor says of Randall Jenkins. “The President was great. I liked playing the President. He was the most grounded, I hope, of all the characters. I did like playing him a lot.” Mancini adds, “He’s grounded, but he’s also really traumatized, and I thought you did that really well, too.”
The series creator also reveals a surprise correlation between President James Collins’ character arc and a ’90s horror favorite.
“I saw Devon’s role as the president in Season 3; he’s very Kennedy-esque,“ Mancini explains. “But then given the supernatural plot turns that happen, to me, the analogy is Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, the character that is seeing these weird little things happening around the house that is starting to screw with his sanity and he starts to insist, ‘I’m seeing a ghost,‘ and his spouse thinks he’s nuts. So I always like that. That’s Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, which is a movie I love.”
The finale of “Chucky” Season 3: Part 2 airs Wednesday, May 1 on USA & SYFY.
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