Movies
Robert Englund Will Wear the Freddy Krueger Makeup One Final Time…
REMINDER! Robert Englund will officially say goodbye to Freddy Krueger at this July’s Flashback Weekend here in Chicago.
The official website announced that Englund, who will be appearing at the convention to sign autographs, will be donning his iconic Freddy makeup that made him famous.
The kicker is that there’s are photo packages with Englund while in character; this is seriously a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Robert Englund’s “Freddy Krueger” makeup will be designed and applied by FX master artist Robert Kurtzman in the same extensive process used in the A Nightmare On Elm Street films.
This one time only event is happening August 8, 2014. Get your tickets here! He will also be signing autographs (without makeup) Saturday and Sunday.
Flashback Weekend is a horror convention with a deeper initiative. Our philanthropic efforts are dedicated to the preservation of the American Drive-In. Flashback Weekend owns and operates the Midway Drive-In located in Dixon, IL to support the film industry and to present classic 35mm horror film festivals. For this reason, all net proceeds from Flashback Weekend and the Robert ENglund Freddy Krueger make-up photo-ops go to the preservation and operation of the Midway Drive-In, located in Dixon, IL.
The Flashback Weekend 2014 line-up features horror legends including Robert Englund, “PHANTASM” 35th anniversary reunion featuring, director Don Coscarelli, Angus Scrimm (THE TALL MAN), and a full “PHANTASM” cast reunion, Lance Henriksen (“ALIENS”, “NEAR DARK”), Jen and Sylvia Soska, Katharine Isabelle, Traci Lords, Zach Galligan, Amanda Wyss, Ronee Blakley, Jennifer Rubin, a “HELLRAISER” reunion (Ashley Laurence, Barbie Wilde, and Nicholas Vance), Charles Band, Chicago Horror Host legend Svengoolie, and more!
Flashback Weekend also features a huge horror vendor room, evening entertainment including “PHANTASM” stars In Concert and Charles Band’s Full Moon Horror Roadshow, Costume Contest hosted by Svengoolie, Sinister Visions Zombie Pin-Up pageant, and more!
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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