So since it’s the month of Halloween, one of my favorite holidays of the year, I’ve decided to dedicate all of October’s Flashback Fridays to celebrating some of my favorite scary things. And to kick this special month off, I’m going with my all-time favorite “snappy comeback” horror movie villain: Freddy K.

I love Freddy Krueger. The original A Nightmare on Elm Street remains one of my favorite scary movies and one of Wes Craven’s greatest contributions to the horror genre. I’d even argue that all the Elm Street movies are worth watching at least once, if only for the sheer enjoyment of watching Robert Englund camp it up as our favorite razor-clawed burned baddy. Okay, so you might want to skip Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. When the special guest appearances are Tom and Roseanne Arnold, you know you’re not witnessing great cinema.

Even at the worst moments of the series, Englund’s portrayal of Freddy kept me coming back. I remember the first time I watched the Elm Street series. I’d saved up a couple weeks’ allowance and rented all the current movies at the time, which were 1-5. I watched them all back to back to back…to back to back. Even as cheesy as they were, that’s a little too much Freddy Fright at one time. It was a jumpy evening for me. But it also got me hooked on Krueger.

I’ve seen all the original series of movies at least five times each, and I own movies 1, 3, and New Nightmare, which I still think was a pretty cool re-imagining of the Freddy Krueger mythology (geek tangent: I also own a replica of Freddy’s glove as well as the Todd McFarlane “Movie Maniacs” figure). I’ve yet to see Freddy vs. Jason though. There’s a bit of a hurdle there, but I’m not sure what it is exactly. Maybe it’s Jason Voorhees. I’ve never really been a big Friday the 13th fan, although I do dig the first one.

As for the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street remake? It’s already dead to me. Maybe Jackie Earle Haley will do a spectacular job as the new Freddy Krueger, but I don’t care. He’s not Robert Englund…and Robert Englund was the reason that I kept coming back, sequel after sequel after sequel. How else can you explain the endurance and popularity of a character who was burned to death by angry parents for being a child murderer? It was a good deal in part to Englund and his ability to chew scenery to a sloppy pulp and spit it at you with a campy bon mot and a laugh right before he gutted you like a fish.

So GenY can have Haley’s Freddy. I’m sure they’ll love him. Obviously, there truly is no accounting for taste 😉

As for me, I’m sticking with the original. Here’s a little run-down of all the killings Freddy did during his reign over Elm Street, along with some of his snappier accompanying commentary. There are some classics in this bunch, I tell ya. Remember Johnny Depp’s “fountain of blood” death from the first movie? Yumm-o! The one that always makes me cringe is the “puppet master” death from the third movie, while the “cockroach” death from the fourth movie always makes me laugh. All in all, not a bad run.