Nightmare on Elm Street remake writer discusses what went wrong

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Yesterday the folks over at Bloody-Disgusting took to their Twitter account to ask followers which horror movie that has already been remade they would like "re-remake" if given the chance. Included with the question was an image from the 2010 version of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, suggesting that the ELM STREET franchise could use a different remake than that one.

The tweet caught the attention of Eric Heisserer, who is credited as screenwriter on the ELM STREET remake alongside Wesley Strick – although he and Strick never actually worked together. Heisserer proceeded to reminisce about the making of the remake, giving some insight into what went wrong.

Oh man. What a lesson for me in first movies made. … I wish the script I'd written, with the two NL execs as shepherds, would have been the movie. …the draft that we thought was going to be shot was different in many ways, some big and some subtle. This happens a lot, but I still have memories of arriving to set and recognizing nothing from the script on the shooting schedule.

On my first day on set, a crew member told me, "In this intro scene for the two leads, we decided there wasn't enough dialogue for them at this party so we took some dialogue from page 87 and put it here." In case you were wondering, this is NOT how it works. And that was one of so many things I saw undone.

One of the New Line guys and I worked hard to sidestep tropes in the script. An example: Freddy appearing while two characters are driving in a car. "The trope we've seen a thousand times is: Freddy is standing in the middle of the road, and they have to swerve. Let's be smarter." And we were. He can appear anywhere, and we have the advantage that you don't know which of the two is dreaming — driver, or passenger. So we had Freddy rise up in the back seat, taunt Quentin (driving) as he gores Nancy through the chair, blood spraying the windshield, Nancy screaming at Quentin WAKE UP and he snaps to realize he'd drifted off while driving and the two crash the car into a tree. Now they both have concussions, to complicate matters when they realize the way to kill him is to fall asleep and then wake up once they have hold of Freddy. 

What do I see on set that night? Freddy standing in the middle of the road.

There are a thousand reasons why things like this happen, but with the right team in place, you have collaborators who plus up the project versus make it a different thing than what it was originally designed to be.

And with so many scenes that pay homage to Wes Craven, and a story that stayed closed to the original, you'd think it would be considered a remake by everyone involved. But nope. For credit purposes, another writer got it classified as a sequel. Which infuriates me even now. Why? Because it meant Wes Craven was not given story credit. For characters and a world he invented. For a plot twist akin to PSYCHO that was his idea — you don't realize Nancy is the heroine for the first act. I petitioned to have him included and lost.

All of this a really long-winded way of saying: Yes, this should be remade. I'm not advocating my script from back then, but just have it made by people who have a love and expertise of not just NOES but horror. There are some amazing voices today for it.

When asked why his draft wasn't used, Heisserer replied that "The director had other ideas." That was music video director Samuel Bayer, who made his feature directorial debut with ELM STREET after supposedly turning the project down twice.

Kyle Gallner, who played the Quentin character in the remake, commented that 

The script I was sent originally was a lot different and much darker than the script I was given when I got to Chicago to actually shoot. It was the movie i thought we were going to make. I’m assuming that was (Heisserer's) version. I really liked that version. … I was pretty surprised when I sat down in my hotel room the night I got there and read the new draft hahaha. That was quite an interesting shoot that one… I wish there was a world where (Heisserer's) version also existed. It would have been cool to see that one up on screen.

Heisserer says Gallner and the remake's heroine Rooney Mara had a "bait and switch" pulled on them, thinking they were making one version of the movie and then finding out that the script had changed when they reached location.

There's a rumor that the shooting script was "Frankensteined" together from multiple different drafts by various writers. Heisserer confirmed that there was one draft in which Freddy was actually innocent of the crimes he was accused of (and burned for).

There was an iteration of the movie at one point where he remained innocent and vengeful, but then it flipped back.

The ELM STREET experience wasn't great for Heisserer, but he has been doing fine since then. His credits since 2010 include FINAL DESTINATION 5, THE THING, LIGHTS OUT, BIRD BOX, and ARRIVAL, for which he earned an Oscar nomination.