A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the most celebrated slasher series in the horror genre and even though a lot of that has to do with Freddy Krueger, Heather Langenkamp’s performance as Nancy Thompson is also a crucial factor, which makes her absence from the 2010 remake all the more noticeable.
The horror genre is flooded with popular slasher franchises, many of which feature horror villains that resonate just as strongly as A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger. Remakes and reboots of classic horror films has become a practice that’s even more popular than turning out original material and so it’s only inevitable that 2010 marked the release of a remake for Wes Craven’s masterpiece, A Nightmare on Elm Street.
The success of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre remake demonstrated that this approach could work for modern horror audiences. However, Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street still holds up incredibly well, which led to many questioning the need for a remake in the first place. That’s not to say that an Elm Street remake would inherently fail, but this new take on the material removed and re-invented many of the elements that made the first movie work so well, like its reliance on practical effects, Robert Englund’s bravado performance as Freddy, and Heather Langenkamp’s role as iconic final girl, Nancy Thompson. Sometimes remakes can find ways to honor and pay respect to its source material, but in the case of 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, Langenkamp has gone so far as refusing to watch the horror movie.
The Nightmare on Elm Street remake is a fascinating failure that actually helped slow down the growing trend of horror remakes at the time. This is an unfortunate misfire because the remake does assemble a group of strong actors and the casting of Jackie Earle Haley as the new Krueger had a lot of potential, and was even approved by Englund himself. That being said, the team behind the remake not only failed to reach out to Wes Craven for guidance, but they weren’t able to get Heather Langenkamp’s stamp of approval either.
Langenkamp has never watched the Elm Street remake, but it’s not because of any hatred for the movie. Rather, she has too many fond memories associated with the original. This likely played into why she wasn't involved with the movie, too. Langenkamp’s time on the film with Craven and Englund was such a turning point in both her life and her career that the idea of watching these experiences remade by someone else could feel devastating. Likely, she doesn’t want to risk losing these strong associations with Nancy and Freddy. The Nightmare on Elm Street remake cast starred Rooney Mara as the new Nancy, but Langenkamp was asked to make a cameo as a waitress in the film’s opening scene. Langenkamp’s dismissal of this opportunity likely has to do with her wishes to not tarnish her original Elm Street memories. Playing somebody else in the film’s universe and dealing with the remake’s new Nancy might have shattered the illusion that Langenkamp has grown to cherish.
Heather Langenkamp’s brief return in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and her meta role in Wes Craven’s A New Nightmare shows that she’s not entirely against the idea, but it has to be done properly. Langenkamp’s appearance likely wouldn’t have been enough to change the fans’ icy reception of the film, and something so inconsequential might have even annoyed them. Nancy Thompson appearing as some kind of helpful dream apparition could be a deeper approach that might have worked, but this remake was interested in something simpler. That being said, Langenkamp has said that she’s not past the idea of playing Nancy again, so maybe it’s not the last time that she’ll face against Freddy in a Nightmare on Elm Street movie.