The horror icon talks to Ian Sandwell about his latest film The Last Showing, which premiered at Film4 FrightFest, and the current state of the genre.
Rather poignantly, Robert Englund told Screen on Sunday [Aug 24] afternoon of a specific influence on his role in Phil Hawkins’ thriller The Last Showing.
“The script reads terrific and from the moment I read it, I didn’t have me in the back of my mind, I saw Richard Attenborough from Seance on a Wet Afternoon,” noted Englund, before news broke of the veteran actor’s death.
“When Stuart [Englund’s character] is humiliated, something in him breaks and because his plotting pushes Finn Jones’ character so far, it gets out of control. That banality of evil is so reminiscent of Attenborough’s performance.”
The Last Showing, which received its world premiere on Friday [Aug 22] at Film4 FrightFest, sees Englund play a projectionist who decides to stage his own horror film on an unsuspecting couple.
It was a role specifically written for Englund by Hawkins. “The only other part that has ever been written for me was in 2001 Maniacs. I was really honoured and that liberated me.”
Shot on location (“working in that fucking theatre in a suburb of Manchester, it began to enter us; the smell, the popcorn, the urine in the bathroom”), the film leaves itself open for a sequel, which Hawkins is currently writing. Englund is interested in reprising his role and is enthusiastic about Hawkins and the film’s DP, Ed Moore.
“They literally finish each other’s thoughts, and you can tell that they’re improving with every take,” notes Englund. “You surrender to that and it becomes a bit of a dance. Two or three days into the shoot, you know where you are in their frame, they’re painting you in.”
Working with new talent
It’s been thirty years since Englund became a horror icon as Freddy Krueger with A Nightmare on Elm Street, forging a career that has seen the actor work with new talent like Hawkins and established names like Tobe Hooper. So is there a difference on set?
“I got drunk with the great Lance Henriksen at a show in Germany a couple of years ago. We’re on our second bottle of really good Riesling, we’re reminiscing and he says to me, ‘you know what I love about working with these young kids today is that they ask me for advice, they listen to me’.
“I realised that’s what I love about those films too. When I do an A film or television series, it feels very rigid now after working so long in low budget genre work.”
As with The Last Showing, Englund is really proud of Scott Glosserman’s serial killer mockumentary Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, a film which Englund is also keen to make a sequel for. “The sequel script is phenomenal. The conceit is that it’s a HBO making-of movie that’s being made on the life of Leslie Vernon.
“Our characters have all been invited back as technical advisors, and we sit around talking to the doppelganger actors that are playing us. It’s three levels of reference and of deconstructed meta-horror, and I really hope they raise the money because Scott Glosserman is a genius.”
Current horror scene
As well as being passionate about the projects he’s been involved in, Englund is also verbose about the current horror scene, one that’s markedly different to when Freddy Krueger first entered unfortunate teens’ nightmares.
“I don’t like the facile typecasting of categories. I think torture porn is a lot like a punk rock reaction to some bloated studio horror. Yes, I think maybe there was perhaps one or two sequels too many to the Saw film, but I love the first one and I was so happy for Tobin Bell to finally hit his home run.
“It’s true of some of the other categories, but I think these tangents are really necessary as you never know what you’re going to discover going down these roads. You can mock the found footage Blair Witch rip-offs, but there’s still some great stuff coming out of that form.
“My wife’s an art director and a great gal, and she can really be manipulated by them. It’s fun to drag her to one.”
The Last Showing is out now on Blu-ray, DVD and digital HD through Sony. To mark FrightFest and A Nightmare on Elm Street’s 30th anniversary, Zavvi are offering a extra 10% off Warner Home Video’s horror range here.
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