Movies
B-D Casting Call: ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ Remake
Bloody-Disgusting already broke the news that Brad Fuller and Andrew Form’s Platinum Dunes are set to follow their Friday the 13th remake with a relaunch of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Although they are still in the early stages of scripting, we thought it was the perfect time to offer up our picks for the cast of the ELM STREET remake. Feel free to post some of your suggestions below!
Casting the Nightmare on Elm Street Remake
The picks below are wishful thinking of course We all know chances are strong that most of the teen roles will go to the usual run-of-the-mill offshoots from The O.C., Gossip Girl and the like, but if we were making the choices, well then, you’d surely have a better movie. But I digress. If nothing else, let’s hope some deep thought goes into the crucial roles of Freddy and Nancy. Botching those could mean this one winds up more like the crappy Amityville Horror remake than the respectable Texas Chainsaw reworking. Knifed-fingers crossed!
Jackie Earle Hayley – Yes, it’s true, Hayley played a child molestor in his career-resurging role as Ronnie J. McGorvey in Little Children, but that’s not the only reason he’s the perfect man to reinvigorate the legendary dream killer. Hayley’s career is on the upswing and, let’s be realistic here, he is pretty creepy looking! The footage we’ve seen of him so far in Watchman as Rorschach looks pretty bad-ass and he just finished shooting a role as a mental patient for Martin Scorsese in Shutter Island. Good enough for Marty, good enough for Freddy Krueger. Hayley is the perfect choice to create a darker, more maniacal, scarier Freddy like the character that was first envisioned by Craven in the early `80s.
Alternate – Adrien Brody
Amanda Seyfried – Considering the current crop of young starlets coming down the Hollywood pipeline, it would be a big challenge to find an actress with the wholesome innocence of Langenkamp. Amanda Seyfried (from Mamma Mia! and HBO’s Big Love) certainly has the right look and those big innocent eyes that might just pull it off. Hopefully producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form will keep the original’s spirit in mind in this respect rather than opting for the standard choice of another model-turned-actress that “impressed” a producer.
Alternate – Dakota Fanning
Marcia Cross – Cross has already done the stumbling drunk thing a bit as the tightly wound Bree Hodge on Desperate Housewives. Plus she’d be able to channel her Melrose past by hamming it up in homage to Ronee Blakely. And while we certainly all have a nostalgic affection for Blakely’s overdone performance from the first Elm Street, it would be nice to see Cross balance things a bit and tone down the hamminess just a tad.
Alternate – Drew Barrymoore
Josh Brolin – Sure, this one is probably a longshot after Brolin went legit in Coen Bros. and Oliver Stone flicks, but wouldn’t it be great? Going through the current list of middle-aged Hollywood actors, it’s hard to find many with the right level of grizzled toughness Saxon possessed. Most of the guys out there today are too pretty to picture as tough guy cop fathers with a drinking problem. Maybe they can just de-age Saxon like X-Men 3 and use him again?
Alternate: Bill Moseley
Jamie Bell – Taking on the tough guy wrongly accused of Tina’s murder could be another step towards shedding his Billy Elliot past after impressive turns last year in Jumper and Defiance. The audition is simple: greased hair, black leather jacket and reading the line “Hey, up yours with a twirling lawnmower” without so much as a smirk.
Alternate: Lucas Black
Unknown Future Hollywood A-lister – Considering that then unknown Johnny Depp went on to become one of the most accomplished and beloved actors in Hollywood, the pressure is certainly on for the actor that winds up stepping into these shoes. Logan Lerman was great in 3:10 to Yuma and managed to save face in the hokey Number 23. Living up Depp’s career might be a stretch, but at least he’d do the role proud.
Alternate: Young Johnny Depp lookalike contest winner
Lindsay Lohan – Come on, am I the only one that wants to see this busty party girl thrashed around in a pool of blood on an upside down ceiling? I have issues, you say? Admit it, you got a little excited thinking about it… Whoever plays this femme slash fodder won’t be long for this world anyway. If the remake is any good, it could be a career jolt similar to Drew Barrymoore’s brief death scene in the first Scream.
Alternate: Mischa Barton
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
You must be logged in to post a comment.