Not your final girl

So, yes. The most infamous thing about the remake is the fact that Freddy is canonically a pedophile in it. It is so infamous, in fact, that some will argue that this is not actually a big issue, as the initial plan while making the OG NOES was for Freddy to be a child predator. 

This is true. However, that idea was scrapped once the McMartin Preschool Trial started ramping up during the Satanic Panic. 

Freddy, instead, was just a child killer. Now, in real life, being a child murderer almost certainly means that someone is also a child predator. But we’re dealing with a fictional bogeyman here.

You can interpret the OG Freddy in a myriad of ways — a metaphor for the unpleasant things people don’t want to talk about in suburbia, unprocessed trauma, the death of innocence … and yes, if you wish, you can interpret him as a child predator. 

But, imo, crucially, this is just one of many interpretations, and it is not a textual fact. One problem with the remake making it textual is that all subtlety and nuance is removed. You really cannot interpret him beyond what he is at a surface level. 

Another issue is that Freddy is a character with legacy. He does not exist in a vacuum. 

While he was more serious in the first film, he still always had a bit of sadistic humor and fucked up charisma. As time went on, he became more silly and humorous.

His humor is probably one of the things he is most known for. IMO, a character with this legacy is not the appropriate vehicle through which to explore a serious topic like CSA. 

And the remake handled this so, so clumsily. It tries to make Freddy more serious again, but also brings in some of the cheesy one liners, while *also* making him a gleeful pedophile. 

It is cringy, ham fisted, stupid, and insensitive. I’m certainly not saying that CSA isn’t a topic you can’t explore in horror. But if you do, it needs to be handled carefully. 

For a good example of it being handled more carefully and sensitively, I would point to Possum 2018.

It is a quiet, bleak, and uncomfortable film. It also explores how CSA can deeply effect someone in their adulthood. Specifically, it delves into how someone can try to run away from that trauma, burn it, bury it, drown it, but it will always come back. And that feeling can be so hopeless and suffocating. The way all of this is handled is subtle and feels very true to life. 

It’s a tragic film as much as it is a horror film. It’s an example of how to handle this topic well in a horror film, imo. And the NOES remake is an example of exactly what you shouldn’t do.

Despite all this, I do sort of hope that one day NOES might be revisited. It is a simple concept with so much potential, and while it would be hard to find somebody to replace Robert Englund, I don’t think it’s impossible to find somebody who could do Freddy justice.

Really, JEH wasn’t terrible casting in hindsight. A recent horror film I saw him in shows that he’s got the chops to pull off a compelling, theatrical villain. It’s just that the remake failed him.