Nightmare On Elm Street Should Get An Anime Remake

When Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984, it birthed a franchise unlike anything viewers had seen before. The series follows bad guy Freddy Krueger, who stalks teenagers in their dreams, attacking and ultimately killing them in grisly and cartoonish ways, until they somehow find a way to stop him. The character is known for his burned skin, his red and green sweater striped sweater, and his signature weapon - a glove with knives attached.

The main A Nightmare on Elm Street series spans six movies, plus Wes Craven's New Nightmare, Freddy vs Jason, and the Freddy's Nightmares television series. In 2010, New Line Cinema and Platinum Dunes released a remake of the original film, though it wasn't a big critical success. That's the last thing that was done with the series, making it now over ten years since a new version of Freddy was available to viewers. The idea has been played with before, with nothing ever coming of it, but A Nightmare on Elm Street is the perfect candidate for an anime remake, and if the series were ever to be rebooted in that way, it would probably be amazing.

The premise as a whole is already a great premise for animation, and not too far-fetched from a few anime series that already exist. Dream demons are already a part of some anime series, though nothing quite like Freddy Krueger, and much of A Nightmare on Elm Street's scenes and concepts are already very wacky and cartoonish. Going in and out of a dream world could be very cool in the animation avenue, and the films' styles could be easily translated in a very interesting looking way.

The first film is the most serious of the series, but it's still full of interesting special effects that would work in animation very well. Think of Freddy pulling Nancy, the main final girl of the series, into the bathtub and attacking her underwater. Or even something as simple as the stairs melting as Nancy is trying to walk up them, which is now an iconic effect of the series. These could look so amazing in an animated form and later additions to the franchise have even more of these scenes that would really work, as the series gets progressively more kooky and colorful with every movie.

While the entire premise and aesthetics scream animation, the main elements of the Nightmare series that fans would love to see in that form are Freddy Krueger and his creative kills. The character not only has a very colorful and distinct look that would translate well, but his mannerisms and personality also stand out. He's a wisecracker, known for being a very humorous villain and in a lot of ways more funny than scary. Freddy also has a pretty intense backstory, involving a lot of taboo stuff. Even though he's funny, he's a properly dark villain that no one would be too excited to mess with. The funny, sexually charged villain is not a far-fetched concept for anime, or animation as a whole. As a character and the real face of the series, Freddy would go over very well.