Halloween always brings out the worst, and of course that really means the best icons of the horror genre and this year is no exception. As well as the arrival of Halloween Kills, Elvira’s 40th Anniversary Special on Shudder and many other dark treats, the Horror Hub Marketplace on Twitch will see Doug Bradley, known to many as the face of Hellraiser‘s Pinhead, and Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, sitting down to chat for the Down to Hell with Doug Bradley series. Oh he has such delights to show us.
Currently in its premier season, Down to Hell is a recorded casual gathering of Bradley, Steph Sciullo and a who’s who of the horror genre including actors, producers, musicians and other icons of the darker side of movies. As the chat is live, fans also have the chance to interact with each other and the show by asking questions in the chat and generally discuss the genre and all that they love about it. Bradley will host Robert Englund on Thursday, October 14th from 8pm EST on the Horror Hub Marketplace.
Of course, neither star needs much introduction, with Bradley’s Pinhead and Englund’s Krueger appearing in a massive 16 movies between them, and creating two of the best known characters of the genre. While both movies have suffered from diminishing returns over the years with the final installments of the Hellraiser series to feature Bradley – who sensibly ducked out of 2011’s Revelations and the 2018 Judgement– scraping through as straight to DVD releases, the last of which was in 2005. Englund’s Krueger at least managed to have all of his appearances through to his final on screen film of Freddy vs Jason make it to cinemas and none of his entries quite plumbed the depths of the Hellraiser series when it came to continuity and coherence.
As for the future of the franchises, there is little chance of either actor reprising their respective roles in new movies, but that does not mean we have seen the last of the monsters they originally brought to life on screen again. A new Hellraiser movie has just wrapped filming, and is expected to arrive next year on Hulu. This time around the high priest of pain will be taking the female form of Jamie Clayton, who will be essentially bringing the character back to its roots of Clive Barker’s original novella, The Hellbound Heart, which depicted Pinhead as amostly genderless being with a very fluid nature. Additionally, a TV series based on the franchise has also been in the works since last year, so perhaps a fresh break will bring new blood to the franchise after a couple of decades of lackluster, cheaply made sequels.
When it comes to Freddy Krueger, it’s a little more ambiguous. Englund himself has commented that he is now too old to do the work required to bring the character to life again, although he did come out of Freddy retirement to appear in an episode of the TV show The Goldbergs. Unlike the often compared Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th movies, who is silent and mostly hidden under his mask and prosthetics, Robert Englund essentially is Freddy Krueger in every way. While there is always a chance that someone could take on the character, and indeed Jackie Earle Haley did attempt it in 2010’s reboot, after almost 40 years as the face of Freddy, it is hard to imagine the character being taken over by someone without it feeling like a pastiche. However, there are always talks of new iterations of the Nightmare on Elm Street, and with numerous streaming options, there is every likelihood that we haven’t seen the last of Springfield’s knife-fingered killer.
Catch these two icons in conversation on Horror Hub Marketplace on Twitch from 8pm EST on October 14th, this Thursday. Which just happens to be today.