“True Terror With Robert Englund” touched down on the Travel Channel on Wednesday, March 18, giving the 72-year-old actor a new role to slice through: on-screen host. Channeling the likes of Robert Stack and Rod Serling before him, the genre icon best known for his work as sleep demon Freddy Krueger from the A Nightmare On Elm Street franchise has found himself a new playground to frolic in.
Needless to say, when I was offered a chance to have lunch with the man, I jumped at the offer. As things have gone in recent weeks, daily life changed rapidly. And as “social distancing” became our new collected reality, with Mr. Englund sequestering himself in the comfort of his own home, our meal plans devolved into a delightful and insightful telephone chat.
Now, let me get this out of the way: You are about to dig into an extensive interview with Robert Englund. But as much as you’re probably wanting some sort of new tidbit on whether he’ll don that Freddy hat and glove one final time, there are no answers to quench your thirst here. Not for want of trying, though. Every time I mentioned his work as Freddy Krueger, the 72-year-old actor strafed elegantly into a new thought, tangentially getting us back on track to talk about his new job at The Travel Channel.
Each week, “True Terror” digs into three stories — with each episode exploring one overall theme — as Englund narrates the reenactments, guiding us through one terrifying tale into another. There’s a wryness that pops up regularly in the series, making these segments feel a bit tongue-in-cheek at times. But given television’s obsession for the bleak and hopeless, “True Terror” comes at you with some “Unsolved Mysteries” realness with a little bit of some fun Creepshow flair, for good measure.
So how is the horror icon keeping himself busy during these troubling times? Robert Englund spoke to me at-length about body-painting toddlers and old-timey recipes worth cooking. And of course, in the process, Englund gives Bloody-Disgusting a whole load of kooky insight into his new Travel Channel series.
Mr. Englund, thanks for talking with me today. How are you holding up?
Well, all things considered, nudge nudge wink wink, I’m okay. I’m sequestered at home. I’m going to be bingeing and catching up on stuff and I’ve got my toilet paper. I’ve got my gourmet crackers. So I’ll be alright.
Sounds like you’re set. I have an 18-month-old baby here. So my life is always an adventure.
Well, I have friends with kids and stuff and I have friends that are foodies. Some of my foodie friends are taking this time to do those recipes of old fashioned stews, casseroles and things like that that take all day. You know, certain things have to simmer and the potatoes have to break down and the beans have to poach and you add the vegetables later. And then you add your beef or your chicken stock or whatever. They’ve been doing these sort-of wonderful old recipes that they normally wouldn’t do because they’re not convenient. But now they have that stock-pot on the stove, you know, and they can go ladle out a bowl anytime they want or put it in a coffee cup with potatoes and vegetables and shredded chicken and lentils and seasonings. It can last for a couple of days.
You’re getting me hungry.
It’s working! So, they’ve been doing that. And I just talked to somebody earlier who’s got an 18-month-old who’s having a birthday tomorrow. They found some organic body paint — you know, that’s just completely harmless and vegetable-based — and they’re artists, so they’re going to put fake tattoos on the baby and make it look like a mermaid. They’ve got a drop cloth and they’re going to end up taking tons and tons of photos of the baby, you know, to put them online and also make cards.
Should I be taking notes? Because I’m taking notes.
What you could do is get your camera out, you know? Put up a dark towel or a dark blanket and take a bunch of great photos of the baby. Have fun.
I have to be honest here: Talking about stock-pot recipes and baby-painting was last on my list of expectations when I got on the phone with you today. But I’m into it.
Well, you know, you’ve got to get to all those little things you can do, like you could decorate the baby’s room a little bit. Or if there’s something you want to install in the baby’s room or hang curtains … you know? Any of those little odd things you’ve got to do around the place now’s the time. You work on your website. Normally you’d be out on the road now or you’d be busy. But the blessing, if you can call it that, is that you can actually watch that baby up close. You know? For the next couple of weeks or a month or so. You can just watch it grow like the old Disney movie time-lapse photography. Every day, they’re discovering something new. Remember, they’re little aliens. This is their first time on this planet.
Speaking of aliens, I suppose we should talk about your new Travel Channel series. Mind you, I’ve not seen any aliens on the episodes I’ve watched so far, but there’s a whole load of paranormal stuff in there.
Sure.
You’re doing this sort of Robert Stack/Rod Serling thing here, which feels a bit reminiscent of the hosting role you toyed with on “Freddy’s Nightmares” 30 years ago. Is that what drew you to the project?
You absolutely hit the nail on the head. Not with me necessarily, but for our creator, “Unsolved Mysteries” with Robert Stack had really been a landmark thing that he loved. He was obsessed with it. And he had this idea [for “True Terror”]. He’d been pitching it as a contemporary thing and he thought that I would be a perfect match for it.
It looks like you’re having fun.
Yeah. You know, with the baggage I bring with a little bit of my Vincent Price attitude and a little bit of the Rod Serling rhythms in the writing that I get to play with, we kind of echo “Unsolved Mysteries,” but for a, a 21st-century audience with 21st-century sensibilities. I was attracted to it because of the distancing of it while still being historical. [We tackle] tabloid articles, newspapers, and yellow journalism but from 100-years-ago — 19th century, early 20th century — and I loved the idea of our morality back then, our sophistication back then, our prejudices back then and our superstitions back then, and our lack of science, and what that meant to what we believed, or what we would buy into.
What is the challenge of being the star of the show, but stepping back to let the reenactments tell the story?
You know, for me, the challenge is just straddling the actual mechanics of being Robert Englund, the on-screen personality who likes this stuff, and then blending into the actual narration of the historical reenactments. This is kind of tricky because I have to make that decision of when to be sort of “Dateline” conversational and when to be kind of theatrical and moody. It’s all dependent on the images, many of which I don’t get to see. I did find times when I should have been darker, times when I should have been lighter, or just been in contrast to the images we were seeing. You want to preserve that mood or blend that mood, so that was sort of a challenge.
Do you have a favorite story from the series?
I mean, to have Teddy Roosevelt as a source for a Sasquatch viewing light years before they made The Legend of Boggy Creek — I saw that movie on a double date in that little cheesy 16 millimeter film. But, like, before that was ever made, you’ve got this Bigfoot story sourced by Teddy Roosevelt, you know, during a turn-of-the-century Montana hunting trip. And before that, the Sasquatch legend was alive and well in Native American folklore. So there has to be a certain degree of respect paid. Some of that is this kind of what if that you can certainly understand with historical distance, and knowing that science at the time was not as sophisticated, you can certainly understand why that would be in a newspaper and why people wouldn’t believe that and and how some of those stories, myths, and legends began.
It’s interesting hearing you talk about this. The show is titled “True Terror With Robert Englund” but it sounds that the truth, in reference to the news stories and legends you’re exploring here, can be a bit subjective.
Yeah, exactly.
For instance, in Episode 2, you’ve got Old West cowboys being terrorized by a … dragon? A pterodactyl? A giant lizard with wings?
Right, but that story takes place in the 1860s or 1850s. So that’s 170 years ago and who’s to say — because science has progressed so much and we’re constantly finding new missing links, new fossils, and skeletons of all different species — who’s to say there wasn’t a real big lizard in the southwest 170 years ago? If you were a cowboy drinking whiskey by a campfire late at night somewhere in Laredo, and you’re leaning up against a warm rock after the sun went down, and you see one of those things sailing from rock-to-rock like a goddamn flying squirrel, who’s to say that didn’t happen? The next day, he may have exaggerated the size a little bit when he went back to Tombstone or Laredo, and told people what he saw in the bar. But still, there could have been something the size of a monitor lizard or a big gecko. Imagine you’re laying on your back and 10 feet above you, there’s a three-and-a-half foot iguana moving from one wall to another wall and you saw that shadow pass over you.
Whatever the inspiration behind that story, its inclusion here gives your show a campy tone, as well. Dare I say, some of it feels like “Unsolved Mysteries” meets Creepshow.
And there’s a bit of the unknown. That what if factor that reminds me of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!” What if, what if, what if? Take mermaids. Mermaids are in every culture, and they go back to ancient times. That had to start somewhere. Now, it might have began with women who could hold their breath for a long time. And maybe they were diving for a certain kind of delicacy. It could have been sailors who were hallucinating from some hallucinogen — or from starvation, or from scurvy — and they looked down in the water, and thought they saw a manatee or sea cow. And then they got horny. I mean, who knows? If we believe that stupid country boys tip cows and do nasty things to sheep, who’s to doubt that slaves on a galley ship in ancient Phoenicia didn’t escape and rape a seal, or a sea cow, or a manatee because they were so crazy, and horny, and hallucinating because of who knows what? There’s weird stuff that could have happened to spark that legend.
In the show’s premiere episode, there is a character who was driven mad by nightmares, only to die on Friday the 13th. Were those two details meant as horror easter eggs? And, will there be more of those down the line?
Sure. I mean, it’s fun for them to do that. I have to sometimes caution them because I’ve said the word “nightmare” or “dreams” way too many times in an episode. They love hearing me say that. So yeah, that’s part of it. But it’s also part of, Robert Englund knows a little something about that. And actually, I do know a little something about that! Before I ever was Freddy, I took a dream analysis class back in college, and it was a great class. And so I know a little bit about how the mind works, what dreams are about, how the mind needs to rest, how images pair in the subconscious and how they come out in strange ways which form dreams and nightmares. I know a little bit about that. And so, again, because of my baggage, they realize it’s kind of fun and it’s kind of fun for the audience.
“True Terror With Robert Englund” airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.