I think we can all agree that the later a horror franchise gets into its run, the lower the quality of the film. Or maybe that’s not just restricted to horror films. In any case, it’s a pretty reliable doctrine to live by… if you live by such doctrines. Sometimes when there is a reunion of actors and actresses from one of these films, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but in many cases it’s actually a great deal, because you’re getting to meet performers who have done other interesting things, but rarely have reason to attend celebrity shows. And we all know how much I love obscure actors…
So the case in point here are the celebs who gathered for the Nightmare on Elm Street reunion at the Indianapolis HorrorHound on September 12, 2015. In this case, the actors weren’t just from any particular film, but rather all of the films in the franchise. So this included some of the later so-called duds that came out after the series pretty much peaked with Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (discounting the excellent Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, which had a completely different storyline). This latter half of the series included Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, and Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.
Moving chronologically by film, the first of these five actors I’ll cover was Andras Jones from Part 4, who portrayed the Rick Johnson, the boyfriend of Kristen Parker (played by Tuesday Knight in this film, Patricia Arquette in Part 3). His character is also the brother of Alice Johnson, the main character of the film (played by Lisa Wilcox).
Andras Jones
Therefore even if his character isn’t considered a major one, he was certainly intertwined with two of the major leading ladies of the franchise. And of course, you can’t discount the fact that he appeared in an episode of Good Morning, Miss Bliss.
The standard at this show was pretty much $20 for an autograph, and he complied to that, posing for a photo with both Carolyn and me for free.
Moving on to Part 5, we have Kelly Jo Minter. She played the adorable Yvonne in the film, but Carolyn recognized her for her part in the film Mask. She also had significant roles in Summer School, The Lost Boys, Doc Hollywood, and The People Under the Stairs, in addition to TV appearances in A Different World, Martin, ER, Hill Street Blues, The Father Dowling Mysteries, Fame, and T.J. Hooker.
Kelly Jo Minter
She was exceptionally sweet, and again charged the standard $20 and posed for photos with both Carolyn and me.
In one scene in Part 5, Freddy infiltrates a comic-book-loving character’s nightmare and combats him as “Super Freddy”, an enlarged version of the somewhat short actual Freddy (played by Robert Englund). The actor who became Super Freddy was Michael Bailey Smith.
Michael Bailey Smith
This role actually broke him into films as he had had no prior experience and stumbled into the role based on the recommendation of a friend. He then went on to get into acting classes and try to make a go of acting as a career.
I know all this because he told me, and made no qualms about telling Carolyn and me how blessed he had been, and how he would encourage anyone to follow their dreams. Despite his menacing look, he was one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.
Quite an inspirational speech about dreams, from a guy who played Freddy Krueger… but it was the most uplifting talk I got that day. Smith had gone on to star in many films and TV shows in the 25-plus years since his first part, acting in such shows as The Rockford Files: I Still Love L.A., Family Matters, Wings, Murphy Brown, Diagnosis Murder, Malcolm in the Middle, My Name is Earl, Desperate Housewives, plus 14 episodes of Charmed, and one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Toth.
In this case, I chose his Buffy photo over the Nightmare one. Once again, $20 for the signed photo, and photo ops all around. He was a cool guy, and I couldn’t help but be happy for someone so grateful for their success and opportunities.
Now we move on to the last ‘standard’ film of the franchise Freddy’s Dead, where the main character known as John Doe due to his amnesia was played by Shon Greenblatt. By the time this film came out, the series had nearly hit its stride as comedy/horror (how else can you explain cameos by Tom and Roseanne Arnold?).
Shon Greenblatt
As a leading character in the final film, Greenblatt is the type of guy who is cool to meet at an event like this, since you’re not likely to see him turn up anywhere else. He only ended up with less than a dozen film credits, most unknown to me other than Newsies. He also was the only guy at the show that I couldn’t reconcile his appearance with the guy on screen. I would have never recognized him in a million years.
Again I repeat, $20 for the autograph on a photo from the film, which included free photos with both Carolyn and me.
Ricky Dean Logan
Last and certainly not least was Ricky Dean Logan, who played Carlos in Freddy’s Dead. But his role in this film pales in importance (to me) to two other roles he had in two of my favorite things: the Back to the Future franchise, appearing in Part II as Data and in Part III as a member of Needles’ gang, and Seinfeld appearing a the hippy freak that picks up a hitchhiking Kramer and later rats on him to the police (“What do you think Junior… you think these hands – they’ve soaking in Ivory Liquid?”)
In this case he didn’t have any photos form Seinfeld, but he did have one from Back to the Future III, so that’s the one I went with. For $20 I got the autograph and we both got photos with him. (I probably could have just said that once, huh?)
Next up: we’ll back up to the actors present at the 2015 Indianapolis who appeared in Part 2 of the franchise…
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