The year was 1983. Kane Hodder was stunt doubling for John Bloom as The Reaper in Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes Part II. It was one year before Craven would alter the course of horror history with A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Craven had no idea that Hodder was about to change horror […]
The year was 1983. Kane Hodder was stunt doubling for John Bloom as The Reaper in Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes Part II. It was one year before Craven would alter the course of horror history with A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Craven had no idea that Hodder was about to change horror history in his own right, taking over the role of Jason Voorhees just five years later in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. He also had no idea that his latest creation was going to become a icon, but he at least had high hopes for the demonic Freddy Krueger.
Chatting with the video podcast Talks from the Crypt, Kane Hodder reveals in a new interview that Craven actually discussed his next movie with him while on set of Hills Have Eyes Part II. And it sounds like he could’ve even been potentially up for the role of Freddy at the time!
“I was talking to Wes on the set one day, and he said he was developing a new character that was going to make a franchise,” Hodder tells the show. “And he says, ‘This is a character that’s been burned, and I’m thinking about using an actor with real burn scars.’ Which… I have. And he briefly mentioned it to me on the set. He said, ‘I think I’m gonna call him Fred Krueger.’ And then of course, he decided to go in a different direction and do prosthetics. Because my face is not scarred, which is the whole point of Freddy. His face is all scars.”
It was of course Robert Englund who became Freddy Krueger for Wes Craven the following year, while Hodder went on to become the definitive actor to portray Freddy’s adversary.
“I don’t think I would’ve done it as well as Robert [Englund],” Hodder admits. He adds, “I would’ve tended to make the character less comical. But I don’t know if that would’ve been the right choice. Because that’s kind of the popularity with Freddy; he’s a smartass, and fucking violent, and ya know. I don’t think it would’ve been as good as the way Robert did it.”
While it’s probably not accurate to pretend that Kane Hodder “almost” played Freddy Krueger, it’s certainly interesting to at least imagine that conversation between Hodder and Wes Craven back in 1983. And to imagine that in some alternate reality, Craven did end up casting an actor with real burn scars to play the dream demon. And that actor, well, it could’ve been Hodder.
