Q&A: Horror Legends Freddy and Jason Team Up For Fear Clinic

Did you know that Freddy Krueger watches lonelygirl15? Well, not Freddy Krueger — but Robert Englund, who starred in the Nightmare on Elm Street films as Freddy, has seen a few episodes. It wasn’t until the Comcast-owned FEARnet approached the horror icon with the script for Fear Clinic, however, that Englund was inspired to join the web series world.

<i>Photo credit: Holly Stein</i>

Kane Hodder and Robert Englund in <em>Fear Clinic</em>. <em>Photo credit: Holly Stein</em>

In Fear Clinic, directed by legendary make-up and visual effects artist Robert Hall, Englund stars as the morally ambiguous Dr. Andover, who has a radical treatment for phobias — especially those experienced by attractive young people. In Englund’s words: “It’s a dark Twilight Zone wrapped up in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Girl, Interrupted.” He’s assisted in administering these treatments by Kane Hodder, an actor and stuntman best known for playing Jason in several of the Friday the 13th films. That’s right, it’s Freddy and Jason, working together, alongside Lisa Wilcox (Nightmare on Elm Street 4), Danielle Harris (Halloween), and a whole bunch of hot teen victims.

I met up with Englund and Hodder on set at the Linda Vista Hospital in Boyle Heights, Calif., which has been used as a film location since 1990 and is creepy even at 9 a.m. An edited transcript follows.

NewTeeVee: You’ve both appeared in several films together (2001 Maniacs, Hatchet, Wishmaster among them) without actually getting to be in the same scenes. What’s it like finally getting to work together?

Kane Hodder: It’s fantastic. Between Robert Hall directing and Robert [Englund] being in it, it wasn’t even a choice as to whether I’d do it or not.

Robert Englund: Yeah I thought it was a great idea. Kane gets to be nasty and evil in this, so it takes the pressure off me.

NewTeeVee: Robert, how did you approach your character for the series, since he’s not a clear-cut good guy or bad guy?

Englund: That style is tricky — I look at my character as the kind of bridge to the horror and the effects. Because sometimes [in movies] you have to play not your truth, but the way the narrator sees you. So sometimes I have to act as evil as I’m described in the voice-over by Danielle Harris. So I’m playing him almost as if he’s out of a graphic novel. I’m a little kicked up, a little bit Sin City, a little bit Robert Rodriguez. That’s my responsibility.

NewTeeVee: Is the Danielle Harris character a recurring one?

Englund: Yeah, she’s one of my earliest patients, a failure. And I’m obsessed with curing her, perhaps to a bit of a Dr. Frankenstein level. One of the things that hooked me when I first got this script was this image of her in the basement, with a flashlight and a pilfered BlackBerry. She’s broadcasting to the universe for help, like an SOS to the fans. I loved that image of her with her little pool of light with her little flashlight, texting away.

NewTeeVee: How would you compare working on a web series to working on a low-budget horror film? Is it about on the same level?

Englund: I think there’s more prep on a movie.

Hodder: But as long as you’re using experienced people you don’t really miss it that much.

Robert Englund as Dr. Andover. <i>Photo credit: Holly Stein</i>

Robert Englund as Dr. Andover. <em>Photo credit: Holly Stein</em>

Englund: We’re still wrapping our heads around the concept of a webisode. Seeing it isn’t the same as making it and knowing how much violence, how much gore, how many visual effects we should put in. Do we need to worry about exposition? We’re just a little in the dark about that. I would figure about around episode 9 or 11 we’ll get a sense of it.

Hodder: It’s a little under the gun. You have a limited time for your scenes and you just have to get through them. Most of the cast is pretty good so time is not wasted for that. A lot of it to me feels like a feature, just quickly done.

Englund: The thing I notice is there’s a virtue of omission as opposed to a sin of omission. Sometimes in a scene or a middle of a scene there’s a line that is obligatory in film or TV that we can leave out.

NewTeeVee: How is Robert Hall to work with as a director?

Englund: [He] talks film, breathes film. He makes references like, “This is like Roy Scheider in Jaws,” or, “It’s a little bit of Pulp Fiction” — and you know what he wants. He’s got that great film shorthand.

NewTeeVee: Do you think it’s possible for a web series to be as scary as watching a horror film in a theater?

Englund: It’s context. What if [hypothetically] some kid’s at home by himself while Mom and Dad are watching [Late Night With] Conan O’Brien? The lights are off and he watches maybe three episodes in a row…

Hodder: I love horror movies but I always found it hard to be really scared in a theater with 200 people. It’s just not the same feeling as being home watching it yourself or one other person in a quiet area.

Englund: I think we’re really raising the bar. We’re doing the best we can with our budget for the fans. We all believe in the story and we all believe in the format. It’s what seduced us all in the first place.

Fear Clinic will debut in October on FEARnet.com.

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