Michael Bay’s New Nightmare?

A Nightmare on Elm Street terrified teenagers everywhere in the 1980s, with a dream-haunting, burn-scarred child killer named Freddy Kruger inspiring sleepless nights and theme songs from the Fat Boys (”Are You Ready for Freddy?” still qualifies as a hip-hop classic and far outshines the more notorious rip-off “Nightmare on My Street” from The Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff). “Fred Krueger’s a myth or Fred Krueger’s a man, it doesn’t matter cuz we’ll still rap about him, understand?” Def!

Now it’s going to be relaunched by Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes, according to Variety. The same people who are already relaunching Friday the 13th, and who already overhauled The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Michael Bay is a horror maven, to be sure, but not because he makes horror movies. More for turning Megatron into a tinker-toy.

Here’s the sticking point - sure, you can get someone else to play Leatherface, and you can foolishly replace Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees, even though no one in the world has a more badass name than Kane Hodder. If you replace Robert Englund, however, horror nerds will rise up and take their vengeance.