SCREAMBOX celebrating Robert Englund’s birthday with new documentary

Just in time for Robert Englund’s birthday, SCREAMBOX will release Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story. Englund is of course known primarily as the actor who embodied Freddy Krueger in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series of films, as well as the short-lived series Freddy’s Nightmares.

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares is directed by Christopher Griffiths and Gary Smart, who also brought us the horror-centric documentaries Pennywise: The Story of IT and You’re So Cool, Brewster! The Story of Fright Night. Given the quality of those two docs, I expect Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares will also be an engrossing and entertaining horror documentary.

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares will celebrate Robert Englund’s career

Englund is a classically trained actor, and has hundreds of stage, film and tv credits under his belt, not all of them horror. His first horror film was Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive, which was released in 1976, but he really hit it big in 1984 when A Nightmare on Elm Street became a sensation. Freddy Krueger is one of the biggest slasher icons in horror history, without a doubt. More recently, he has appeared in Stranger Things and in puppet horror film Abruptio, which received a very positive review from 1428 Elm.

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares includes commentary and interviews with Englund himself, as well as his wife Nancy and horror notables such as Kane Hodder, Tony Todd, Bill Moseley, Lance Henriksen, Lin Shaye, Eli Roth, Heather Langenkamp, Mick Garris, Jeffrey Reddick, William Katt, Andrew Divoff, Corey Taylor and many more.

Of the documentary, Englund said:

"“This old veteran character actor was surprised and flattered to find he was the subject of the documentary Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares. Collaborating with directors Gary Smart and Christopher Griffiths and the rest of the team was a joy as they are genre fans like me. For yours truly, watching the film is a bit like Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn attending their own funeral.”Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares – Courtesy ScreamBox"

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares will join other Robert Englund horror films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Mangler, Night Terrors, The Funhouse Massacre and Galaxy of Terror on SCREAMBOX in June.

On May 13, Beyond Fest and Bloody Disgusting will be presenting a full-day Robert Englund marathon at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. There, fans can see Freddy vs. Jason, Stay Hungry, The Last Showing and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Immediately afterwards, there will be a free screening of Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares, followed by a Q & A with the one and only Robert Englund himself.

On Englund’s birthday, which is June 6, fans are asked to use the hashtag #RobertEnglundDay throughout the entire day. If you don’t currently subscribe to SCREAMBOX (though why wouldn’t you), you can watch Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story on Digital through Cinedigm and Bloody Disgusting on June 6. It will be available to purchase on Blu-ray July 25.

What are your favorite Robert Englund films? We want to know all about it, drop your favorite titles in the comments section.