This was gonna be a tough one to review. A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of my favourite movies and franchises of all time. Freddy Krueger is my favourite horror movie villain and this movie without Robert Englund was going to have a hard time in my books.
Is this new movie any good or is it a complete waste of time and film? Find out in my Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 review.
The Story
A bunch of teenagers in Springfield are getting picked off one by one by a burned man with knives for fingers on his right hand. What do they all have in common and why is this burned psychopath targeting them?
This remake/prequel/re-imagining/cash grab has a severe identity crisis. The film borrows quite a few scenes from the original Wes Craven classic, borrows the main character (by name only it seems, this Nancy has nothing in common with Heather Langenkamp’s version) yet aims to create a new spin on the old tale. While many scenes have been lifted, events from the original and places have been changed to accommodate this new version. A ton of crucial rules have been ignored. Freddy now appears while victims are awake (!!) and attacks them at random and disappears, yet Nancy still has to go to sleep in hopes of bringing Freddy into our world to kill him?? Nowhere in the original series does Freddy have the ability to do harm to the victims unless he is pulled from the dream world into ours, and as we know from Freddy’s Dead is the cause of his ultimate demise. Scenes in this film that were recycled from the original were done very poorly, and didn’t compare to the effectiveness they once had. The scene where freddy’s claw popped out of the bathtub looked particularly ridiculous, and wasn’t even shot in it’s original entirety. If scenes are going to be lifted, then do them justice and recreate them faithfully, instead of borrowing bits here and there.
Characters
The main draw to any Nightmare on Elm Street film is obviously Freddy Krueger. He needs to be Freddy Krueger. His look, voice, dialogue, his whole personality needs to fit the package. Jackie Earle Haley is not Freddy Krueger. He didn’t even resemble Freddy in the slightest, he looked more like a lizard man than a burn victim, and is only identifiable by his clothing and glove. I feel he totally missed the swagger and diabolical nature of Freddy. Every line he spit out had me laughing. He sounded exactly like Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger if he had a clothes peg on his nose. The lines of dialogue they had him speaking were nonsense also. His last few scenes with Nancy were so focused on his child molester past, and were portraying Freddy as a creature that still has a sexual appetite even in death. At no point in the series does Freddy ever express anything other than bloodthristy vengeance. That scene alone was the nail in the coffin for me.
Nancy wasn’t near as entertaining or as likable as Heather Langenkamp, hell none of the characters were. While Nancy, Tina, Rod & Glen are all distinct memorable personalities none of these cookie cutter teenage victims were.
Gore/Special Effects
A slow motion throat slitting before the main titles is the best effect in the film. Everything else is just run of the mill claw scrapes and stabs. All of the original and completely creative kills that raise the NoES films above average slasher fare are missing here.
The Tina death sequence was recreated here and done poorly. Hardly any time was spent on the kill, instead of her being dragged all around the bedroom, smearing blood all over the walls and dropping into a bed full of blood, she goes up one wall and falls onto the bed with a tiny blood spray to follow.
Lasting Appeal
Saw it once, won’t watch it again. While all of the Nightmare on Elm Street films (yes even two) get regular viewings, this will not.
Final Head Count
Well if you didn’t guess already, I hated this movie. This film captures all that I feel is wrong with the movie industry today. Shameless remakes and re-imaginings of classic, original films that bring absolutely nothing new to the table. Yes, Freddy looked a bit different, but was in no way better than Robert Englund’s version. A few new scenes and some different makeup effects, and actors and actresses is not sufficient for a remake. Nothing about this film was redeemable, it didn’t need to be made. Freddy wasn’t spun in a different way, there was no creative new direction for the series to go in, it was a shoddy, shitty remake that was made for no other reason than to cash in on the legend of Freddy Krueger.
