A Nightmare on Elm Street remake Review

"In dreams I walk with you. In dreams I talk to you. In dreams you are mine all the time..." - Roy Orbison

Okay, so I've just seen the latest installment in Michael Bay's string of classic horror movie remakes. A Nightmare on Elm Street. The promotion for this movie gave the hope of a really fun experience. But then so did the promotion for every other remake. But this had an ace actor behind it playing one of the more entertaining slasher villains. That's right, the dream walker himself, Freddy Kruger.

The original 1984 Nightmare movie was made by Wes Craven, a top director in the horror movie genre. He had already made his mark after directing gory, shocking movies like The Last House on the Left (which got remade) and The Hills Have Eyes (remade as well). A Nightmare on Elm Street was so good because it was more clever than a standard slasher movie like Friday the 13th. It's easy for a killer to stalk you in your house or something like that. But Freddy Kruger stalks you in the most private place of all. Your mind. And that's scary. Could it have been remade with as much creepiness and horror or with a villain as monstrously fun as Freddy? I'll tell you what I thought.

The remake of course follows pretty much the same story. A bunch of kids from fictional Springwood, Illinois are getting massacred in their sleep by some crispy guy wearing a hat, striped sweater and bladed glove. While trying to stay awake and alive, the kids try to solve the mystery of who is picking them off, a mystery that could reveal the whole town's dark secret. Now for anyone who actually watched the original or the franchise altogether, you know Freddy Kruger was once a child killer and pedophile who was caught, let off the hook for lack of evidence, and then killed by the angry parents. I like what they did different here, putting Kruger's guilt into question. Like maybe the parents were wrong about him.

But really there is nothing else to be excited about. I mean, some of the kills were okay and Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy was fun. But in the end, I was just kind of bored. You know the story so there's no suspense. What's new about the story? It takes place in 2010 so we have internet, cell phones, and syrianges full of adrenalin (even that doesn't help them stay awake, but at least the kids can reenact Pulp Fiction). The characters are given no depth so you don't care about them. I can't complain about the kids looking like twenty-five year olds because they do in the original too. They could at least act like they were teenagers. These kids could have fit right in the high school from Brick, because they seem to be very good investigators. Rooney Mara and Kyle Gallner, the two leads, are pretty much Mulder and Scully for the entire movie. I just don't know any teenager who act like this. Can they act? Yes, but it just wasn't believable. The villain is the only good part and he appears in quick frames more than actual scenes. Is Jackie Earle Haley as good as I thought he would be? Not as good, but he's still the savior of the movie. His creepy, gravelly voice brings on the chills, not to mention the way he carries about with the glove. He does not exert as much passion or as much fear as Robert Englund did as Freddy however. When Robert Englund was Freddy you could tell he was totally into the role, it looked like he was having a helluva of a lot of fun. Haley not so much, but still good. The movie's effects were pretty good, I thought. I like the way they mixed prosthetic make up with CGI for Freddy's face. And the times when the dreams start to really spill over into reality.

Looking back, I remember the original Nightmare on Elm Street. I remember the kids were believable and even somewhat interesting; I remember Freddy was this taunting force that was so ominous and cruel; I remember Johnny Depp got sucked into his bed and sprayed all over the room; I remember Tina was smashed and dragged all over her ceiling with blood everywhere (in a scene filmed upside down); I remember the last act featured an actual 80s montage of Nancy preparing for her fight with Freddy, complete with booby traps galore; I remember it had a clever resolution to the film's problem and a shocker ending. I remember it was a fun scary movie. But god, this movie is boring! Some people can't stand jump scares, but even those people would agree, this is a movie that needed jump scares every other scene just to keep you awake. Maybe that was the desired effect of this movie, the audience has to try to stay awake to watch a bunch of kids try to stay awake. Hmm. Anyways, for 80 percent of the movie we are stuck with a bunch of kids who we don't care about, who are completely uninteresting, and spend all of their time dozing off. You are not rooting for these kids, if anything you're rooting for Freddy to come along and kill them. I would love to see a slasher film, just one, where the villain was the person we were following. I mean think about it, it would be awesome. Have a cool and creepy narration, see his lair, watch as he plots his kills, and in the end we feel for him once he gets killed or if he survives and slaughters these boring ass teenagers. This movie also completely steals things from other Nightmare movies. It could at least strive for a little originality. But no, we get dullness and sameness. Just like almost every horror movie that has come out in the last decade. Even the sequels to the original movie were better than this, and they were pretty lame too.

It seems the target audience for this movie is for modern day people who were too lazy to see the original. It's kind of sad, because I know people who have seen all of these lame remakes but not the orignals. And they are stuck thinking these lame movies are so scary. Here's an idea for Hollywood: Why not just re-release the original movies in theatres. That'd be awesome. I would love to see the original Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween in theatres. At some point, they should just do that for a bunch of classic movies. I saw Alien in theatres once and it was terrific.

But back on point. The remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is not a terrible movie, but it certainly isn't good. If you want to see it see it, I'm sure you will get scared. A group of teenagers showed up and sat in front of me when I saw the movie. They came in late, girlfriends snuggled up to boyfriends, and had fun getting freaked out. So if you can stand to watch a mediocre movie that has been done to death, see this one. Still though, a thought occurs to me. The only other Nightmare on Elm Street movie Wes Craven made after the original was a film called "New Nightmare." It was a very startling and even fascinating movie because it showed how the force Freddy Kruger had been made into was actually haunting the people who made the first film to begin with. A part of me thinks that should have happened to the people who made this movie.

This has been a nightmarish review from Your Modest Guru. Thanks for reading.