Day 1: May 1st, 2010

Nightmare On Elm Street



An Hour and a Half of Cheap By The Book Horror Scares

Yes, this is cheating a little bit but I wasn't going to let this one go to waste. So instead, I'm making it my first entry.

The children on Elm street are all having the same nightmare, a horribly burned man with a glove of knives on his hand trying to kill them. If you die in your sleep, you die in real life. This is the re-invention of the horror icon Freddy Krueger.

First it was Leatherface, then Jason and now Freddy. The Michael Bay produced horror vehicles are back in full swing with more teenagers to die, more blood to splatter and more CGI effects in place of actual special effects. It was only a matter of time before one of the most famous horror icons got his remake and here it is, with a new actor behind the hat and sweater. The original Nightmare on Elm Street has a special place in my heart. Watching it at 2 in the morning at a cottage in the middle of the woods really made for a frightening experience. His reappearance in later films made him more of a comical villain than someone to really be afraid of, but now those who are bringing him back want to take him, not only back to his horrific original self, but to dive even deeper and make him more frightening than ever before.

They succeed in making this version of Freddy more scary than his previous outings and more real with the make-up of being a burned victim, but in the end, this character just isn't as scary as he once was. Jackie Earle Haley does a magnificent job as Freddy, which is saying something because he's taking over the role of someone who's been doing it for 20 years and he's covered in make up for most of the film. Even though he does his Rorschach voice again, it's still well done and nice to hear. He stands out in an otherwise lame and lazy horror remake. You know the film is going to have problems when you see Freddy in full in the first 5 minutes.

To be fair, this isn't a total train wreck. There are worse horror remakes out there *cough* Prom Night *cough*. But this Nightmare is too serious for such a silly concept. We dive immediately into the problem, with a murder of one of the kids. We are then told that the kids have been seeing Freddy for sometime now. Which is lazy writing. We are already too late into the story. We should be with the characters when they are first encountering him, not keeping it a secret from others. We can't connect to these characters at all.

There are plenty moments of really bad CGI. The scary and famous scene in the original when Freddy leans out from the wallpaper watching the character sleeping was some pretty scary stuff. Here, it is an afterthought and it looks horribly fake. The film relies way too much on fake, cheap and useless scares. I thought we were getting past these stupid things. The film uses it so much that you expect it to happen and it loses all meaning. Thus, the film becomes formulaic. Character nods off, they are asleep without knowing it, see Freddy, cheap scare, they wake up. Repeat for every other character in the film and you begin to fill up the 95 minute time slot.

Now, for fans of the series, I can say this about the films. Every death in the nightmare films were creative. Puppeteering death? Awesome stuff. Here he slices people with his glove. Nothing spectacular. I guess since they tried to make him serious they wanted to take out all the fun and exciting deaths, instead they tried to keep it real. Well, Friday the 13th managed to keep it's fun and cheesy attitude, this nightmare doesn't and it falls flat. It was too serious for it's own good and has no terror, no thrills and no suspense.

Our lead, Nancy, Rooney Mara, is not memorable at all. She is no Langenkamp and the whole time I was watching her I kept thinking, "This is what Abigail Breslin will look like in 10 years". Clancy Brown is underused and instead of paying attention to Kyle Gallner, I kept trying to remember where I have seen him before. The answer is the equally lame horror film Jennifer's Body.

I can give this film praise where it is deserved. Freddy looks great and is more terrifying than what his previous installments had him be and the ending is clearly the highlight. I was cheering, which was a surprise to me. The sound design is really great as well. Freddy's voice is all over the place and at times I thought he was in the theatre. But in the end, this Nightmare remake is really a disappointment.

5/10