A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

Rating

Director
Samuel Bayer
Screenplay
Wesley Strick, Eric Heisserer
Length
95 min.
Starring
Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, Kellan Lutz, Clancy Brown, Connie Britton, Lia Mortensen
MPAA Rating
R for strong bloody horror violence, disturbing images, terror and language.

Review
The original A Nightmare on Elm Street was a masterwork of the genre. Its sequels were entertaining, though filled with a varying degree of quality. Can the new A Nightmare on Elm Street remake stand up to the originals? Will it be my Final Nightmare or will it be a New Nightmare?

Based on an article Wes Craven read about a group of Cambodian refugees who died after being afflicted by horrifying nightmares, his concept blossomed into what is arguably one of the great slasher flicks ever made.

26 years later, Michael Bay’s shingle Platinum Dunes has decided to resurrect the classic dream bogeyman for a modern audience. The result is mostly superficial and loses a lot of what made the original so terrifying and impressive.

The way these reboots work is that the producers take the elements they think will translate well to a new audience, expand and intensify the gore, and re-cast the pic with people they think will appeal well to the new audience. Jackie Earle Haley who played the child molester in Little Children gets back into that role of child molester as Freddy Krueger in this latest incarnation. This time, Freddy was an on-premise gardener for a daycare where he met all of his victims presented in the film. Revenge is his motive as it was in the original and he stalks the children in their dreams killing them one by one for having been burned alive by their parents.

All of the kids in the original film had known each other as children. In this remake they act as complete strangers, having only become associated with one another at High School, but it’s obvious from early on that they are not unacquainted. The Elm Street children are thin characterizations relying solely on archetypes. Nancy is the only surviving character, though her new last name is Holbrook and she doesn’t seem to have a father (who was a police officer in the original), much less an alcoholic mother (this film’s mother seems better adjusted and more accessible). These are plain, run of the mill people with no backgrounds or depth.

From the opening scenes, we are told exactly what to expect: a remake with the sensibilities of a sequel. One of the great achievements in the original film is that death is not immediate. We are introduced to the characters and their nightmares for a good half hour before the first slaughter occurs. But modern audiences don’t want slow plot development. They want a quick-and-dirty introduction followed by slight exposition. At least that’s what the studios believe…had they learned anything from the success of the original Hostel, they might have known that young filmgoers can certainly enjoy a slow build up.

The 21st Century may very well become known for its franchise reboots wherein studios start franchises from the beginning by reintroducing the story for a new generation, updating effects and story elements. All of this in an effort to cash in on the revitalized horror genre which saw its rise begin in the mid-90s but start to wane as new ideas began to dry up. So, instead of trying to push the genre into new directions like the Saw franchise and Hostel films did, they decided not to bother with commissioning new, expensive ideas and focus instead on pulling out the successes of the 1980s for pennies on the dollar.

One of the reasons A Nightmare on Elm Street was so successful back in 1984 was that the genre had begun to tire itself out. Halloween and Friday the 13th had lead to an increasing number of imitations and lazy productions aimed at a calcified culture. Yet, despite clamoring for horror, these same audiences quickly turned their noses up at these new, watered-down concepts, much like what happened in the late 1990s. So, by the time Craven’s flick finally got made by New Line Cinema, it not only launched that shingle into success, it made a further name for Craven and star Robert Englund who remains one of the most beloved icons of the genre.

Haley is not only a poor substitute for Englund, his voice is utterly irritating. Whereas in the original film, Englund was given little dialogue and much of his performance was in his laugh and the vocal twitches of amusement he employed. Haley is more like the Englund of later films, focusing on quick one-liners to sell the story. On top of that, his voice doesn’t have the same quality as Englund’s, it’s hard to even describe, but if you ever wanted to know what Watchmen’s Rorshach would sound like were he imitating Freddy Krueger, this would be it. His face isn’t even that creepy and the makeup effects are far from the glory gory of the original. Sure there was a certain unrealistic quality to those original effects, but the remake’s attempts to modernize and intensify those effects to make them feel more real are a disservice to the piece, not an asset.

Fans of Elm Street will catch a few tributes peppered into the production. Nancy’s address is still 1428, the classic haunting jump rope song is still employed and the original theme is used a couple of times. Yet, even this last “tribute” is far from what we would expect. One of the reasons the original theme was so creepy was that it was extremely simple and used effectively. The score combined with the delicate and eerie sound effects created a palpably frightening environment that could have been rooted deep in your psyche and a byproduct of your own nightmares.

This film’s score applies the theme in several places, but the remainder is a little too full and substantive to be scary. And the sound effects? Terrible. The choice to apply an unrealistic electric spark to Krueger’s knives when scraped across metal doesn’t have the same impact as the screeching quality given the original. Whereas the 1984 film’s sound effects gave you goosebumps, this remake’s give you headaches.

And what good does an improvement in visual effects technology do you when you not only avoid using it in several places, but rely on transparent old school techniques to create your action. The most egregious of these issues comes early on when in a diner, Freddy forces one victim to slit his own throat. It’s obvious he’s using a blade-less knife to face the incident and while this would most certainly have been done back in the 1980s, the point of remaking something like this isn’t to rely on outdated effects, but to use technology for all its worth.

I am an unabashed A Nightmare on Elm Street fan. I have defended even the worst of the franchise (Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare) because even those films were enjoyable. And when Wes Craven made his return to the franchise after ten years with his wonderful New Nightmare, the possibilities seemed strong for a true rebirth of the franchise. Yet nothing transpired. The franchise had stopped making money and the studios seemed to give up as Wes turned away again and began work on his rules-of-the-genre comedy slasher Scream leaving Freddy once again to rot.

Then, the long-gestating production of Freddy vs. Jason was released in 2003 bringing Robert Englund back once again as the finger-knife wielding dream stalker. It was a good film and the possibilities were sparked once again, only to collapse once again.

Now we’re at the twenty-six year mark of the original’s release on the big screen and the film that is going to revive the franchise is so patently destructive, so awfully unlike the original or its sequels, and woefully missing Robert Englund. It’s the worst day an Elm Street fan could hope for. Hope for future films is nothing something I can muster anymore. Haley isn’t Freddy, nor will he ever be, yet he’s who we’re stuck watching and if I can’t stand his voice as Krueger now, the inevitable sequel won’t change my opinion. Perhaps its time we finally put Freddy Krueger to rest. As he is now, I can’t say that I’ll really miss him anymore.
Review Written
May 4, 2010
Review Archive
A Nightmare on Elm Street