A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Nightmare on Elm Street has always been my favorite horror series. I hear this fairly often, and so I went in with a great deal of caution when I saw the 2010 remake. My main concern was Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy. I’ve always loved all things Freddy, even the poorly received television series Freddy’s Nightmares. Robert Englund…oh how I love him. Let me say that again. I love him. I’ve always a creepy little crush on Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger. So Jackie Earle Haley? Rorschach? The kid from Bad News Bears?
Ugh, I just don’t know.
My first obstacle: having to overlook the crowd of 18 year olds I was surrounded by. The girl in front of me screamed constantly, even though the guy next to me, who was chugging cough syrup (at one point he dropped the bottle and it shattered) kept telling her to shut up every time.
In any case, let’s get to my review. It stands up solid as a horror movie. It’s much darker than the originals, mainly because Haley plays Krueger in a much different fashion than Englund. Englund pulled off that sarcastic, maniacal nightmare killer, but Haley’s was much more sadistic. They did his make-up in a way I found looking sort of inhuman, which I suppose makes sense. But the main difference was that they pulled no punches about Freddy Krueger being a pedophile. The original 1984 version doesn’t even touch that. In fact, I hardly remember anything in the originals until 5, in which they lightly touch on the fact that he MAY have been a pedophile. But again, there was still an element of fun in the originals, and this one lacked that entirely. This remake fools the audience for quite some time into feeling bad for Freddy, and I felt like I was betraying my horror roots. Freddy Krueger is not a sympathetic character. Not in any way, shape, or form, although Englund’s Freddy certainly had a likable quality to him. The 2010 remake unfortunately might be forgettable. Englund’s Krueger had such charm that made him memorable.
I didn’t enjoy other small plot changes, like micronaps. Micronaps are, essentially, when the body is starved of sleep, so the brain forces sleep and the person doesn’t realize they’re asleep. Remember A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child? So in that one, the main character is pregnant, and Freddy is able to come in through the fetus’s dreams. Yeah, the 2010 basically rips this idea off. It felt cheap, and forced. Same effect, less imagination.
From this fan’s perspective it was worth seeing. I give it a B- rating. While it loses points for micronaps, it maintains a decent rating for its perspective on the story. It is what it is. It lacked the charisma of the originals, it lacked what made them GOOD. That’s the risk you take when you remake a movie that earned 6 sequels – 7 if you count Freddy v. Jason. It’s impossible not to compare the two. I feel that if you weren’t a fan of the originals, like if you’d never seen them (more to the crowd of 18 year olds I saw this with), then you’d like this one just fine.
I enjoyed the review. Okay I'm jealous that you have the guts and desire to get through all of the movies that I'm too big of a coward to even attempt.
ReplyDeleteI really hope you keep this going and review the old classic horror flicks as well as the new ones. Thanks for sharing your fantastic new adventure with us.
Signed A scared @notsoannoyed
This movie sucked rocks. I love a good scary movie to either scare the shit out of you, or mentally mind fuck. If the movie doesn't have one of those two elements, it's not really scary!
ReplyDeleteThe original Nightmare on Elm Street was different. You couldn't even LOOK at Freddy's face it was so intensely disguising - as if you'd ripped 3/4's of the toppings of a garbage pizza meat pizza. Not only that but the sheer darkness of the movie as he scraped his fingernails down the halls, whispering "Tina"! I swear I had nightmares for days when I was 16 over that movie. It was awesome.
The new Nightmare on Elm street had a few AHH moments, the kind of cheap pranks that you saw in Paranormal Activity (another NON scary movie) - where you could /almost/ compare to the tongue coming through the mouthpiece of the phone telling Nancy "I'm your boyfriend now" but there's never enough of those in any movie to carry the movie alone with cheap thrills (cough paranormal activity)
It was not the fault of the cast, I mean mostly the actors were OK, but you can't remake a classic like that! The writers kinda warped the story too. When Freddy was invented there was nothing like him ever. The concept of coming into your dreams to kill you was awesome and new and truly frightening. The sheer darkness of the original alone, overshadows just about anything in this new movie.
Having said that, the original SAW (the first one) was a truly mind fucking scary movie and I loved it. Go see that instead :D
@therealliarface
[Commenting as an actual human being, aka, NOT Cuntzilla]
ReplyDeleteI COMPLETELY agree with your review! In my opinion, as you said, the movie lacked what made the original good [and, imo, fucking GENIUS.]. They made Freddy incredibly creepy without making him sarcastic, hilarious; in other words, likable. The new Freddy's just disgusting and cruel.
The fact that they changed the plot so much was pretty lame, for lack of a better term. The movie was worth the watch to simply say "I saw the new Nightmare On Elm St." and get it over with.
I keep flip flopping on my whether I really liked the movie.
ReplyDeleteOn the positive side: it is one of the better remakes I've seen. I loved the fact they choose to take the movie to a darker place, especially since the series evolved into pure cheesy camp at the end.
The bad news: Englund IS Freddy. Too many of us remember and love his rendition of Freddy, so any replacement will pale in comparison. I agree that blatantly calling him a pedophile took away from his mystery which made him scary. Also taking away his family (and making him a loner) was too obvious and less effective & shocking. Having Freddy as a family man made him into an even bigger monster and more believable as an uber villain.
The movie was a mismash of a few NOES movies so it wasn't a pure remake of the first movie. The new Nancy was a cross between the old Nancy and Alice who appeared later in the series.
Also, the movie felt choppy to me as it first focused on Tina's character and abruptly focuses on Nancy almost half way through (where as the original was solely Nancy the whole way through.) I think this is the reason I really didn't care for Nancy who I should have been cheering on.
That being said, I loved and always will love the old Nightmare but only like the remake. I would recommend it because it is A LOT better than other recent horror flicks I've seen.
(Just a warning, that douchebag Kellan Lutz is in it. I HATE HIM and thank god even he couldn't ruin it outright.)