A Nightmare On Elm Street
Hat's off to horror
1, 2, Freddy's remade for you. Horror
remakes are usually met with fear, anger, and derision from the
horror community. Heck, just regular remakes are met the same way. We
love our originals and hate to see them re-cut, altered, chewed up,
and spat out onto the big screen in hopes of making a few million. A
lot of us grew up with these movies and while it's great to see a new
generation get into these movies, it's hard to see our favorite
things be changed. But not all remakes are horrible. The Dawn of the
Dead remake, while different, was still a pretty good horror movie.
Could the same be said for a movie based around an iconic character?
A Nightmare On Elm Street is a 2010
remake of Wes Craven's 1984 horror film of the same name. It stars
Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo, The Social Network) as
Nancy Holbrook. Nancy is a waitress at a local diner and serves
classmates Dean and his girlfriend, Kris (Katie Cassidy, Black
Christmas, When A Stranger Calls). Dean hasn't slept in days,
suffering from nightmares that a mysterious burned man is trying to
kill him. He drifts into sleep and is killed in his dream by the man,
but appears to kill himself in reality to those around him. At Dean's
funeral, Kris sees a picture of them together as children, but
doesn't remember knowing him when they were young. Kris begins to
dream of the burned man and has her ex-boyfriend Jesse (Thomas
Dekker, Laid To Rest, Kaboom) stay with her to keep her company. In
her dreams, she meets the burned man, and in reality she is
supernaturally slammed all across her room before being slashed to
death. Jesse flees to Nancy's house, who reveals she also dreams of
the man. Jesse is soon arrested for Kris's murder. He tries to stay
awake in jail, but falls asleep and is brutally murdered by the same
man. Joined by her classmate Quentin (Kyle Gallner, The Haunting in
Connecticut, Jennifer's Body), Nancy discovers that they are all
connected through the preschool they attended. There, the gardener
named Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley, Rorschach from Watchmen)
sexually abused the children and named Nancy as his favorite. Their
parents took justice in their own hands and burned Krueger alive. Now
he is back, killing the children who told on him through their
dreams. Nancy and Quentin try to stay awake, thinking of a way to
beat Freddy, but constantly drift in and out of sleep as he gets
closer to killing them. Will Nancy, Freddy's favorite, be able to
stop him?
Better moisturize
It's hard not to compare the remake to
the original and it's impossible to replace Robert Englund. Robert
Englund IS Freddy Krueger. Freddy is all personality and hard to
recreate whereas a character like Jason, who is essentially just a
big, unkillable bastard in a mask, can be played by anyone meeting
the height and weight requirements. That being said, Jackie Earle
Haley is very good as a different Freddy Krueger. Gone are the
one-liners and funny quips. This Freddy is a darker character,
staying more true to Wes Craven's original vision in which Freddy was
a child molester. Rooney Mara is good in her role, but her characters
reminds me of Raven from the cartoon Teen Titans; drab and kind of
bland. As far as horror remakes go, A Nightmare On Elm Street isn't
that bad. It's a good introduction for viewers who may not have seen
the original. Even Freddy's face is different as they went for a more
traditional burn victim look. Unfortunately, it looks stiff and a
little boring, more closely resembling a cross between an alien and a
burnt English muffin.
The movie itself focuses more on
stylistic action and cool violence than comprehensive plot. Now that
I think about it, I don't know if they ever explained just how Freddy
was able to come back from the dead and haunt dreams. The new
Nightmare lacks the proper amount of depth and creativity that helped
make the original great. By not being a complete movie, this remake
just comes off as a good, but typical supernatural slasher. The
special effects are actually pretty good and some of the scenes are
quite impressive, such as when the floor in a hallway becomes a pool
of thick blood that drags Nancy under. The movie has a good amount of
blood, gore, and action. There are a few jumps and scares, but
nothing overall terrifying.
What do you mean Phish is sold out?!
Horror fans will always be wary of
remakes. We hold our horror close to our gorey hearts. A Nightmare On
Elm Street probably didn't need to be remade so soon, but in this day
and age, it's amazing it took this long. The basic story and some
characters are the same as the original, but it's the specifics that
are different, similar to the Dawn Of The Dead remake. I was happy to
see some scenes recreated, so at least they did that right. Jackie
Earle Haley is a very good, if different, Freddy Krueger and Rooney
Mara plays her part well. The movie has some great special effects
and lots of blood, but the story feels empty and flat. Thankfully,
this remake is not bad. It's just not great.
6.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment