As a lover of horror movies, I had very high hopes for the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Unfortunately, this flick fell short….way short. Remakes of classic cult movies can be tricky; you don’t want to veer too far away from what made the movie successful in the first place but, then again, you don’t want a second-rate regurgitation of the original. The new Nightmare followed the formula of the latter and I actually found myself becoming bored rather than covering my mouth to hide my usual embarassing shreiks of fear (trust me, my ex-girlfriend hated seeing horror movies with me in theaters because I’d scream every 5 seconds and draw attention to us). Call me twisted but I enjoy a gore-fest when it comes to my horror movies and this did not deliver in the blood & guts department either. Everyone knows what happens (duh, its a remake) so one way to spice up the plot is to reinvent creeptastic new ways for victims to kick the bucket. Did this movie do this? Nope. Not even close.
And let’s not overlook the fact that Freddy is unrecognizeable. I compare the new Freddy to Johnny Depp’s interpretation of Willy Wonka; when someone has already portrayed a character to perfection you have to find a different interpretation in order for a remake to have its own identity. I’m okay with the fact that he didn’t look exactly the same in the 2010 version but this new Freddy looked far too much like a realistic burn victim which, for me, didn’t work. However, the horror genre today focuses on killers that are far less “goofy” than the original ‘84 Freddy so I can see why they wanted to give the character a unique twist rather than try to emulate such an distinctive slasher icon. Still, Freddy wasn’t just a burn victim, he was a supernatural psycho killer and the realism of his face conflicted with his character.
Still, even with a new take on Freddy, this movie did nothing for me. I feel like the writers and director took advantage of the fact that we all know the character of Freddy Krueger and used it as an excuse to avoid any character development. There were a few redeeming scenes but, for the most part, it was utterly predictable and unimaginative. The only people who will be truly scared and entertained by this flick are the kids who were too young to see the original (hey, even I grew up with the original and it came out a year before I was born!)
Overall, I give this flick 2/5 stars. What a shame. Robert Englund should be thankful he wasn’t a part of this.
Sweet dreams!
-Lori
