A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

If you get straight to the point, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is a 2010 remake about people trying not to fall asleep. Eric D. Snider admitted in his review, “Having just watched it, I know how they feel. OH SNAP!”

There was no point to remaking the 1985 slasher classic, as you might have guessed, except that “Halloween” and “Friday the 13^th” were already remade, and they thought to complete the trifecta. However, it could have been done with better care than what we got. The idea of a person who haunts you in your nightmares is really scary – or, it should be. Leave it to the people in charge of remakes to suck out all the horror of something as simple as that.

In the town of Springwood, Ohio, some of the teenagers are haunted by nightmares where a burnt-faced, razor-fingered mental person named Freddy Krueger, played this time by Jackie Earle Haley, tortures them. It is told that whatever Freddy does to you in your nightmares happens when you wake up. Snider asked, “So, for example, if Freddy gives you a wedgie, you’ll wake up with a wedgie. Or if he slices you in half with a machete, your sleeping body will be rent in twain by an invisible force.”

Among the ordinary teens that are haunted are Quentin (Kyle Gallner) and Nancy (Rooney Mara), who are both threatening and dark anyway. Kind of lighter, though still gloomy, are Kris (Katie Cassidy), Jesse (Thomas Dekker) and Dean (Kellan Lutz). Don’t get too friendly to them though. 

Snider admitted, “Look, I’m not going to mince words.” Some of these characters die. What’s disappointing is that not one of them dies in a fascinating way. Freddy mostly does the usual ways such as stabbing and slicing, and everyone’s nightmares seems to be the boiler room, the one where there’s always lots of clanging and steam and so forth. Whatever happens to the kids is followed with knife-sharpening sound and booming of “scary” music. Snider said, “This is Scary Movie Making 101, and first-time director Samuel Bayer (he made music videos before this) may be required to repeat the course.”

Should I say that the screenplay – written by Wesley Strick and rewritten by Eric Heisserer – has the characters speaking only the most basic dialogue? Also, the characters themselves have no noticeable personality traits? Also, there isn’t an actual protagonist, but just characters that don’t get killed? Oh, I didn’t need to say that because you already know that? Good.

What the film does get right is Freddy Krueger. The later sequels in the original franchise made him into a wise-cracking, one-liner-dispensing foil without any type of fear. The new Freddy returns to basics. Played with nasty delight by Jackie Earle Haley, this Freddy is good and scary, the way Wes Craven original wanted. Too bad he’s in a nightmare of his own: a movie that doesn’t have humor, originality, inspiration or suspense. Snider ended his review by saying, “Wake me up when they come out with something new.”

Like the “Friday the 13^th” remake, this is the first one that I saw of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise, and just like the “Friday the 13^th” remake, I hated this remake. I hadn’t even seen the original movies, and this one made me hate the remake, noticing how poorly it was made. Also, Jackie Earle Haley sounds exactly like he did in “Watchmen.” Are his vocal cords just used to speaking that way, or can he not even try and imitate the way Robert Englund made Freddy sound? I don’t know, but this movie was just superfluous. They shouldn’t have made it. If you want to watch any of the movies, the first, third, and “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” are the ones that are the best. You can watch the other sequels if you want, but this remake is, hands down, the worst in the franchise.

Well, we have finally reached the end of our “Elm Street-a-thon.” Sorry we had to end off on a bad note, but we have finally made it through. Check in later today where I review another movie that is a horrible sequel to a nice, dark movie. I know I have looked at a lot of those, but this is one that I feel like I should share my thoughts on in this year’s “Halloween Month.”