Geekscape’s Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 Review
Welcome to the new Elm Street: a town where kids who are trying to stay awake take relaxing baths, nobody uses Google for some reason and the blades on gardening gloves are made of flint stone. The new Nightmare on Elm Street film hits theatres today and I’m here to tell you that the producers of this movie didn’t spend too much time thinking about why people liked the original movies to begin with. I want to let everyone know that I really, truly tried my hardest to like this film. Freddy Krueger has always been my favorite character of the classic fantasy-horror genre and I really wanted to usher in a new era of new Freddy movies. I forgave it its many misses until I hit a breaking point. What was this breaking point, you ask? Read on to find out why this film is horribly unlikable, why it cheapens what they did over 20 years ago and why, even though it’s Freddy, you probably shouldn’t waste your time. My main gripe? Well, as much as I hate to say it, the original is scarier, the kids actually made better decisions to try and stay alive, and the plot was a little more cut and dry.
Summary + “The Good”
We start out in a quiet, creepy diner (that looks like it’s across the street from the one in Legion) where no high school students would really hang out unless they were a part of this movie. A guy is obviously having some kind of nightmare and Freddy cuts his hand in his dream, he wakes up and his hand is hurt. This is fine, we’re introducing Freddy to a new generation of teenagers who might not have seen this horror classic yet and are just looking for a fun time out at the movies. This is the studio’s target audience. It has to be.
Needless to say, the kid dies in the first scene in front of his girlfriend Kris, played by Katie Cassidy (who does a great job on this film) and we follow Kris through the first part of the film while she’s realizing that Freddy is in everyone’s dreams and that he is real, much like we knew going into the film.
Freddy slowly picks everyone off until we get to know our new Nancy, the one we know will survive. C’mon, I mean, it’s NANCY. Played by Rooney Mara, she’s an adorable mix between Felicia Day and Emily Blunt, and brings some believability to the relationships and characters throughout the film. Nancy is more of an outcast in this version of Nightmare and is a little bit more of the “misunderstood” type, which is fine. She and her love interest Quentin (played by Kyle Gallner which you might know as the star of The Haunting in Connecticut or “Beaver” from Veronica Mars) spend the film trying to stay awake and getting to the bottom of what really happened to Fred Krueger and why he’s tormenting them.
Newsflash: Freddy’s An Asshole
“Why isn’t he my friend?”
After a while they figure something out that the kids in the original 80s film figured out MUCH quicker, and pretty much always knew: Freddy Krueger wants to kill you because he is an asshole. This film deals with the kids trying to prove Fred Krueger’s innocence until they realize he really was actually child molester. Yes, they play that angle up. Freddy Krueger is now mainly a child molester, which is why about 20 angry parents decided to burn him instead of bring him to justice, which is dumb. In the original film, the parents were rebelling against the justice system that had failed them due to a technicality, which is why they killed Krueger once he was wrongfully let out of jail. Oh and also, Krueger had KILLED their children at that point, a MUCH better reason to burn someone alive than alleged molestation.
The Biggest Disappointments
1. Is Freddy Innocent?
The fact that they play a game of back-and-forth regarding Fred Krueger’s innocence takes up way too much time that could have been spent scaring the pants off of children, like the original achieved in much better, creepier and scarier ways. Freddy Krueger in this film is much more of a slasher than the Freddy we all grew up knowing and loving. Part of the terrifying mystery of Freddy Krueger was that he was an unadulterated killing machine with almost god-like powers from the very beginning and if he was after you, you have no idea how you were going to die. Which leads me to…
2. Lack of Creative, Terrifying Deaths — They Didn’t Play With Our Minds
This is how Freddy SHOULD kill people
In this new version, pretty much every death is caused exclusively by Freddy’s glove. This is a huge problem. Why? Because Freddy is much better than that, which makes this film one huge missed opportunity for classic cinematic kills. Freddy has a LOT more at his disposal. In the original film, Freddy sucks people into beds, which (if the original movie scared you) means that when you go to sleep tonight, you’re not going to feel safe in your own bed because it might eat you. I mean in 1984 they were even able to suck a guy completely into a bed, then spew out guts, a lot of blood and gore, and a few bones… instead of just slicing him up all over the place. One image is much more effective than the other, much more unexpected and therefore actually kind of scary/disturbing one. I mean, look at what they did to Johnny Depp in the original (above)! Johnny Depp!!!
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AND THEN…
Really? THIS killed her? This doesn’t even look that bad, there’s not that much blood. Maybe she should eat more red meat.
Katie Cassidy’s character Kris dies in the same way her parallel character, named “Tina” in the original film dies, she spins around in the air and is thrown against walls, and then is finally scratched up fatally by Freddy. I wouldn’t be such a stickler of preserving this scene if the problem with the new one wasn’t WORSE special effects than in the 80s and WAY too many cuts. Let’s take the original Exorcist, for example (when they remake THAT, by the way, I give up on Hollywood): some of the scariest parts that made it one of the most terrifying and memorable films of all time were not made up of a series of fast cuts which barely allow you to figure out what’s going on. They were still shots that persisted throughout a scene that displayed the horror that was going on from far away enough so that you can see everything, but close enough so that you know you couldn’t escape. Almost like you were there. This scene was horribly botched in the remake because of the series of cuts that ruined the flow of what could have been a really disturbing scene. Also, it really doesn’t look like those scratches could kill someone.
3. The Use of CGI
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CGI ISN’T SCARY
The classic scene where Freddy is coming at Nancy through a wall was one of the most landmark, amazing and disturbing scenes in film history. In this new one, it just looks like some of the worst parts of The Mummy.
Would using organic effects or even fake, liquid, blood in any horror movie made after the 90s increase global warming? Is THAT why they never do it anymore? Whatever it is, the use of CGI in this film makes it so that the audience NEVER connects with ANY of the deaths in this remake. Everything is so badly done (I thought Michael Bay had more money than this), that it really takes you out of the scene. This wouldn’t be such a huge disappointment if they hadn’t attempted and then achieved this in a film made almost 20 years ago.
4. The Kids’ Choices
Sure, how are these kids supposed to know what to do when a supernatural being is trying to kill them? Well, I have one question: what fucking world did they grow up in? Kids of this generation have been fed SO many movies like this, that it’s ridiculous when they’re not in their element just a LITTLE bit more when stuff like this happens in movies. It’s almost like having kids in the movie without cell phones.
The kids in the original films had EVERY excuse not to know what to do because every supernatural slasher flick was just being pioneered at the time. The audience didn’t have a better idea of what to do in any given situation, therefore neither did the kids. Ostensibly, every kid in this movie (which does NOT seem like the type of kid to be “too cool” to watch horror movies) has to have seen at least ONE supernatural horror movie. I mean one of the main characters wears a Joy Division shirt for God’s sake. Until the two main characters escape the hospital near the end of the film to try and solve the Freddy mystery, nobody ARMS THEMSELVES. WITH ANYTHING. There is someone apparently after them. Why the hell do they take the time to bring their iPods everywhere, but don’t bring at least a KITCHEN KNIFE?
5. No Comedy
Freddy is a dull, boring slasher in this movie until the last scene, where they (finally) start to have fun with his dialogue. In the original, at least he’s laughing through a large part of it, so that we know that it’s someone that really relishes what he’s doing. Jackie Earl Haley’s Freddy is just sadistic and vengeful, instead of just sadistic. This humanizes Freddy to a point where you’re not sure whether or not to side with him through a lot of the film. Really? We’re on Freddy’s side for a while? Isn’t this whole franchise based on Freddy as an antagonist?
Anyway, they don’t start with the trademark puns/jokes during killing until the end. I don’t think the producers realize that these aren’t just there for camp-factor, they’re there because they make the audience laugh and because someone who is joking around about doing such horrible things to innocent teenagers is a much more disturbing image than someone you feel sorry for throughout 80% of a film.
Too little, too late.
6. No Sex
We can officially call it quits on needless nudity and frivolous, predictable, hilarious, pre-getting-killed sex as a staple of the horror genre. It has been ignored, thrown out the window and buried forever by all the major remakes. Why does this matter? Well, because it’s just a nice homage to where the fantasy-horror genre started. I get that we have to move on, but it used to be that when you went to see horror movies, you were seeing something made for adults — not something middle school kids’ parents can just drop them off at the movies for. So many scenes in this film were neutered. Even the classic bathtub scene.
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7. My Breaking Point — Sound Scares and Lightning-Fast Children
I really don’t get it. When did the horror film community decide that a movie going “BOO!” at you is scarier than disturbing images? This has been a new paradigm in the remakes of any classic horror films. I like to call this type of scare a “Sound Scare”. Loud noises and quick images come out of nowhere for no reason but to startle you, not to scare you. To startle you. I know this point has been driven into the ground, but it’s 2010. I thought we’d get over this after about 10 years of these being a remake’s ONLY source of actual scares… BOO!
Also, what’s with every Bruckheimer or Bay remake of anything horror-related having sound scares involving a child running REALLY fast in the foreground? Where the hell are these kids going so quickly and why? Are they late for something? Why don’t they just walk directly in front of the person who is in this hallway, house, or street? They’re about to stand DIRECTLY in front of and then creep the hell out of them anyway.
Finally…
I didn’t go in expecting a carbon copy of the original, I came in expecting a Michael Bay produced re-imagining; just like you should if you go see this. Here’s the thing, though: it’s FREDDY. Arguably the most beloved character in horror rivaled only by Chucky or Jason, Freddy Krueger has always been the funniest and most creative killer in the horror world. He’s now been reduced to a slasher. No weird, cartoon-like, disturbing, brutal display of power in his kills anymore — just a little slice and dice. I
It also wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t replicated the kills from the original and then just made them WORSE. They didn’t make them look better. With all the technology we have today, they actually made the kills (and Freddy) look WORSE. That’s impressive, considering the easel they were given: one of the most fun, iconic and potentially terrifying characters in the history of film.
Because they included SO many elements and recycled scenes from the original in this new film, it wasn’t a remake — it was a bastardization.
My only hope for the future of the once-beloved franchise lies in the fact that they actually started having fun with the character near the end of this movie; which could mean that in the next one (inevitable) we’ll get something closer to what Freddy movies are SUPPOSED to be: entertaining.
