"One, two... Freddy's coming for you...."Oh please no more Nightmares.
The highly successful franchise has seen a total of seven sequels to the original A Nightmare On Elm Street, so the producers decide it is time to do a remake and reboot - a reflection of current film making trends I'm afraid.
But how do you take a novelty idea from 1984 and rejuvenate it for today's audiences when it has all but worn thin?
The idea of course is to reinvent, to update on the original to fit the times. Unfortunately, this 2010 version fails on both counts, making for an ultimately plodding storyline with cheap and predictable scares.
To be fair, this is indeed a basic remake, with only a few major changes from the original. The characters are more or less the same. The major difference is the serial child killer in the original has been relegated to a maybe only child molester (I know, what in the world...?).
And of course there is Freddy Krueger, the masterful and iconic Robert Englund now replaced by Jackie Earle Haley, who was himself incredible as Rorschach in Watchmen.
I still remember as a kid, how a classmate of mine fervently did his own impression of that scissorhand arch villain - complete with hat, glove and claws - and he called himself Freddy.
This was the effect Freddy Krueger had on scores of young lads throughout the world for a good decade and more.
This new Freddy unfortunately, lacks character. The face looks too plastic, though that is supposedly done to more closely match those of burn victims.
No teenager or otherwise is going to be inspired or truly frightened by this Freddy, certainly not when Freddy lookalikes, parodies and caricatures have been around for over two decades.
Yes. Hide that face a bit more, because Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger doesn't quite... cut it....
Rooney Mara and Kyle Gallner play the only two characters in the film with any personality at all....
Do not fall asleep in class, or Freddy's gonna get you....While there is little to take away from this reboot, the production value is nonetheless quite decent. The cinematography and sets are also pretty good, though an over-reliance on poor CGI tends to let the film down.
The supporting cast are forgettable, underdeveloped, or just plainly Freddy fodder. Only the two leads, played by Rooney Mara as Nancy and Kyle Gallner as Quentin, give any favourable performances at all.
Reviewers slam Mara's "wooden acting", but I disagree. I have known girls like that - shy, hesitant, unsure of how to express themselves - and to see two atypical teenagers fighting off a nightmare villain is exactly how you want you want horror flicks to be.
And the jury will have to be out on the new Krueger. Clearly the new makeup has created a stumbling block, but Haley is a talented actor, and had there been an expansion on his backstory, his performance just might have worked.
Unfortunately, the film chose to introduce precisely that, then inexplicably abandon it in the end for a silly twist that fooled basically no one.
Haley is signed on as Freddy Krueger for another two installments, so I'm hoping he really gets to make that role his own, to give it a new lease of life.
Because otherwise, like a broken record that keeps on playing, this could be one reel Nightmare that really never ends....
Moometer Reading:
Moo?
Moometer Reading:
Moo?
Query for:
? No sense of direction: Seriously, Director Samuel Bayer has to take responsibility for this one. The story was already there, all he needed to do was to plan some new and interesting scares and kills. How is it possible that one could visualise a story actually worse than the original? And while it's fine to create a darker, more serious Freddy, what about giving this Freddy some meaning for being so? It's one thing trying to fill a big pair of boots, quite another to just make a simply bland and boring film.
