Review of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) by Elan K — 27 Oct 2016

Do people judge horror remakes too harshly? That was a question I asked myself a handful of times during the runtime of this movie. So many people have slandered not only this film but also the Friday the 13th and Halloween reboots and well, though they aren't great movies by any stretch of the imagination, I don't think they're all bad (except for Friday the 13th).

So A Nightmare on Elm Street is the reboot to the 1984 classic and follows a handful of teenagers as the uncover the truth behind a child rapist who has been haunting them in their dreams. Now this movie is riddled with problems starting with its story, now we begin our tale basically in the midst of Freddy seeking revenge on the Elm Street kids, however there is really no explanation for when this started to occur and as with the other movies I found myself questioning exactly how long have some of these characters been battling Freddy.

Is like when you turn a certain age suddenly Freddy starts appearing in your dreams? I don't know, it's a problem and a question thats never been solved through the entirety of the series. So the story itself isn't all bad, I think it is kind of cool how all the parents in Springwood banned together to hide the memories of when their kids for little and I really thought we were going to get this awesome team up with all teens of Springwood who were molested by Freddy as it seemed they were going down that route but they took an easy way out and just declared the only surviving teens are Nancy and Glen.

.. I mean Quentin. Also the film lacks consistent story telling with the creators focusing too much on these two characters early on that I felt no attachment for Rooney Mara's character come later on in the film when the shit goes down.

The biggest things the movie suffers from is the wooden acting and god awful dialogue. I mean most of the time it seems the actors/actresses are just pointing out the obvious or just saying some really dumb/melancholy shit and it gets old real quick.

Now the reason most people watch these films is to see Freddy and for the first time in a Nightmare film he is depicted by someone entirely new, Jackie Eare Haley and well I feel he got the laugh down? Now he wasn't horrible and I'm sure he tried his best to work with what he got but I just felt he lacked the charisma Roberta Englund brought, but that should expected.

Englund had many sequels to work with Freddy and mould him into the wise cracking, asshole, killer we know to love. This time around because this film was going for an ultra realistic approach it seemed proper to make Freddy look like an actual burn victim and well that didn't really work, I appreciated the thought but they should have just stuck to what was safe, like they practically did with most of this film.

Listen I totally understand this is a reboot and the point of a reboot is to honour what came before it but also try something new and I felt they tried the new things in all the wrong places, rather than recreating some scenes shot-for-shot, they have toned down the amount of blood and grittiness in the movie, I get this film was released in a time where every film had to go for a realistic approach but I like some sugar with my rice krispies (I have no idea what that phrase is supposed to mean, I apologize).

New Nightmare proved that you don't need an overabundance of blood or grit to be frightening, the movie worked because it didn't rely on predictable jump-scares to scare its audience, it knew what it was and was still able to be charming.

That was one of my biggest problems with this movie is it being too serious and thats what I wish most reboots would get, not everything is meant to work when it's dark and gritty and this film proved my point, I still like to have a bit of fun while watching teenagers get chopped up.

On a less serious note, I've stressed this for practically every sequel to the original and it is no exception for the reboot, why couldn't they integrate the original theme into the movie? I mean you hear a small sample at the beginning and hoped for more of it but it never came up again and that was seriously a bummer for me, I love that theme.

So A Nightmare on Elm, nobody called for this reboot but we still got it and it's a shame that most kids my age this'll be their first introduction to Freddy. This film lacked any or all charm the original had and though it did have some good things going for it, like some alright story plots and great atmosphere, it doesn't shake the feeling that this film was solely made to cash in on eager fans ready to get more Freddy action, I hope one day we get some good horror slashers back to the big screen that isn't produced by Platinum Dunes, A Nightmare on Elm Street the reboot gets a 4/10.