'A Nightmare on Elm Street' (2010) review

Synopsis:

A bunch of 'kids' are stalked in their dreams by a mysterious burned figure in a red and green sweater.

Thoughts:

Remakes are just going to happen. They've been around since the early days of cinema. They happen. Sometimes they work out well, providing a different perspective on a familiar story. Sometimes they're a waste of time.

This movie was the latter.

Now, I'm not trying to argue that the original Nightmare from 1984 was the Best Movie Ever. I don't have it memorized or anything like that. I do enjoy Robert Englund's performance as Freddy in general and going into the film, that was my biggest concern regarding it. As it happens, Jackie Earle Haley's spin on Fred Krueger is a solid one. He's a little too quiet and a little too sane for my tastes, but he works well as the type of Freddy he's playing.

It's the rest of the movie that's the problem.

Now, I understand the concept of the formula. Certain types of movies tend to follow a pattern because the pattern works. This remake starts out acceptably, following the standard horror pattern, and then it just gets in a rut. It fails from the beginning by both following the standard pattern too closely, trying to be itself, and trying to reflect the original source material too strongly. It doesn't get the mix correct. It doesn't seem to know if it should be a movie that stands on its own or something that will only be watched by existing Freddy fans that will want to cut to the chase, so to speak.

As the original, the movie starts with a dream attack but the remake goes further. Instead of establishing the weird world we're getting into, it goes right for the throat, literally. It blunts the impact of the moment because it happens to a character we don't know and, therefore, don't care about.

This process continues for most of the film. We have characters that are just there, ever so loosely sketched in, and their eventual demises lack impact. While we meet the main characters in the first scene of the film, they rarely appear on screen until about halfway through the film. As a result, it's difficult to like them. The characters aren't built up together, giving the film a certain 'Psycho' reference point as well. It feels like two stories slightly connected instead of one arc.

The casting is poor as well. One of the main characters is supposed to be 17 but looks over 30. Most of the characters are that 'I'm 25 playing a teenager' look and that's fine. None of them fit together. Even the adults are a rough bunch. No one's too awful but no one really clicks. Our two main characters do a little by the end of the film but it's too little too late.

Being unable to care about the characters made the story that much more obviously muddled. There's an attempt to add more backstory to Freddy but that just made it more complicated. The premise is that Freddy was a groundskeeper (like Willie, who played him in that Simpsons Treehouse of Horror?) at a pre-school. He was accused of being a child molester and the parents hunted him down and burned him alive.

So, why does Freddy wait 12 years or so to get his revenge on these people? Just because the adults all stopped talking about Freddy, how does that mean that 20 or so kids in the class forgot all about this as well? Not only that, but it turns out that all the main characters forgot they went to pre-school together. I understand that they wouldn't all remember, I mean who remembers everyone they hung out with at age 5, but one of them doesn't? Why is the preschool still standing all these years later? If the adults were that bothered by the events and wanted to blot Freddy out, wouldn't they have the building torn down? In Milwaukee, we had a situation with an individual that killed a bunch of people and the apartment building he lived in was torn down within a year. The kids spoke about Fred's 'secret cave' but the adults couldn't find it. Once the main characters visit the pre-school basement, they find it in two minutes. In their defense, they've been there before, not that they remember it, but it's not exactly well hidden. Did the adults just not look? If they've tried to blot these memories out, then why did Nancy's mom keep a copy of their pre-school class picture? It's hidden but looks brand-new. It also conveniently has a list of everyone's names on the back. In typewritter. It looks like it's from the 1970s, not the 1990s.

One of the dream sequences explains much of Freddy's backstory. It starts as a dream attack sequence but then the character being attacked disappears. In theory he's supposed to be watching all this happen but he's not around to see anything. We see him briefly, the flashback starts, and he disappears. It looks like it was supposed to be just a flashback sequence and they tried to edit it into a dream sequence.

To wrap up, the movie is a mess.

There are bright spots. One attack in a pharmacy works well, being both stylish and creepy. There's another excellent effect near the end involving a hallway that works well. There's a haunting moment involving floating and a white dress as well. There's a neat moment when Freddy's voice floats around the speakers like the Ghost Host in the Haunted Mansion. These moments are too far and few between. The remake does try to reflect the original but the original version of those references are generally scarier and more solidly performed. In fact, after seeing the remake, we returned to my buddy's house and watched the original. It was better all around. The characters are developed. The attacks are creepier. The story fits together a bit better.

Honestly, skip this in the theatre. If you're really curious, wait until you can see it cheap. That way you're wasting more time than money.

Recommendation to avoid.