A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Oh, Freddy, where art thou?
I grew up on the Nightmare movies. They were the first scary movies I was actually allowed to watch. Ok, maybe I wasn’t necessarily allowed, but over time my parents finally gave in and bought me tickets for each opening weekend. I was so excited to hear about this new re-imagining, I could hardly wait. It was hard to picture anyone other than Robert Englund playing Freddy Krueger, but if someone else had to do it, there is no better person than Jackie Earle Haley. I knew going in that they were taking a darker look into the life of Freddy, Jackie can play dark. So, I kept waiting, but I never really got the feel for this story. I never saw Freddy.
The whole reason why I love Freddy is because of his humor. He’s scary, but can still make you laugh. The campiness of Nightmare is the foundation for the franchise. This version completely lost all humor and ended up falling flat in doing so. Serious and Freddy didn’t mix. We know Freddy’s background, but to dwell on it from the kids point of view was overkill. They lost me after the first scare. I even found myself yawning.
The scares were dragged on too long which also lost the audience’s momentum.
(Spoilers ahead).
The closet scene seemed like a Halloween rip off to begin with, then it went on and on and on and on. By the time the scare finally happened no one even jumped. Timing is key to horror and the timing of this Nightmare was just a tad bit off. The only thing that really got me was before the opening credits. Everything else was too predictable and drawn out. The screaming girls in front of us stopped screaming by the middle of the movie. Dark isn’t always scary, sometimes dark is just sad. We love Freddy, so we don’t want to side with the kids. The focus on his crimes made him pathetic not scary.
I really think they lost a lot by not letting Jackie run with the character. It seemed like they were reigning him in too tightly. He could have done wonders with Freddy, but you could feel that something was holding him back. Studio pressure? New director? Too young of a cast? I’m not sure what it was, but I couldn’t have cared less about any of the characters. Which is sad because I thought all of the actors had a lot of potential. They each brought a great look to their character, they delivered the lines just fine, but there just wasn’t the chemistry needed to make a good cast great.
I think the whole story tried throwing out too many twists which was the reason it lost our attention. For instance, they really missed it with the bathtub scene. If you’re going to tease about that iconic Nightmare scene, do it. Don’t start it and then end it in the pool. We didn’t care about the pool scene, the water should have stayed in the tub.
All in all I was really disappointed in this film. Maybe if it was just another horror movie it would have been ok. But, as a Freddy fan (the only horror character I love) they lost me after the diner.
Rated R for strong bloody horror violence, disturbing images, terror and language.
