Maybe it’s because I was six the first time I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street, but Freddy Krueger used to be a lot scarier. To be honest, the video cassette box-art still gives me the willies. Sadly I can’t say the same for the 2010 remake. Formulaic, boring, and everything but frightening—I found myself much like the characters in the film, fighting to stay awake.
Directed by music video auteur Samuel Bayer, A Nightmare on Elm Street follows the same basic storyline as Wes Craven’s original. A group of high school kids try to avoid being killed in their dreams by Freddy Krueger because it will result in their death in reality. Of course, it isn’t without a few minor changes. In the growing attempt to flesh-out villains, Krueger has a slightly-altered back story which supposedly gives him credible motivation. But does a man with a burnt face and gloves with knives really need that much motivation? Sometimes less is more. I mean, can you imagine a ten-minute flashback where we found out why Jaws was such an angry shark? Of course not.
The most notable change in Nightmare is the absence of Robert Englund, the actor made famous playing Freddy Krueger. In his place is academy award nominee Jackie Earle Haley. I’m sure the thought process here was to give some gravity to Freddy’s character, but Haley’s Krueger takes himself a little too seriously. Equipped with an artificially-enhanced deep voice and more realistic burn victim makeup, Freddy Krueger doesn’t seem to have as much fun as his 1984 counterpart. Englund’s performance was genuinely creepy even while cracking jokes.
In terms of fright, this film strives for nothing more than cheap thrills. Heavily relying on jump scare tactics, the same scene seems to take place throughout the entire film: kid falls asleep, it gets dark, we hear Freddy’s claws, and BAM!, something scary jumps out, scene. The film is very much a microcosm of today’s film environment. Watch, rinse, repeat.
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More Information:
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http://nightmareonelmstreet.com
http://www.movieweb.com/movie/a-nightmare-on-elm-street-2010
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179056
