A Nightmare on Elm Street
Screen Rant ReviewsA Nightmare On Elm Street
A Nightmare On Elm Streetis yet another horror flick remaking from Platinum Dunes , the same companionship behind the remake ofThe Amityville Horror , The Texas Chainsaw MassacreandFriday the 13th . Like those picture I just list , A Nightmare On Elm Streetis a slickly - polished but in the end empty sound reflection of what was originally a unique and pleasurable revulsion movie .
In this revamped interpretation , a group of teens in a little township begin to conk out inexplicably in their eternal sleep . Each of the victim confesses to having vivid nightmare shortly before their end - incubus involving a dreaded burned man in a striped sweater who wears a razored glove on one hand . As more victims get add to the body enumeration , two of the teen uncover their townspeople ’s morose secret and the origins of this mysterious ghoul who is terrorizing their dreaming .
What made Wes Craven ’s version ofA Nightmare On Elm Streetso enjoyable was the combination of a scary premise ( a killer who attacks you in your dream ) , imaginative kill go under in surreal dream sequences , and a wonderful villain , Freddy Krueger , played with alternating second of wit , appeal and threat by the now - legendary Robert Englund .
This raw adaptation , directed by euphony video conductor Samuel Bayer , only incorporates one aspect of that strong combination . The premiss is this same , yes , but gone are the imaginative kills and marvellous villain that once made this enfranchisement what it was .
The main trouble ( for me ) was the script , which was written by Wesley Strick ( Arachnophobia , The Saint ) and proportional fledgeling Eric Heisserer . The screenplay forA Nightmare on Elm Streetbudgets its time rather foolishly , and the stumble shows . For starters , the writer chose to give the first half - 60 minutes of the pic ’s 90 minute runtime lay out the assumption : Freddy stalks kid in their dreams and if he kill them there , they go in the real world . Do we really postulate a whole half - hour and multiple elaborate putting to death successiveness to translate this ? Certainly not , but that ’s what we get …
It ’s not even until the third dupe is dispatched ( and the second routine kicks off ) that we really know who the main character of the story are : Nancy Holbrook ( Roona Mara ) and her semi - crush Quentin O’Grady ( Kyle Gallner ) . Nancy is the weirdo Goth artist of the mellow school pecking purchase order , and Quentin is that nerveless kid jock who secretly trap for her - not that any of this matters . By the time the photographic film at long last centers on its two leads , we ’re already too far into the blood , gore , and " mystery story " to care . Nancy and Quentin are merely vessel that carry the story of Freddy Krueger along and that ’s about as much maturation as they get .
After wasting 1/3 of the movie set up a premise that could ’ve been explain in minutes , the screenwriter then opt to drag the second bit of the film through a whodunit sub - patch necessitate the origins of Freddy Krueger and his vendetta against the teens . This sub - plot attempts to inject the account with " originality " by forcing us to writhe with doubts about who Freddy Krueger is and what was done to him ; but by the third act , most of those dangling screw thread are cut and the entire " mystery " becomes another shamefully scourge chance . I do n’t even think there is one killing in the 2d one-half hour of the film - cheap jump scare and half - seethe plot points are somewhat much what we get .
I wo n’t go bad the end , but I will say that for a narration which invested so intemperately in asking who Freddy Krueger is , most of the important write up point - like how did Freddy finish up with these dream powers ? Why did he wait so long to reappear ? What exactly does Elm Street have to do with any of this ? - are left to speculation - or spoiled , a subsequence . It ’s only indolent storytelling .
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a remake of Wes Craven’s ‘80s horror movie of the same name, released in 2010. The remake, this time starring Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger, follows the same premise as the original, with Freddy haunting the dreams of the children of the parents who murdered him.
By far the worst offense though is the young take on Freddy himself . Robert Englund ’s Freddy was an unapologetic speculative guy - so evilness in living that not even death could contain him . The character was simple , effective , and fun to watch in the fashion great villains are . The new Freddy is simply … creepy . By trying a ' naturalistic and humanizing approach path ' the newElm Streetactually deflate the repugnance icon , leave us with a Freddy who is more off - putting than engaging .
Speaking of the razor - feel man in the striped shirt , I ’ll say this upfront : Jackie Earle Haley ( Watchmen , Little Children ) is not a bad Freddy Krueger . To the contrary , in the menace department I think Haley far outshines Mr. Englund . The new Freddy is a Isidor Feinstein Stone - insensate killer , stripped of all the winking liquid body substance and over - the - top theatrics . This is not a guy you want to take on in your dreams , ever , for any reason . And that both enhances and detracts from the celluloid .
Whenever Freddy is meant to be scary , Haley criticize it out of the ballpark . However , whenever Freddy is meant to be light or comic , Haley ( as I ’ve stated ) comes off as awkwardly creepy andElm Street ’s third act is especially off - putt in this path . A full revulsion film use the supernatural as allegory for real - life issue or take - it does n’t take real - lifespan evil and rub your typeface in it . A Nightmare On Elm Streetmakes it clear ( to me ) that while " straining porn " horror might be a pass away trend , the core approximation of that torpedo - genre ( reveling in the pain in the neck of others , be it forcible , psychological or emotional ) is now firmly embed in the repulsion movie landscape painting .
When he was first announced , I thought theatre director Samuel Bayer was going to bring serious creativity to this photographic film , consider his preceding chronicle directing euphony videos . And where there is chance , Bayer does impress with his optic flare - too speculative those opportunities are few and far between . The script pretty much trust on rehashing Wes Craven ’s wonderfully imagined kills from the originalElm Streetor settling for matt and uninspired ambition sequence that the story tries to justify with third act " explanations . " Never has a moving-picture show about dream - the most prolific machine for narrative creative thinking - been so tedious .
The acting ? Meh . Whether it ’s the modelesque faces of the young player ( Mara , Gallner , Katie Cassidy , Thomas Dekker , Kellan Lutz ) or the intimate faces of the parents ( Clancy Brown , Connie Britton ) , nobody really stands out in this film - not even Haley as Freddy , if I ’m being totally honest . Everyone postulate feels like they are requisites of the report without actually being significant to it , and the actors go about their scene as if they themselves are sleepwalking - so it ’s kind of hard to care about whether they ever heat up or not .
We ’ve said it before here atScreen Rantand we ’ll say it again : if you ’re go to refashion a movie , take something new and interesting to it - tell us the story in a way we have n’t see it before . A Nightmare On Elm Streetgets the latter part wrong in its narrative approach and totally disregards the former . Does it ruin Freddy Krueger ? No . Does it revitalize him ? The box seat business office may betoken " yes , " but my heart say the opposite .
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a remaking of Wes Craven ’s ‘ fourscore revulsion movie of the same name , released in 2010 . The remake , this meter starring Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger , follows the same premise as the original , with Freddy haunting the ambition of the children of the parents who murdered him .
