The ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ series has had its up and downs through its legacy with Freddy Kruger cementing himself as a top horror icon. The last couple of Elm Street films, aside from Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, had been subpar and we even got the highly anticipated crossover film of ‘Freddy vs Jason’ which, although it did very well financially, it fell a bit flat compared to what the audience expected. With the decline of the series, Hollywood decided to hit the reset button on the franchise and remake the horror classic for a new generation. Does this new take on A Nightmare on Elm Street along with a new Freddy come anywhere close to the original Classic?
One thing that fans of the original Nightmare on Elm Street series associated with the franchise is the portrayal of Freddy Kruger by Robert England which gave the horror icon his memorable personality. This time around they handed the role to Jackie Earle Haley. Most people would say that this could be the decision that strayed them away from enjoying this movie but after revisiting the film I would not put that much weight on the casting of Freddy. In my opinion, Haley did a good job bringing his own take to the character and gave Freddy a menacing presence in this film. What did bring this film down for me was the writing, the reliance on redoing iconic scenes from the original film and the design of Freddy’s face. They wanted to structure Freddy’s face to look more like a real burn victim but they decided to dial it back a bit due to some people being too creeped out, although that seems counter-intuitive for a horror film.
As I mentioned before this film relies heavily on remaking some of the iconic scenes from the original Nightmare on Elm Street. As much as I like paying homage to the source material, this kind of felt like a cop-out to me. They could have taken the key elements of the franchise and do something unique to separate themselves with their own identity in this film but they just take the easy way out. They use scenes like the classroom dream sequence, the bathtub scene and the “dragging the bloody body bag” visual but they all seemed to fall flat and did not fit some of the scenes they were placed in which made them seem very forced. One scene that was remade poorly was the “coming through the wall” scene where Freddy is coming out of the wall over Nancy’s bed before she wakes up. In the original film, they use stretched out latex on the wall with an actor pressing on it to give a realistic look while in this remake they go the CGI route which looked weak and was probably more expensive than just doing the same method they did in 1984.
A huge set back for this new Nightmare on Elm Street was the way they treated the back story of Freddy in this film also. Instead of the going the child murderer route they went within the first film they decide to dive deeper into him being a child molester and is not haunting the nightmare of the children he touched because their parent burned him alive. What got me even more confused with this direction was when halfway through the movie, one of the kids he was haunting actually tried to make a case that Freddy was an innocent man and was hunted down and killed unjustly. That all resulted in nothing however since they finally went to investigate his “cave” and found a bunch of naked pictures of children. I guess making him look too much like a real burn victim is off the table but child molestation is fine.
This movie is not the worst Nightmare on Elm Street ever made and does have some high points including Jackie Earle Haley’s performance and some very gory death scenes. Where it does fall flat is in the writing and the reliance on remaking instead of reinventing. This movie is worth a watch, however, at least to compare Andre contrast the different Freddy performances. Grab some gummy worms and energy drinks and try not to fall asleep as you enjoy 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.
