A Nightmare On Elm Street Review

A Nightmare On Elm Street Review


After Hollywood starts running out of foreign horror films to remake they turn there teeth upon the classics. Friday the 13th was done, The Things upcoming but now there's this mess.

Samuel Bayer in his first feature directional chair helms this remake and with a last name so close to another director that scares me I didn't know what to expect.

With a mixture of all of the Elm Street movies, but basically a retelling of the original by Wes Craven (Scream) the film revolves around high school teens that are dying in their sleep. Rooney Mara (Youth In Revolt) plays Nancy Holbrook who discoveries she is the main target of the villain in her dreams trying to kill her, Freddy Kruger; played by Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen.) The only way herself and her friends can keep from Freddy's razor sharp hand is to stay awake, but they search for a long term solution.

The plot being so close to original could have worked, unfortunately it doesn't. Boring characters and horrible writing are the main problems but even then the whole film seems like shots of people waking up screaming and thats it.

Robert Englund (1000 Maniacs) brought such a playfulness to Freddy in all the originals that you enjoyed him on screen. Freddy wasn't an evil like demon, he was a freak, he enjoyed his killings and his sometimes quirky one liners where part of his character. Here he is nothing more than a murdering maniac with the only personality being brought in the flashback scenes. The aim seems to have been 'make Freddy evil' and it doesn't work and shouldn't have been attempted.

The acting is OK considering the material the cast was given, but the characters are unforgivably boring and i wanted them to all die so this movie would end. There's recreation of infamous scenes from the original like the bathtub scene but it all makes this more sloppy. Fan's will most likely hate this and newcomers won't get much out of it, this is not scary or entertaining.

Acting: 5.5

Writing: 3

Direction: 2

Production: 6

Overall: 4.0