A soulless, empty and ultimately dull butchering of an iconic classic This film is truly the epitome of what Hollywood has turned into these days: unnecessary remakes of beloved classics by talentless, clueless and uncaring hacks who create nothing but soulless, heartless and unimaginative garbage. It does absolutely nothing whatsoever except show us that Hollywood has well and truly run out of new ideas and is now slowly working it's way through it's back catalogue of great classics, trying to remake (and in turn ruin) all those great films of the past. Wes Craven's seminal 1984 classic is now the one which has been butchered.
Being a huge Nightmare fan, I was of course very upset that a remake was being done by not only the Platinum Dunes/Micheal Bay combo (the worst duo at the moment for horror remakes) but also without Robert Englund returning in his most iconic role. However, I was willing to give this film a chance, hoping that a "re-imaging" would put a fresh new spin on the classic series that had been on the decline for years and needed some fresh blood pumped into it, and hopefully a remake which revitalised the original for a new generation could actually work if it was by the right creative minds. How wrong I was. This movie was actually a lot worse than I could have ever imagined and in the end, could have really done without.
The film is an empty, predictable, gloomy poorly made bore. Wes Craven crafted a truly surreal nightmarish masterpiece back in 1984 and what we get here isn't so much of a scene-for-scene remake but a "re-imaging" trying recapture the essence for a new generation. It ultimately fails, because it seems as if it doesn't even try. It's got nothing- it's just an empty, dirty glass that needs to be thrown away. What the film does have however is a series of crap jump scares after jump scares and these are so lame and predictable that you get tired of them as forces you to watch them every 5 minutes- this is the only way it knows how to scare people- by quick cuts and loud noises; such is the extent it goes to because it hasn't got anything else to frighten with.
Jackie Earle Haley has big shoes to fill in the shadow of Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, and he does try his best but ultimately fails because of the mess of a film he's in. Sure, nobody can beat Englund as he's the heart of the NOES series, but Haley provides an interesting take on the iconic character that could have proved well if he was in a better film. It just doesn't work, mostly because of how incredibly ridiculous the make-up looks. The original Freddy make-up looked terrifying because of how hideous it was and because they shot it well with good use of angle, height and light/shadows- but here, it looks truly pathetic because they don’t use any of these things to enhance it. It actually looks like a cross between a skinless cat and an alien from one of those autopsy pictures- and the first time he is revealed fully was so terrible that I just cringed. It's not scary, whatsoever- it's not a good design and it certainly isn't shot well at all, it is all from high angles which altogether make the quite short Haley look like a midget, and a not dominating force of evil at all. And thus, we cannot be scared of him as an image. Haley however has to act his way to be scary and I think this is the only way he managed to be scary as his voice was particularly creepy as was when he got angry. However, the make-up again got in the way as because it was so poor, Haley can't express himself well in it, and we just get one facial expression from him. Haley's movement and body language was also a nice touch and added to what could have been a different new take on Freddy but there's very little of it and it's all shot in a very bland way. So unfortunately, all of his efforts go to waste...it's a shame really as Haley was actually considered the part of Freddy in the original but lost out to Englund, so fate was good to him to come back to this role, only for it to be wasted in such a poor film.
Jackie Earle Haley ultimatly looks unintentionally hilarious with his alien skinned cat make up, which is a shame as he's the only actor who tries his hardest in this mess of a filmThe principle teenage actors themselves are also some of the weakest cast and characters i've ever seen in a film.; completely and utterly dull. The original movie's group of teens were fantastic in comparison; funny, energetic, happy and full of life- there was variety there and each one was different. But here, we have the most gloomiest, moodiest kids i've ever seen- so much so that it should have been called "A Nightmare on Emo Street"; they have no personalities at all- and i couldn't have told the difference between any if they didn't all look slightly different than each other (blonde hair on the girl, black mascara on the guy...). In fact that are so dull that they aren't even stereotypes because stereotypes would require a personality to identify/classify with and these characters have nothing whatsoever. They are just there, ready to get killed- no emotion, no connection and completely unlikable because they don't do anything. The main protagonist is so dull that I don't understand how anyone could relate to her- this is NOT the Nancy from NOES. Heather Lagenkamp from the original was feisty, fiery and spunky- a memorable character that has made her mark in the history of horror scream queens, but here we get Rooney Mara who is as lifeless, forgettable and useless as a dead plant. In fact, the girl who was at the start, Katie Cassidey, should have played the lead as she was probably the best actress in the film. All the other actors are equally as dull...this movie really has no soul as everything has been sucked out of it, both from the picture to the characters themselves. There's just nothing there.
The direction is awful and the pace is slow and dull but tries to make it up by quick flashy cuts of crap- the worst aspects of a music video director. The visuals are bland and have no creativity behind them. In the original film we got treated to very cool and surreal dream sequences which were very artistically done, here we get absolutely zero effort in them, all we get is the one boiler room backdrop every time someone falls asleep, that's it. No tricks, no cool ideas at all- the Nightmare series is full of cool dream sequences but there is nothing here of the sort. The music is also terrible and completely forgettable. The kills are awful as well- nothing that is hard hitting or particularly gruesome at all- it's all generic death sequences, though quite bloody, are just not effective. It's also got some really bad CGI- which is again a shame, because when the original had nothing of the sort yet still managed to look good, here everything resorts to computers and it looks crap. It didn't even need to be computer generated at times, in fact some shots could have been achieved in the exact same manner as the original and still look just as effective, but knowing Hollywood, they have to think that bigger is better, and here it fails. Some iconic scenes in the original are recreated here with computers and it just looks terrible.
The dream sequences are terribly unimaginative and dull, much like the actors within them. Most of this film didn't make any sense either- things which were illogical in the original now make perfect sense compared to this crap, like- why is there a boiler room in this when Freddy doesn't die in a boiler room in this film? He dies in some random warehouse here, so the inclusion of the boiler room is just so that it can be like the original film? Also- the point of his classic glove was what exactly? Apart from one flimsy visual reference, he has no reason to have this and it's not explained.
What we do get amongst this mess is an interesting little notion that provides some nice depth to Freddy- but again, this is so poorly executed and so half-assed that they falter even on this, and as soon as they introduce it, they mess it up by relieving us of it. What could have been a decent addition to this re-imaging, is altogether thrown out the window.
I honestly have nothing good to say about this film apart from Haley's semi-decent but wasted performance, though even then I am really scraping to find things to like about it. This is just shoddy filmmaking and a completely pointless new version of a timeless classic, and just goes to show that there truly are no good ideas left in Hollywood if all they can do is come up with this rubbish. Samuel Bayer and Platinum Dunes has made a terrible re-imaging of a Wes Craven classic, and i'm not only insulted and pissed off as a Nightmare fan but also gutted that this is what the new generation of kids have to get as the new Nightmare on Elm Street.
The fact that Bayer in the audio commentary has said the the original is cheesy and dated is ludicrous, and yet more proof that he has no idea why the original is regarded as a classic and his new version is one of the biggest pieces of filth Hollywoood have ever resorted to release. He just doesn't have a clue and it shows.
Even some of the bad NOES sequels are better, yes, even Freddy's Dead. You know why? At least that had Robert Englund.
0/10
