A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

This film is unquestionably an exercise in how to crap all over a horror icon. I may be a little bias as I love the original nightmare. Robert englund also happens to be one of my favourite actors. Even though it felt wrong watching this, I thought I better give New Line the benefit of doubt before passing comment. My biggest worry going into this was unlike the Friday remake where you just have to stick a hockey mask on an actor and go be Jason Voorhees. Robert Englund is Freddy, for eight films and a television series this man has brought the character to life. But take away any feelings I have about Robert not playing Freddy, was this any good? The answer is no! Michael Bay has managed yet again to take a classic and entertaining horror and turn it into an insipid, boring yawn fest. The new Freddy just isn't scary. His face looks plastic, and he sounds like Christian Bale's Batman. Okay kudos have to be given to Jackie Haley for stepping in to the roll of Freddy. Sadly he is let down by some poor scripting and poor film making. Director Samuel Bayer needs to go back to his day job of music vignettes. Every other minute in this he has gone for the quick cheap scare tactic. Turn the music score down low followed by a loud noise. This really is the height of lazy horror film making. Unlike the main characters in the original being friends and going through the nightmare together. There is only one scene in this where they are seen together. Plus there is no attempt of any kind to build any characterisation, so you really don't care when they die. Also there are no real nightmare scenes? No Freddy chases or the classic long arms. Added new angles are micro-naps, where you don't know if the characters are asleep or not? And a totally laughable sub-plot where it seems Freddy may be innocent? Maybe it's a sign that I'm getting old? But I don't need every scene explained to me in dialogue to know what's going on thank you very much. I know this film is aimed at teenagers but they surely can't be that stupid? The only good thing I can say about this remake is that the ending is better than the one in the original. But that is hardly high praise because the ending in the original is the only thing that is poor. Now I get to look forward to the Hellraiser remake. Yay can't wait.