Wes Craven's influential A Nightmare on Elm Street joins The Amityville Horror, Friday the 13th, The Hitcher, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as the latest horror classic to be updated for modern audiences by Platinum Dunes, Michael Bay's (Armageddon, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) production company.

To perhaps damn with faint praise, I had low expectations, but they were met. The feature-length debut of renowned music video director Samuel Bayer, who has collaborated with David Bowie, Green Day, Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, and The Strokes, this new "Elm Street" charts a familiar course. Teenagers living in Springwood begin to have disturbing nightmares involving a sadistic burn victim with a red-and-green striped sweater and a metal-clawed brown leather glove, who may or may not have a mysterious connection to their parents and their town's history. There goes the neighborhood.

I was perturbed by Bayer and editor Glen Scantlebury's heavy reliance on jump/"boo!" scares, in which a quiet scene is interrupted by rapid motion and an ear-punishing loud noise. Such moments may raise the pulse, but they are also predictable and trite. Otherwise, though, Bayer acquits himself well. He composes a handful of indelible nightmare images (protagonist Nancy's snow-covered room stands out) and most of the chase sequences are atmospheric and involving.

The cast is satisfactory, which is above average for a Dead Teenager Movie. Kyle Gallner is an attractive, understated actor and he infuses his thin character with charisma and intensity. Rooney Mara plays Nancy as a hesitant, introverted artist and outcast. She is fine. And as the undead man of the hour, Jackie Earle Haley does his best, but is not Robert Englund. His Krueger is more vicious, yet not as frightening or memorable.

Haley's performance represents the film entire: it is an honest try and not without merit, but it cannot help but fall short of the iconic original. See it if you are a fan, but with realistic expectations.

B- (almost a C+)

Awful awful awful. Its as horrible as the Hitcher remake. Its as if the director failed horror 101. They didnt even bother taking their time to set the movie up like in the original. 7 minutes into it and we already saw our first killing so I dont know we its even called a restart rather than a sequel. Theres just way too many things wrong when compared to the original. I remember in the original, the bed scene death was alot more grotesque and bloody while the remake, it just looked too hokey, cartoonish and they kept it less bloody because they want to show Cassidy more as an eye candy.

C+ but still better than the original freddy

Where to start?

It was strange to see so many familiar story and character beats crop up from the original film, and then to see them play out in different, much less satisfying ways. I think I get why they did it - they were trying to separate their Freddy from the comedy one Robert Englund turned into - but they forgot that Freddy in Nightmare 1 was scary and fun. He drew out the kill and made you think the kids stood a bit of a chance. This Freddy just keeps appearing behind or in front of them and almost immediately stabbing them.

Basically, everything they've recognisably taken from the first film is done a bit shitter than it was first time round, and everything new they've brought to the table is just pants (micro naps may be a real thing, but they have no place in a Nightmare film on this evidence).

Case in point: Nightmare 1's ending was a perfect climax. Survivor girl's had all she can take and gets pro-active, sets up booby traps, hunts the fucker down, brings him into the real world and then we see Freddy fall foul of each one before ultimately losing. Very cathartic.

Nightmare redux's ending, they just decided, fuck audience catharsis, let's have the meek girl decide she's got no other choice but to bring Freddy back, and then quickly slice his throat after an aimlessly brief tussle between Freddy, herself and flat faced no chin love interest. Oh, and then let's burn the evidence.

F

The protruding-through-the-wallpaper-above-her-bed gag was much more effective in the original, I must say. The bit was kind of ruined here by crappy CGI.

lol someone gave this an A????

4/10 -> D

I was actually disappointed. I went in with terribly low expectations and was let down. I didn't expect it to be better than the original, but I never thought that I'd get a lame update that copies very memorable and much better done kill scenes. There is not a single ounce of atmosphere the original movie had - NOTHING. The only thing they added - micronaps - is a fairly good idea, but it was terribly handled.

Jackie was OK as Freddy. But the one-liners were awful.

That's actually not the ending of the first film. Nancy was always dreaming, she never pulled Freddy out.

Exactly, though I rate it a C+ (almost a B-). I prefer scary over vicious, and this one was more of the latter.

Waste of time. Haley's a good actor, but he can't hold a candle compared to Englund (then again, Freddy 2010 was severely underwritten so I wouldn't put the blame fully on him). The teens aren't interesting, the kills aren't inspired (except the last one), and the whole Freddy backstory...why did they feel the need to have Nancy call into question whether or not Freddy was a pedophile? For a brief part of the film you actually kind of feel bad for Freddy, to the point where you don't mind him killing the kids. Freddy should only be likable because of his humor. We shouldn't be rooting for him.

*

This new A Nightmare on Elm Street has crappy graphics and at times horrific acting to try and get it's point across which never actually occurs. The scares are here and there but very much predictable. There are a lot of cheesy lines and the first half just is horrendous to watch. The second half is someone better but not entirely. Some of this can be put to the fact that Rooney Mara at least tries to do well with what is given to her but she does not satisfy the threshold. Jackie Earle Haley is weak as Freddy and his lines at times can be even worse than the teenagers. A lot of kills aren't even scary but laughable in how they are shot and performed. Then there is that too sudden ending that is laughable as well. Poor. *

This movie is fucking god awful.

C


As an avid fan of the original, I was always rather skeptical about this film's potential and as expected it wasn't really good. However, despite my biases towards the original, I have a hard time calling this an absolutely horrible movie, especially after having seen horror remakes which were quite a bit worse (I am looking at you, The Hitcher and When a Stranger Calls). Samuel Bayer has a good eye for the visuals and that saves the movie from being terrible. The dream sequences are really well-done and creative, I am not sure how one can deny that. Of course there's an abundance of CGI here, but I didn't think it looked bad.

Now what the film completely lacks is the tension and the dread of the original. You just don#t sense Freddy as an imminent danger here and that despite the filmmakers' effort to make him more cruel and meaner this time around. That brings us to the second point. I am not a huge fan of Freddy the Jokester, but even the first film had its fair share of well-dosed dark humor. The makers removed that humor from the remake completely and that hurt it as well. Of course you don't have to get into the horror/comedy territory here, but what made Freddy's character special even in the first film was that he was a vicious cruel killer who'd occasionally play with its victim and even crack a joke before brutally slaughtering you. Of course the old sequels overdid it, but omitting this from the series completely is taking away part of what made Freddy an iconic figure.

I suppose that brings me directly to Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Kruger. I'm not sure what I can say about that. Haley is a good actor and he really really does his best in the role. But he's just no Robert Englund. I know it is probably unfair of me to judge him in this way, but no actor has ever made a horror film character as iconic as Englund did with Freddy and Haley simply cannot compete with that. I did like what they did with his make-up, though. Unsettling stuff.

Then the victims. They are just expendable altogether. I didn't care about any of the characters, not even about Nancy. This is the reason I am somewhat skeptical about Fincher's casting of Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in the upcoming The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo adaptation. Besides Haley, she was the one to carry this film and she didn't fare well. I didn't care for her. She started out as a bland character and that's the way she was up until the end.

I enjoyed the twisting of the story (was Kruger innocent or not?), the dream sequences (though the death scenes disappointed) and some of the film's atmosphere, though that can be directly attributed to the dream sequences. The rest pretty much falls flat despite the fact that it actually copies a lot of iconic scenes and situations from the original - they still don't work. The film is a perfect proof why certain horror movies should just not be considered for remakes.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

This is quite a boring and unspectacular horror film. Firstly, Jackie Earle Haley is a really bad Freddy Krueger. Not only can I only see Rorshach whenever he's in a film, but also he just gave a bad performance. Secondly, the film wimped out on being original. They should have kept with the 'parents killed an innocent man' plot. At least it would have made the ending more relevant. But mainly, the film was just boring with utterly awful performances from Kellan Lutz and Thomas Dekker. Rooney Mara also seems like a bad actress. I've not seen her in much but she always has the same expression on her face.

Apart from the film not being scary in the slightest, I did like how they told some back story.

D+

Rooney was terrible in this I thought. I didn't like her until The Social Network and Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

I agree, she was horrible in this. Thankfully she made up for it.

I can't even remember her in The Social Network. I will watch Side Effects soon, I hope, and apparently she is good in that.

She is the girl in the opening scene of The Social Network. The one who rejects Zuckerberg. And he tries to add her as a friend in the final scene.

I see. Might have to watch that scene again.

She was really good in Side Effects. I would honestly say her only bad performance came from this movie.

Yeah pretty much. I was so annoyed by her getting the role in Dragon Tattoo after seeing her in this but she surprised me. And while her role in TSN is tiny she made an impression.

I mistakenly watched this again last night because I couldn't remember having ever seen it before. Well, it was just as bad. Rooney Mara only knows one facial expression. Such a bad actress. No idea how she keeps getting work. She is a product of trend-spotting as opposed to talent-spotting.

And the jump scares are truly crap. So loud, but lacking anything scary whatsoever. Jackie Earle Haley does not create an imposing horror character. It's too predictable, and you probably want these teenagers to die because they're all so fucking dopey.

I watched this for the first time too on Halloween. Unlike F13 Which always had room to improve and rightfully combined the best elements of a few films) TCM was of course dated, and Halloween they went in a very different and horrible direction. Here is the unfortunate case the original doesn't feel dated, or really needed improvement on it's formula (Easily the most consistent of most horror franchises) A decent if the franchise never existed, but ultimately weak in every aspect. Englund should have just returned for one more final go or do a FVJ sequel. Would have been much more fun.

But yeah, its pretty much instantly forgettable, or just a footnote to the original. Haley was fine though (He is just so underused, but may have killed it in a ore looser tone.

I think only 2 and 5 are worse. Maybe on slightly below 4 and 6 which were just much more memorable and fun films.