October Horror 2011: Day 12 - Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Edit, 6/30/2014: So I messed something up here. It had been a few years since I'd watched the original Nightmare so it wasn't exactly fresh in my mind. The whole plot from the remake regarding the original kids' connection to Freddy was a pure invention of that film. In the original this didn't happen at all and Krueger was a straight child murderer, not an accused molester. For some reason I had thought this plot existed in the original but was left ambiguous in the sense that the kids accused him and the parents took out their vigilante justice but it was never confirmed and the remake messed it up by making it a did-he/didn't-he mystery that was confirmed as he did. Adding the molestation at all still adds a dimension of sexual deviancy to the character but it also changes Freddy's motivations completely. This time around he's simply seeking revenge on kids who told their parents what he had done, leading them to kill him. However in the original, Freddy's connection to the kids was through the actions of their parents who killed him after he was acquitted of murder, very much visiting the sins of the parents upon the children old testament style.
So I got it wrong about the ambiguity since that plot was never in the original film, but I think the point about the backstory change is legitimate because he's still a less interesting character when he's out for simple revenge on the kids who led to his being caught for child-boning. The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise began in 1984. The first movie, and most of the series was written and directed by horror magnate Wes Craven.  The series spawned 9 sequels, including a cross over with Jason Vorhees.  However, the series lost steam and the final Freddy-only movie was 1994's New Nightmare.  Freddy was dormant again until 2003 when Freddy Vs. Jason was released.

Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes company produced this 2010 remake, which was written by the writer of the Doom movie and the directorial debut of Samuel Bayer (who had previously only done music videos).  Robert Englund didn't reprise his role as the iconic Freddy and was replaced by Jackie Earle Haley, fresh off roles as Rorschach in Watchmen and George Noyce in Shutter Island.

Background aside, I really hate this movie.  I think it's one of the worst major productions and an absolute affront to one of the most iconic horror franchises ever.

The movie relies far too much on jump scares, which really devalues the more atmospheric scenes in between jump scare scenes.  Each individual scene is actually pretty well put together, but the movie as a whole never comes together.  There's just not a lot of tension, and even though the nightmares look very good they don't serve to be scary or unnerving in any way.  This is probably because of a dependency on CGI, which I don't normally find too much of a detractor but here it just doesn't look very good.

They also changed the backstory of the Freddy character to make him more blatantly evil, instead of the ambiguous nature of the original Freddy.  His characterization is also more of a nasty, sexual, and aggressive monster and less of a mischievous and silly but also warped and dangerous.  Some of the glove mannerisms contributed by Haley are a nice addition but the lackadaisical delivery of the lines makes it seem like Freddy's taken a horse tranquilizer and is trying to get some ass before he passes out.  The changes to the character really remove the dynamic nature that separated him from the lumbering beasts that ordinarily inhabit the slasher genre, and without that everything seems a bit mediocre.

The original movie's effects aren't even that bad.  The fashions are a bit dated, but the movie certainly doesn't feel as old as some of the others from the 70s and 80s I've watched.  It's well worth watching over this.  This is just...not interesting, not scary.  It may have worked better if they'd invented their own supernatural slasher, but new-Freddy can't hold a candle to old-Freddy and it brings the remake down to "generic".

Next up, a trip to the Theatre for Fright Night.