A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010): Review and Discussion

Rob: Okay this may be a bit of a break from protocol, but I didn't make Chelle watch this movie with me.  That would have required a babysitter. However, the urge to discuss this movie is too great to ignore, so here's my take. Also, I'm using the first part of this post as a spoiler-less review, just in case anyone who hasn't seen it is searching for reviews.  The second part will be the usual spoillery discussion you're used to.  Or would be used to if you ever read this blog.

Review:
The Nightmare on Elm Street remake is one of those films that, after a night's sleep, I still can't make up my mind about. I've got to admit to being a former certifiable Freddy Krueger fanatic.  In junior high I had Freddy posters on my bedroom wall and not a week went by when I didn't journey to the basement tv set to watch one or more of the Elm Street films (particularly the first and third installments).  So there was no hope of my ever being able to objectively review the remake.  Every scene I mentally placed alongside its 1980s counterpart to size up.  And there was plently of room for side-by-side comparison.  The remake is littered with references, homages, and downright ripoffs of the original.  Some fell shamefully short, such as the sequence when the shapes of Freddy's face and gloves push into Chris's (Nancy's in the orginal) bedroom wall before being driven away by her waking.  In the original, the light and shadow of the shot did all the work, and made for a creepy, tension-building scene.  In the remake, you get shitty CGI that reveals Freddy's face far too soon, and is played for a cheap jump-scare. However, the remake has its share of scenes that truly improve on the original.  The remake amps up the brutality of the murders, and generally (CGI wall-Freddy aside) improves the special effects.  The blood is copious and satisfying for us sickos who are into that sort of thing.

In terms of story, that's also a mixed bag.  There are tweaks here and there that are really effective, such as bringing some updated dream research into the script in the form of "micro-naps" and insomnia-induced coma.  It was just last week that my wife was reading me some of the same stuff out of National Geographic.  I also liked the repressed memory angle and the childhood connection of the main characters.  The thing I wondered though, listening to the teenagers in the row in front of me who had obviously never seen the original, was if the basic premise even made sense in this telling. The film seems to take it for granted that viewers will go in knowing what the story is, so it doesn't really bother with the gradual reveal that if Freddy kills you in your dream, you die in real life.

Speaking of gradual reveals, I think that's what was really missing in this version. The movie blows its load way too soon.  Half the cast is dead within the first half hour, before they've had much of a chance to interact with other characters, and long before their characters have been developed at all. It's a common complaint with slasher flicks, especially recent ones, but the audience simply is never given a reason to care whether most of the characters live or die.  Nothing is at stake emotionally for the audience, rendering it impossible for the director to build the proper tension that is the horror film's raison d'etre.

The other area in which the film fails due to prematurely blown load is in how Freddy is revealed.  Wes Craven's version was so scary because Freddy stayed in the shadows for so long.  You'd see his silhouette and catch glimpses of his scarred face, but only enough to let your mind fill in the worst parts.  In the remake, it seems they're too proud of Freddy's new makeup to keep it hidden.  And the makeup, although much more realistic, is rather goofy-looking.  In certain shots, it looks great, like he's just been pulled off the barbeque.  But in others, it looks like maybe he's allergic to mangoes and is puffing up.  All-in-all, the new look is less effective.

Having actually written my thoughts down, it seems like hands-down, the movie didn't work.  And honestly, it mostly didn't.  But I didn't leave the theatre disappointed. Never underestimate the power of expectations to influence your enjoyment of a film.  As the common narrative now goes, when I first heard they were remaking the movie, I thought it was a terrible idea and was planning on boycotting it altogether.  My thinking was that you can remake Jason and Michael Myers because they have no personality.  They are movie monsters rather than characters, and although I think Rob Zombie did a good job turning Michael Myers into a character with his remake, he pretty much had a blank slate to work with.  Not so for Freddy.  Robert Englund so completely owned that character that it seemed blasphemous to remake the movie without him.  Then, of course, I heard that Jackie Earl Hailey had been cast and was like, well yeah, he could rip shit up as Freddy.

And he does, albeit in his own unique way.  Physically, his Freddy is not very menacing.  But his creepy-and-not-in-a-good-way factor brought something to the character I hadn't even realized was missing from the original: Freddy as perverted child molester.  The remake really hits hard on that theme, which makes it way more disturbing than your run-of-the-mill kill teenagers because they're copulating slasher flick.  The movie doesn't give Freddy too much dialogue (Thank God) for most of the film, but get that burnt-faced pussy in a room with Nancy and he'll talk your ear off.  Actually, I thought the movie really kicked into gear when Hailey got to show off his acting chops, rather than just chopping up actors (apologies for that last sentence, but I can't bring myself to delete it).  Hailey's Freddy is a twisted bastard.  He doesn't just want to kill you, he wants to squeeze out every little bit of fear he can out of you, then kill you.  Freddy's final scene with Nancy was the only moment when I was transported into the movie and could momentarily cease making comparisons with the original.  And then, the final scene of the film was so good that I left with a much more favorable opinion than I would have otherwise had.

In short, the verdict is that the Nightmare on Elm Street remake is shit compared to the original, not all that good in its own right, but had just enough redeeming qualities that I can't hate it.

Spoilery Discussion:

I'll keep this section brief, but I just can't resist taking this movie to task for some of the utterly stupid plot points that somehow made it past three producers.  First of all, in this version, Freddy works at a preschool.  Fair enough if he was a perverted teacher or something, but what preschool do you know of that hires a full-time gardener and lets him live in its gigantic basement? Second, from the preview, it looked like there was going to be some doubt as to whether Freddy was actually guilty.  And yes, they tried to work that red herring in there, but failed utterly.  One of the teens has a dream in which sees Freddy's death at the hands of the mob of angry parents.  Based on Freddy's single cry of "What do you think I did? I didn't do it," suddenly decides that he and the other five-year-olds must have lied about Freddy molesting them.  Granted, his memories are repressed, but who would take Freddy's word for it?  And why is he instantly so utterly convinced that his father was the bad guy?  Oh yeah, because it's a ham-fisted attempt to sow doubt in the mind of the viewer.  Third, why, if Freddy's whole plan was to keep his favorite Elm Street child awake so long that she would fall into a coma, a permanent sleep in which he could play with her as long as he likes (a plot point I actually like because it does make sense and the idea is scary as shit), why would he then try to kill her like five minutes into the dream?  I could go on and on, but this post is too long as it is.  However, if my many followers (1 and counting) care to add to the conversation, I could be coerced into turning this into a dissertation.