Thaindian News

A Nightmare on Elm Street: A bad remake

Rating: 2 out of 5*

Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara and Lia Mortenson

Director: Samuel Bayer

June 5, 2010 (Sampurn Wire):Nancy (Rooney Mara), Quentin (Kyle Gallner), Kris (Katie Cassidy) and Jesse (Thomas Dekker) are a group of high school kids who don’t realize how much they have in common (aside from all of them living on Elm Street). Each one has started to have strange dreams starring a psychopathic dude with a fedora, striped sweater and a glove with knives attached to the fingers, Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley). Freddy is chasing these young kids to exact revenge, and wants to kill each one while they are asleep in dreamland, so they will die in real life, too. But then why does Freddy want revenge?

This reboot of the franchise doesn’t do anything to justify the time and effort. The film clearly lacks imagination, story, good acting and a reason for being.

Director Samuel Bayer and the team have produced a lifeless film that doesn’t appeal to the slasher fan, the horror fan or the fan of good and interesting films. The audience goes from attack scene to attack scene for the first third of the movie without any real attempt by the characters to figure out why they are being chased by this freakazoid with the burned face and knives. Then, as if forced by a conscience or some outside influence, writers Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer half-heartedly start to explore the why and background of Freddy Krueger, but it’s nothing new. They have a chance to make Freddy into a 21st Century villain, but never do anything to make him new, interesting or daring.

Worst of all, A Nightmare on Elm Street has some shocks, but never thrills and amazes. The dream sequences are bland and unimaginative, especially compared to the original!

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a waste of a classic character and a great actor.

-Sampurn Wire