10 Awful Horror Movies With One Brilliant Kill

7. A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) - Dr. Gwen Holbrook

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers John Strode
Warner Bros. Pictures

2010's fresh take on A Nightmare on Elm Street has extremely little going for it bar one particularly impressive kill.

One of those countless remakes that simply didn't need to happen, this Elm Street do-over does nothing to justify its existence. Forever feeling like a carbon copy of the template laid out by Wes Craven with 1984's original A Nightmare on Elm Street, Samuel Bayer's picture stumbles through the same loose narrative as the '84 film, just with less of the practical SFX charm and uniqueness of Craven's offering.

Plus, poor Jackie Earle Haley was never going to live up to Robert Englund's Freddy Krueger - even if this redo added an extra layer of sinister by making Haley's Freddy a child molester rather than 'just' a child killer.

Still, you're hear for the one brilliant kill of the Elm Street remake, right?

That one moment of brilliance comes right at the movie's close, with Rooney Mara's Nancy having seemingly toppled Krueger. Home from the hospital, Nancy then witnesses her mother Gwen (Connie Britton) brutally slaughtered by Freddy; him appearing in a mirror and running his infamous blades through the back of Gwen's head and out of her eyes.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.