The great innovation of Blu-Ray apart from the enhanced picture and sound quality, of course is the ability to watch a film in 1.5 times the speed without losing sound or dialogue or distorting picture quality. I have been tempted in the past to watch films like this 'The Bounty Hunter' and 'Transformers 2' pushed me close but I always resisted. To my surprise and sadness, the remake of
'A Nightmare on Elm Street' has the sorry distinction of being the title I debuted this feature on, after forty minutes of scare-free, unimpressive, unoriginal boredom. From a project that had such potential given the richness of the subject material and the history of Freddy Krueger that was never fully explored in the original, plus the advancements in special effects and the divine casting of the brilliant
Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy, this remake somehow managed to miss the mark by a mile on every single area of promise. The film starts with a lacklustre opening in a roadside diner on a rainy night that lacks the tension and eeriness that pervade the original Craven classic. The one saving grace is we get to see Twilights brick-shithouse
Kellan Lutz throat sliced by Jackie Earle Haleys Freddy, who is given complete exposure around the five-minute mark. Whereas classics of the horror genre, 'Jaws', 'Alien', 'Halloween' and the original 'Nightmare' created suspense and fear through delaying the reveal of the monster, contemporary remakes seem to believe that revealing him/it in the opening real is the way to go. Perhaps this says a lot about the perceived attention span of modern audiences or a studios concern for the key demographic of 15-25 year olds, many of who flocked to see the new 'Nightmare' on the opening weekend before being unimpressed and warding others off.
A poor opening scene is followed by a funeral where we are introduced to the people of Elm Street and their children who went to school with the murdered Lutz, who hadnt been right lately. Theres his girlfriend
Katie Cassidy takes over from Amanda Wyss as the hot blonde the on-edge psycho
Thomas Decker: looks of Gael Garcia Bernal, charm of a damp teacloth the dark, troubled guy
Kyle Gallner, trying and failing (embarrassingly) to be Johnny Depp and then we have our new Nancy (this time Holbrook instead of Thompson, no idea why) played by
Rooney Mara recently seen as Zuckerbergs ex in The Social Network who unlike the original Nancy is cold and spends most of her time sat on her bed doodling. Her performance is wooden and uninspiring, which is in keeping with the rest of the talent on show, who although arent helped by a pitiful script, turn in performances that are akin to an off week at an amdram class.
But the biggest disappointment of the piece is Freddy. When Jackie Earle Haley was announced as the replacement for
Robert Englund the one true Freddy! I was excited. Since his surprising comeback in 2006 after thirteen years in the acting wilderness, Haley has consistently impressed in a number of distinct and dynamic roles. And while one could draw parallels between the role of Freddy Krueger a child molester and the character he played in 'Little Children' a recently released paedophile who indecently exposed himself to children which Haley won an Oscar nomination for, the parts are very distinct as are the genres. In
my recent interview with Haley I asked what kind of preparation he did for the role, to which Haley said that after studying serial killers and the psychology that surrounds them for a while, he abandoned it with the realisation this was not a character study about a child molester who was burned alive, but a film about a larger-than-life boogieman with supernatural powers who was haunting children in their dreams. For me, this was his fatal flaw. And the flaw of the film as a whole. While one must respect the character of Freddy Krueger and the genre that he exists within, we have seen that Freddy before. There is nothing new or interesting about Haleys take on the character and his interpretation bares closer resemblance with the Freddy of latter Elm Streets: the wisecracking cartoon. This can be best seen when Nancy falls into a puddle of gunk and Freddie quips, talk about a wet dream. Hilarious! But wait, isnt this supposed to be a horror movie?
The film does try and explore the history of Krueger and to its credit does actually conjure up some rather disturbing imagery that takes you into the twisted mind of a paedophile teenage Nancy in an 'Alice in Wonderland' style dress being pawed at (or knived at) by Krueger is a good example of this. We also see the man before he became the monster, when he was a school gardener. We see him playing with the kids and taking them down into the boiler room. And we see the spoken-of but never before shown scene where the parents burn him. This was the main draw for me to see the new movie; I saw the potential in the terrifying and unsettling scenes of seeing what this man did to the children and then seeing the fiery retribution he receives. But once more the film gets this wrong; all the scenes are accompanied with voice over and appear formulaic and mechanical, there to serve as backstory, rather than shock or unsettle or horrify. The entire production looks and feels like a bad episode of the early 90s spin off TV series 'Freddys Nightmares': cheap and un-cinematic. The film moves at a woefully slow pace, with Freddy appearing so constantly that he loses the fear factor. Furthermore the death scenes are nothing more than variations on those from the original, which is a problem that runs throughout the piece. Freddys face and glove trying to break through Nancys wall, or his claw coming out of the bath water are direct rip offs from the original executed differently, which do nothing more than show how special effects have come along.
The blame for this must rest on first time feature film director
Samuel Bayer. He should have identified this problem in the production stage and taken a stance to either create a respectful but stylistically different homage to the original, as Marcus Nispel did successfully with 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and Rob Zombie did unsuccessfully, in my view, with 'Halloween'. Or do something completely different with the franchise as Christopher Nolan did with 'Batman'. His failure to do neither means his debut is a mix of half-hashed original ideas blended with overly stylised homage to scenes from the original which lack the deftness of direction, skill of performance but at least executed with great visual wizardry from the special effects department. I really hope that the films failure to make a major impact at the box office sends out a message to others who are currently raping or planning on raping classic horror movies with modern remakes. Unless you have something original to say about the characters or an original take on the film then leave it alone and invest the money in the development of new, original material and young, burgeoning talent.
'A Nightmare On Elm Street' is available on Blu-ray now.