10 Exact Moments Horror Movies Stop Trying

Much like the 2007 Halloween and 2009 Friday the 13th, the Samuel Bayer-directed 2010 A Nightmare on Elm Street tried and failed to reboot and revive an iconic slasher franchise, modernising it for a new generation by dampening the colour palette, sapping out the humour and making its villain more ho-hum.

We join the occupants of Elm Street in the current millennium, stalked in their dreams by an ugly new Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley) with a burned face, a gardening glove, and a vendetta. But when the dreams begin to creep into reality, and people start dying, young Nancy Holbrook and her friend Quentin Smith (Rooney Mara and Kyle Gallner) must uncover the secret of how their parents torched Freddy, the preschool groundskeeper, on suspicion of paedophilia with scant evidence. This Nightmare gives proceedings a unique and interesting new angle by making us feel sorry for Freddy, and potentially changing the entire story in the process. Until it doesn't.

The story thread of Freddy being a victim of his own society, burned to death by reactionary parents who have mistakenly accused him of terrible things, is scuppered in a single moment. Unwilling to sustain the righteous vengeance storyline, the film reverts to type and has Quentin and Nancy find hard evidence that Freddy was indeed a child molester. Cue the same old final battle. What could have been horror’s answer to Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt becomes instead routine and forgettable.