A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Director: Samuel Bayer
Actors: Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara
A reboot of the classic series of horror films has finally come. After rebooting Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Platinum Dunes thought it was time for another horror icon to come back to the screen for a new generation. Of course I am talking about Freddy Krueger, the burned man with knives for his right fingers who kills teenagers in their dreams. This remake of the first film in the series focuses on a group of teenagers who start to be haunted by Freddy and die off one by one. As friends of theirs die off, Nancy (Rooney Mara) and her boyfriend Quentin (Kyle Gallner) try to figure out how all of her friends are connected to her and Freddy.
Let me start off by saying I have always liked this film series. Not for the films themselves but for the idea of a man killing you in your sleep and you die for real. It is a very clever idea from the mind of horror legend Wes Craven. The first film is very dull with Heather Langenkamp giving an awful performance as Nancy. The only grace to the first film is that it was Johnny Depp's first starring role. One of the few films in the series that is good is the third film Dream Warriors because it shows kids fighting back in their dreams against Freddy, though the film is still not amazing. The rest of the series was just the writers doing the same story over and over again. This reboot of the series is basically the original film done over with death scenes from various films in the series. One good thing about this film is Rooney Mara makes Heather Langenkamp look like a coat rack which isn't hard to do. All in all, the film is deprived of any emotion for these characters because, if you have ever scene a slasher film, you know that most likely the main characters film survive and Freddy will be defeated.
Freddy Krueger has never been all that scary to me. The reason being that Wes Craven presents him as a killer with a sense of humor who is always making one-liners before he kills someone. Robert Englund has become iconic for the role of Freddy Krueger, having played him for eight films. Englund was good as the Freddy with one-liners. In this film, Jackie Earle Haley has donned the fedora and glove. Haley has brought a whole new performance to the role and is no longer giving out jokes. He is just a plain killer. I did like Haley's performance in the film and think he was a good choice for the remake.
Platinum Dunes has been rebooting slasher films since 2003 and none of them have been good except for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. This film is probably in between that and the remake of Friday the 13th, which was not at all good. To conclude, if you like slasher movies, go and see this. If you just want to see some cool deaths, go see this. But to the hardcore film fans out there, it is not that good but it's a film you could see with your friends and just have fun with.
Rating: 3
Matt
Let me start off by saying I have always liked this film series. Not for the films themselves but for the idea of a man killing you in your sleep and you die for real. It is a very clever idea from the mind of horror legend Wes Craven. The first film is very dull with Heather Langenkamp giving an awful performance as Nancy. The only grace to the first film is that it was Johnny Depp's first starring role. One of the few films in the series that is good is the third film Dream Warriors because it shows kids fighting back in their dreams against Freddy, though the film is still not amazing. The rest of the series was just the writers doing the same story over and over again. This reboot of the series is basically the original film done over with death scenes from various films in the series. One good thing about this film is Rooney Mara makes Heather Langenkamp look like a coat rack which isn't hard to do. All in all, the film is deprived of any emotion for these characters because, if you have ever scene a slasher film, you know that most likely the main characters film survive and Freddy will be defeated.
Freddy Krueger has never been all that scary to me. The reason being that Wes Craven presents him as a killer with a sense of humor who is always making one-liners before he kills someone. Robert Englund has become iconic for the role of Freddy Krueger, having played him for eight films. Englund was good as the Freddy with one-liners. In this film, Jackie Earle Haley has donned the fedora and glove. Haley has brought a whole new performance to the role and is no longer giving out jokes. He is just a plain killer. I did like Haley's performance in the film and think he was a good choice for the remake.
Platinum Dunes has been rebooting slasher films since 2003 and none of them have been good except for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. This film is probably in between that and the remake of Friday the 13th, which was not at all good. To conclude, if you like slasher movies, go and see this. If you just want to see some cool deaths, go see this. But to the hardcore film fans out there, it is not that good but it's a film you could see with your friends and just have fun with.
Rating: 3
Matt
