Franchise Retrospective: A Nightmare On Elm Street
A Nightmare On Elm Street (remake)
When ranking the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise, the choice for dead last is an insanely easy one. Marred with stupid plot decisions, imaginless dream sequences and an inability to find any tone that makes sense for the characters and story, the A Nightmare On Elm Street remake effectively signalled the death knell for 80s horror remakes in the late noughties.
And it’s a bad one. So bad. In fact, it feels less like a new entry in the Freddie Krueger franchise than the highly meta Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, which didn’t even feature the clawed killer, instead placing an ancient demon in his guise.
So how did it go wrong? Fuck if I know. I have plenty of material to shit on it though.
Year: 2010
IMDB Rating: 5.2
Budget: $35 million
Opening Weekend: $32 million
Domestic Gross: $63 million
Top 5 Horror Films of 2010:
1. Paranormal Acitivity 2 - $84,660,648
2. A Nightmare On Elm Street - $63,075,011
3. The Wolfman - $62,189,884
4. Resident Evil: Aftermath - $60,128,566
5. Saw 3D - $45,710,178
Hmmmm, not a good movie in the bunch. Nuff said. Though it is interesting, that while critically panned, the movie did manage to make money. Who says cynical cash grabs don’t work?
Director:
Samuel Bayer - Who? He’s done a whoooooole lotta music videos. And no other films. Ok, he did apparently direct the Smashing Pumpkins Bullet With Butterfly Wings video. Rest easy, good sir. You’ve done well.
Notable Cast:
Rooney Mara – She did The Social Network the same year as this and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo one year later. Why did she agree to this then? You didn’t need it, Rooney! Greed! But seriously, she is a great actress, and, she’s….. fine in this.
Clancy Brown – You cast the Kurgan in a horror movie and proceed to do absolutely fuck all with him? Shame. Shame shame shame.
Connie Britton – I’d say the same for her except American Horror Story got started a year later. Still, she was in Spin City before this. Show some damn respect, movie. Although, her and Rooney Mara having a scream-off in the middle of the movie is entertaining.
Jackie Earle Haley – It’s safe to say all anticipation of this movie rested on the casting of Freddie Krueger, and the choice of Kelly Leak, himself, was easily a fan-favorite. He had actually quit acting for over a decade after The Bad News Bears franchise ended, only to return in 2006’s Little Children. He even picked up an Oscar nomination for that role, playing a convicted pedphile. And then they decided to make him a pedophile in this…… Son of a bitch.
Plot for dummies:
Some one is killing teens through their dreams. Duh. But first they all experience nightmares with him. Our first death occurs in a diner, where all our protagonists are gathered. The teen killed had been suffering from self-inflicted sleep-deprivation.
At the funeral, Kris, the girl he had been sort of dating finds a picture of the two of them together when small children. But she doesn’t remember knowing him at that age. Creeepy? Not really. Whatever. She asks her parents. And they say whatever too. She seems to be our final girl.
After more nightmares, the final girl’s ex shows up at her house. Clearly, he thinks getting back with her will save him getting killed in this film. But plot twist, the girl we think is the final girl really isn’t! She dead.
The ex winds up in jail for her murder cause ya, she was killed in her sleep isn’t a very convincing death when her entrails are exploded throughout the room. He tries not to fall asleep, but he does. He dead.
Now we get to the part of the movie where the real final girl…. Oh wait, her name is Nancy just like the final girl from the original. To think I fell for that twist……
Anyway, new Nancy begins to investigate Freddie Krueger. She finds out about other dream deaths throughout the country by accessing the internet in the library. The fucking library? Ok, whatever. She further discovers from old photos in her mom’s storage that she and all the other victims went to the same pre-school.
Her and her mom, played by Connie Britton, have a shouting match over this revelation. It’s real fun. Then they have a flashback together paired with an exposition dump. Yay, family time. Apparently, Freddie Krueger worked at the pre-school they attended, but soon, all the parents find evidence of abuse by his hands.
Nancy’s sort of love interest, Quentin then has a nightmare while at swim class where he witnesses Krueger being burned alive by the parents, all the while professing his innocence, and doing a pretty damn good job of sounding scared. Some real good acting here actually. Good job, Jackie.
Nancy and Quentin seem convinced of Krueger’s innocence, and now running on fumes from the lack of sleep, think the answer to ending things must lie at the old cave Krueger used to take them, where surely proof of Freddie’s innocence is. And if they can find that, he won’t kill them? I guess. Sure, why not?
They get to the cave after slipping in and out of some nightmares as they desperately try to stay awake. There, they do indeed find evidence. But it’s that Freddie IS a child molester afterall. From child molester to innocent, good guy back to child molester. So glad we went on that pointless journey for a third of the movie. It didn’t suck the life out of it at all!
Now that Nancy and Quentin know the full truth, it’s as good a time as any to have the final showdown. Neither really seems to have a plan, as they both fall asleep. Nancy gets creeped on by Krueger in the dream, yada yada yada, they manage to bring Freddie out of the dream world and into the real world and Nancy decapitates him.
The end.
Just kidding, Krueger comes back to kill Nancy’s mom. Cue The Everly Brothers’ All I Have to Do Is Dream. It’s a great song.
So what’s cool about it?
That cold opening sure is great. A nightmarish diner, a creepy waitress, mere glimpses of our killer. And it’s given time, drawing the tension out while we soak in the creepy mood. When Dean slices open his throat to the horror of his girlfriend in the real world, while Krueger dices him up in the nightmare is unsettling and sets a great tone for the film.
The fact that the opening kill also manages to roll in the introduction of our characters and establishes their relationships with each other is clever and really sets the film up for success. It lulls you in. Makes you think, yes, this is going to be at least a solid film. And it’ll usher in a new chapter to the franchise with Jackie Earle Haley as the new face of fear.
On second thought, based on that fact alone, fuck this scene. How dare it raise my expectations like that?
Best death?
Dean’s death. See above.
We lost you far too soon, but oh, was it a grand way to go.
Worst death?
Kris’ death is an incredibly lame way to imitate one of the more memorable deaths from the original. Why would you try to copy something iconic only to have it end ubruptly in such a lame, anitclimactic way? Out of context, this is probably one of the better deaths, but knowing the one it attempts and fails to honor, it just comes up limp.
Best Line?
“Why are you screaming when I haven’t even cut you yet?” Krueger’s one good line.
Honorable mention to the swim coach who instructs the team to be “powerful dolphins off the wall.” Inspiring.
Worst line?
“He’s not after us because we lied. He’s after us because we told the truth.” Cue dramatic chipmunk? I suppose this moment is meant to instill dread in both the characters and viewers after hope once seemed at hand. But we know this movie isn’t going to end with Freddie Krueger being exonerated and everybody singing Kumbaya around his bones on a campfire while Freddie’s spirit flys to heaven. Actually, that doesn’t sound half-bad. Put a pin in that idea for the Pixar version.
Where I differ from most?
I actually didn’t think Jackie Earle Halie was particularly good in this. Sure his character wasn’t given much, and the script basically boils him down to creepy, child-molesting monster in the end. But what does Haley bring to the table other than a movie trailer-esque gravely voice?
The overdone face makeup, while indeed making him look like a burn victim, also robs him of the ability to do any acting with his face making him just look like a broken doll all movie. All-in-all, a lot was working against him, but Haley doesn’t elevate the material given either. Bottom-line, he doesn’t have the physicality or personality to be a convincing or memorable threat.
What’s the biggest lost opportunity?
Undoubtedly, it has to be the cast. Rooney Mara vs Jackie Earle Haley. It should have been the rivalry of our lifetime. And they blew it! They fucking blew it! Goddamn them! Goddamn them all to hellllllllll!!!
What the fucking hell you guys?
Why is Krueger trying to convince Nancy and Quentin he’s innocent of the molestation through showing them flashbacks? Then he just comes right out and admits he molested them? Why? Why did he need to be a child molester? What was the point of that? So every scene could be him creeping on Nancy? Why have Nancy and Quentin blow up on their parents over what they did to Krueger and not resolve or follow up on that at all? Why am I writing about this? What is happening with my life?! Nothing makes sense anymore!
Oh look, a dark, nightmare version of a classroom. How creative.
How would I have fixed it because I’m full of myself and need attention?
A Nightmare On Elm Street needs to be soaked in juicy imagery. This is the first film in the franchise to have the benefit of CGI, and as such, the nightmare scenes are only limited to the imagination of the filmmakers. So why they decided to only have nightmare scenes in boring boiler rooms and empty streets and a fucking classroom is completely beyond me.
The defining feature of Freddie Krueger is the way he plays with his victims like he’s playing with his food. Nobody gets a quick death. Have fun with that. Let Freddie have fun with that.
A movie about nightmares should feel like a nightmare. This movie had some good concepts near the end, with the protagonists slipping in and out of sleep for seconds at a time, never knowing when they’re dreaming or when they’re awake. Keep that tension going for the whole movie. Half the movie should be in nightmares, and the audience should always be guessing when that is and when the kids are safe or when they’re not safe.
Also, you can’t make Freddie Krueger a child molester. You just can’t. The character has always had a certain amount of well, sexual energy to him, but combining that with the molestation sucks the fun out of everything. Know your audience and what kind of film you’re making. Nobody wants to watch this.
It’s a simple concept. Man seeks vengeance from beyond the grave by killing teens in their sleep. Lean into the creative nightmare sequences and don’t convolute the plot with unnecessary twists and turns about his motivation. Put emphasis on the kids. At the end of the day, this is their story. Every great horror movie understands that.
Final verdict?
This film has a few things going for it only because it’s copying the plot of a classic film. Outside the opening scene, all the nightmare sequences are boring and never seem to last long. Rather than serving to ratchet up the tension, they just seem thrown in as filler because, hey, it’s a Freddie movie, you have to have them.
Where the film completely falls apart is about halfway through, and the filmmakers decide to go away from copying the original and put in their own ideas. Which apparently was to make all the kids victims of a child molester. But not before making them think it was all a lie. But then they find out it’s true. It’s not scary, it’s not thought-provoking, and it gets a NO.
In a franchise filled with pretty extreme ups and downs, this is the only one I find unwatchable. And that’s pretty damning. I fucking hated this movie.
