The Rough Cut
Written by Kevin Terpstra
Review of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
To date, Michael Bay (he’s not the director, though) has taken two classic horror films that defined the genre and turned them into effects-driven, jumpy, action films. The first of course was Friday the 13th, which took the menacing Jason Voorhees and turned him into a sprinting behemoth, and the second is Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.
In this version of the film, we get to delve into the history of Freddy Krueger in more depth than the original. His motives are also a bit different this time around. In the original, the Dream Master killed the children in order to exact revenge on the parents who burned him to death. Now, he’s exacting revenge of the children themselves for tattling on him.
Also different is the overall story. The general plot structure is there, and there are several scenes that pay clear homage to the original, but it progresses in a completely different way. The major problem with the story is that it is forced, and the characters spew out the corniest dialogue in an attempt to get from the film’s beginning to the end.
As far as the characters themselves go, it’s a whole new group of people for Freddy to slaughter. The heroine, Nancy, is no longer her regular self. The screenwriters have turned her into an on-the-margins type girl sans boyfriend (sorry Johnny Depp). Her supporting players are pretty much taken from the stock and are killed so fast they hardly matter.
Freddy is a completely different story. Before the film’s release, there were several statements from the film’s creators that Freddy wasn’t going to keep his comedic style and that he was going to be more sadistic. While he was sadistic, most of Freddy’s dialogue was rooted in situational comedy and I found myself laughing almost anytime the psychological creepster was on screen.
This film tries hard and hits hard, but it doesn’t live up to the Nightmare name. Freddy is supposed to have an affect on his victims through psychological means, but in the remake he’s just another slasher with a hard-on for small children. This is emphasized by the use of small children in the victim’s dreams (though, this could be a metaphor for the innocence of youth. I could be reading that wrong).
Based on a five star scale, I am awarding A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) two and a half out of five stars.
Official Rough Cut Review
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) – 2.5/5 stars
