Freddys back. After 26 years, 7 sequels and a television show, Freddy Kruger returns in a remake of the original A Nightmare on Elm St and let’s just say that there’s a whole new nightmare to contend with.
For those of you who lived under a rock in the 80s or weren’t born (you get a pass) the story of Freddie Kruger is a well known one. The bastard son of a thousand inmates had a thirst for murder and a taste for young flesh. Such were his crimes that the parents of those he tormented set fire to his ass rather than hand him over to the law and in doing so created a demon capable of killing you when you were at your most vulnerable…..in you sleep. Now Freddy is back and he wants revenge.
Nightmare on Elm Street is a terrible film. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what makes it so bad but I’ll give it a try. The acting is at a level not seen since Neighbours began in the 80s. Really, try counting the number of times a character stares away before mumbling something like “you don’t know what I’ve seenâ€. The casting is like something out of an EMO self harm advert and the direction looks like a bad horror movie from the 80s, which is ironic considering the original was made then but looked great. Considering the source material, you would expect a modern take with special effects and shocks galore but no. What we get is a film that lifts scenes from the original and spreads them around like manure for cheap scares.
As for Freddy himself Jackie Earle Healey (Rorschach from Watchmen) you can only feel sorry for the guy. Here he is given the chance to play one of the most iconic screen killers of the last thirty years and they balls it up royally. Whereas the original Freddy played by Robert Englund was a larger than life villain with a penchant for slicing and dicing his victims, the new one is a weak minded pederast given a second chance to abuse his victims some more (unsettling when you think about it).
NOES is nothing more than a cheap attempt at a quick box office hit and run (sadly it worked as it opened in the US with $40 million). It comes from the Platinum Dunes studio owned by the one and only Michael Bay (Transformers and every explosion-filled movie for years) who have remade Texas Chainsaw Massacre (quite good actually), The Hitcher, Amityville and Friday 13th. These guys specialize in making movies that do well opening weekend then disappear with the money the next.
Garbage, avoid like the plague.
Andrew Kennedy
