I'm not crying. These are not tears in my eyes. I have allergies. Um, so the new NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET…what's going on here people? Are we going to take this lying down? Oh, you used up all your torches and ammunition last summer on ROB ZOMBIE's lively H2? That's just great. Thanks kids, you ran all the pussy cats out of town and now giant rats roam the streets. Great.
O.K. so here's the thing, I know 1984's NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET had some dubious acting and some of the effects don't hold up too good but I just watched it recently and I can tell you that I still find myself BELIEVING in its story. There's a sense of place, I get who the characters are (even if their acting is questionable) and I'm compelled to want to see what happens to them next. It's just good storytelling.
I don't BELIEVE this new polished and skinned version. I don't believe that girl is in high school, I don't believe she dresses and wears her hair like that, I don't believe that's her house, her mom, her friends. I REALLY don't believe that a preschool would hire a creepy guy like Fred Krueger to be their live-in gardener (?) and to room in the school's basement (?) and that he would have private access to the children. This is a universe that doesn't play by any of reality's rules and yet the entire plot hinges on the destruction of such rules but yet they don't even exist in the first place…
Oh boy, I should try to keep this brief because I'm really beginning to worry about my blood pressure, does my face look red? Let's try this from another angle. I just watched THE ENTIRE ELM STREET series back to back and never once did I feel bored. I may have laughed at how crappy some of the later ones now seem but I never wanted to take a nap instead of finishing one. I've never fallen asleep in a theater either, I think that's an insane thing to do but while watching this recent redo of N.O.E.S. I actually felt sleepy and BORED.
Me, BORED! I thought the frickin' HOUSE OF MIRTH was riveting for Christ's sake. I've seen A PASSAGE TO INDIA like 4 times! Do you get what I'm saying here? Someone was able to make a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movie that bored me. (NO LIE: I watched an ant carry a dandelion seed across my back yard yesterday, THAT didn't bore me!) How were you able to bore me new NIGHTMARE? How?
PLATINUM DUNES, do you need help? I mean just tell me if you need help writing your screenplays, don't be embarrassed. I don't have much experience but I do have an actual interest in the material. I think I could write at least one memorable line for Freddy to say. I bet I could do that. I'd even do it for free, you don't have to pay me. You know what? Forget about me. Just open your office door and go outside and grab the first person you see and ask them to do it. I think a random person off the street might be able to give you an original concept or two and has a general idea about how people act and how the world functions.
O.K., forget the script. Who cares right? Things don't have to make sense as long as Freddy is around. Do you mean to tell me that nobody tried to stop you from making Freddy look and sound like the turtle from the TOOTSIE POP COMMERCIAL!?!
Hundreds of people must have witnessed scenes being filmed with this abysmal make up and nobody said anything? No producer stopped by for an hour and just came to the conclusion that it should all be trashed and that you'd have to start all over again? You mean to tell me that everyone working on this movie thought that Freddy looked good? You're just eff'ing with me, I know it. There's no way.
God, remember Freddy's first big appearance in the original where he's chasing Tina, his arms are all spaghetti noodles waving and there's that crazy lurching frisky dash? Freddy is a trickster, a harlequin, a gremlin with a crooked smile. He's a witch, a gnarly twisted chaos demon. Do you get that he's not a whiny turtle? Do you get that much? Please don't tell me that this look is more "realistic" and more accurate to what a burn victim's face looks like because I could give a crap, I could Google images of burn victims if that's what I was after. I want to see Freddy! I know the idea was to make Freddy darker and more serious but no, you just ripped him of all his character. You made Freddy mundane. You made FRAUD-y Krueger!
If I had a time machine I would first kill baby Hitler and then I'd kill baby DAVID FINCHER. I know SE7EN is a decent flick but it has somehow single handedly ruined the lion's share of modern horror. I hate the drab, monotone, faux-gritty, phony baloney bullshit look of this movie. You mean to tell me you're going to depict scenes in a preschool and you can't even make THAT look creepy? All you'd have to do is turn a camera on in a preschool and it would be creepy but Nooooooo, we get gray rooms filled with charcoal black stick figure drawings hanging on the wall. How are we even supposed to feel awed by the nightmare scenes when EVERYTHING, nightmare or not, is filmed the exact same way? Oh my god, I gotta stop, I gotta stop, Elizabeth, I'm coming to join you Elizabeth!!!!
Thanks, I figured as much. Now go find Marge and have a drink, you deserve it brave solider.
If anyone wants to read a well written, rational review about this movie, I suggest going here…
The more I think about how shitty this movie was, the more pissed I get. The TCM and F13th remakes were no great shakes but I think they had a modicum of entertainment value. Not this one, though. I just watched the original again too and it's so far ahead of this turd in personality and imagination it's like it's from another planet. I haven't loved any of the Platinum Dunes remakes but this is the only one that I've actively despised.
Jeff,
Unk, I wholeheartedly agree. I saw it yesterday and was bored stiff by it. It was the cliff's notes version of the vastly superior original. One where Nancy had strength, the adults were damaged thanks to their secret, and the boogyman in your dreams would not only kill you, but play on your fears, forcing you and your friends to band together in order to survive. Here? We get none of that.
The actors are atrocious. Rooney Mara (or whatever her name is) sleepwalks through the film (moreso than the other actors) and gives NO strength or personality to Nancy, Haley is given nothing to work with as Freddy (either incarnation), and the script is a complete mess that isn't fully fleshed out, instead depending on your knowledge of the first film to fill in the blanks. And it doesn't make any sense! I mean, if Freddy's just a molester, and not a killer of children in this, why's the glove there? Oh yeah… it's his trademark. Thanks Dunes.
It's sad, really. So much potential to update this with a lot of imagination, but it comes off as a futile cashgrab to exploit an iconic character. Freddy used to be creepy. He used to have personality. Here, he's reduced to jump scare after jump scare. I had to watch NOES 3 after getting home to forget about this *ahem* nightmare.
Sadly, after seeing this "horror" movie? I had no trouble sleeping at all afterwards.
Utter garbage.
Saying that this new Nightmare is mediocre is the nicest thing I can come up with. Â My short-form assessment is that it's like a 90 minute trailer…I was never invested in the story or characters, and it just kind of ambled on from one gloomy event in these strangers' inconsequential lives to the next.
I was kind of disappointed when the box office take for the Friday the 13th remake dropped off so drastically after the first weekend; I wasn't the biggest cheerleader for it, but I certainly didn't hate it…Most of the characters and their interactions were appropriately tongue-in-cheek, and the story was kept simple enough to sustain itself through the running time. Â These aspects don't even touch on whether it was scary or not, which I didn't think it was…I'm just saying that for me it didn't completely drop the ball for entertainment value.
I'm really hoping that the same box office drop happens to this Nightmare on Elm Street only worse, so that maybe it will help Platinum Dunes/Samuel Bayer/whoever wrote it to learn a lesson about how to actually frighten people OR at least entertain them.
I'm probably the only one here that liked it…but that's in comparison to that "Friday the 13th" redo where all of those victims were people you wanted to see killed off…isn't that like shooting fish in a barrel?
Still haven't seen it yet, but apparently my good pal Ron (a.k.a. Strange Kid) liked the movie as well LaDracul. I'm very excited, all negative reviews aside, and will hopefully catch a showing sometime this weekend. I've given up on what these 'big budget' companies think a 'remake' should be (Friday the 13th was the final straw for me) so I'm already not expecting a good or 'great' movie; just wanna see ole Freddy Kruegsters on the big screen again, shitty makeup job or not. I mean, seriously, did you guys actually THINK you weren't going to be disappointed? HOW many movies has Le Dunes put out that actually kicked ass? Last time I checked I counted none, but I may have consumed one too many alcoholic beverages.
Unkle Lancifer, I'm saddened by your frustration yet simultaneously empathetic. Just watch FREDDY'S REVENGE for solace.
This movie was pretty terrible on a lot of levels. My biggest problem with it was the child molestation angle.
I admit I was pretty horrified when it was first introduced. At the end, however, there was a moment when I thought the film might actually be profound. SPOILER: When Freddy pins Nancy to the bed and she's in her little girl dress and he says "your memory is what fuels me." I started to think "ok, maybe this movie is trying to say something about Post Traumatic Stress and how victims of child molestation deal with that as they grow up. Perhaps this is actually kind of deep." But no, they introduce that for a bit, and then they completely lose it. I would have been ok with this if everything had been ok for Nancy at the end. Like if her boyfriend and her were able to fight off the bad memories together and move on into a new life…BUT ITS NOT OVER. So what, the pedophile wins? I was pretty pissed off. I don't know, I guess because of the whole dark tone of the movie I thought that him being a child molester was more sinister than in the original movies when hes a child killer.
Also the acting was horrific. THERE WERE NO DEVELOPED CHARACTERS!!!
They still show that Tootsie Pop commercial on television. I saw it the other day on the Disney XD channel. I guess they've accepted that there are some things that can't be improved upon. Maybe the poor saps seeing this NIGHTMARE cash-in will realize the same.
You had me in stitches with your comments. It made me smile/laugh the entire day. Thanks, Unkle Lancifer!!
Unkle Lancifer, This blog was love at first sight for me, I have thoroughly enjoyed and agreed with you every time I read this amazing blog. And here as I read this, I am reminded how proud I am to be a KinderTrauma reader! The new Nightmare on Elm Street is an abomination. I have not seen it because I refuse to. Freddy has been an icon to me since childhood. How dare they reduce him to a lowly pedophile?? Freddy was a dark, gruesome character, with an unwavering sureness of himself. Robert Englund portrayed it beautifully. He would have never ran like mentally handicapped individual exclaiming "I din' do nuthin'!" My god…And to ME….Freddy was a MAN! A MAN who wouldn't need to stoop so low as to molest little girls….To me? That's just not Freddy's style. Freddy was the kind of guy to get his pleasure from plunging his blades deep into your chest. I completely agree that they FAILED. But luckily, they didn't destroy Freddy. Because they didn't even TOUCH Freddy. I refuse to recognize this film as a remake or even anything resembling the original true artistry of the Freddy we all knew and loved. Freddy was the Dreamchild, this joke is simply the messy afterbirth.
Hey Unk,
While you're in that time machine of yours, perhaps you should swing by 1965 and take a crack at baby Michael Bay. I'm not saying that he's solely responsible for the current outbreak of remake-itis sweeping through Hollywood, but without him there certainly would be no Platinum Dunes. Unfortunately their remakes gross a hell of a lot of money (especially TCM), and until that changes we are going to continue being steamrolled by big budget garbage like NoES. And if you need any more proof of this, just swing by Bay's IMDb page and take a look at what he's got in development….
I get to be the Devil's Advocate! Â Yay! Â While this film was NOT anywhere even within the same galaxy as the original, it did have some good scares. Â I appreciated the fact that I jumped a few times because I don't get that that often.
The other good thing I can say for it was that it was pretty. Â It was really really pretty.
However, that's where the good statements end.
HAHA*Spoiler Alert*HAHA
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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What the zippity-do-fuckin'-da was up with the HORRIFIC CGI when Nancy's mother gets killed? Â I haven't seen CGI that bad since the first Harry Potter movie.
Another thing that upset me about the movie was they were a little too convincing about the child abuse, in their own way. Â It was, to use a term from some mental health blogs I frequent, triggering.
However, nothing will be nearly as traumatic for them as seeing Freddy Krueger get raped- anally, orally, and I believe they actually gave Freddy a huge gaping vagina so they could rape that orifice as well. The only hint of the real Freddy that was there was the "Fuck you!" scene. Â Even that didn't ring anywhere near the Freddy that I grew up in love with and consequently terrified by.
I think that we, the muchly awesome horror fans, lead by our fantastic leader, Unkle Lancifer, should give Michael Bay and all the creators of this film the same treatment they gave Freddy!
*raises fist to avenge the assault on her Beloved villain*
Okay this is my first comment. Is it a cliche to say this is a blog for those who take pride in exercising their minds? You do good work dude.
Unlike Platinum Dunes.
I didn't have high hopes going in. Did anyone who's seen the original? What I did hope for was a story. Nope. Acting talent? What? Entertainment? You're joking aren't ya?
Give a man a camera, a $35million budget and an existing story with a 25 year fanbase and ask him to muck it up. Get Samuel Bayer on the phone.
He's not related to Michael Bayer is he?
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Some of the comments I've read seem to indicate that people don't like the idea that Freddy Krueger was a child molester in the remake. First of all, that was Wes Craven's original intent; he was changed to a child murderer because of the child molestation hysteria prevalent at the time. Secondly, making him a child murderer doesn't really eliminate the molestation angle anyway; can anyone name a serial killer of children for whom sexual attraction was not at least partially a motive? The fact that Freddy kills children almost automatically indicates some kind of sick sexual perversion toward them…