So another remake or call it a re-imagining if you like. It’s all the same! Freddy Krueger is probably one of the more famous Hollywood monsters in the last 30 years. Ok, so he’s not as iconic as the Alien or Predator, but his bladed glove, hat and striped jumper are pretty much up there!
For those of you not familiar with the story, its straight forward. A murdered (burned alive) child killer / molester invades the dreams of his victims who are still alive. In these dreams, he attempts to kill them. But unlike “normal” dreams, he can actually harm the sleeping darlings. They wake up with various wounds and so on, and many of them do die in their sleep, and body parts explode in the real world much to the horror of their still awake counter parts. As the dreams are Freddy’s world, he can’t be killed! But if Freddy can be brought back into the real world, he can be killed…or can he? So couple that with a few attractive, caffeine and pill addicted teenagers and Rorschach and you have a movie that doesn’t really frighten or terrify, but on occasion it might make you blink suddenly.
I don’t see what the point was in reigniting the franchise. There has been so many incarnations of Freddy at this point, it was just getting plain silly, and to start the whole thing off again, in my view, wasn’t the best decision. This is the first Freddy movie, that doesn’t star Robert Englund as Freddy and there lies another problem. Freddy himself is instantly recognisable, but when the close ups of his pretty little face hit the screen, it’s blatantly obvious this is a different beast. Jackie Earle Haley does an adequate job here, but he uses the same Rorschach voice that he used in Watchmen and it doesn’t work. He doesn’t have the same presence as Englund, and Freddy was always made more terrifying by his crazy eyes, which unfortunately Earle Haley doesn’t have either!
The rest of the cast are so, so as well. From Kyle Gallner to Thomas Dekker, this isn’t an A-list cast, not that, that should matter, but they just go through the motions of dying and surviving.
And speaking of dying, there is a selection of gore and exploding body parts, but it feels like it’s not even connected to the story. And the movie itself, well it looks like a bunch of scenes badly cut together, which I’m quite surprised at, given that Samuel Bayer has spent most of his career directing wonderful music videos. On the positive side of things though, there is good pace here and the movie is over before you know it, which is a good thing.
I’m sure for people who have never, ever seen any of the Elm St. flicks this might keep them entertained for a while but for most, it’s just another pointless remake which doesn’t encapsulate the magic of the original.
