Nightmare On Elm Street

Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)
Directed By: Samuel Bayer

Review Written By: Justin Bozung
Mondo Film & Video Guide Co-Founder
IMDb.com Link

There is something to be said about sitting in a movie theater alone, early in the morning… It’s been a while…Before the film even started I sat through about 30 minutes of television commericals and coming attractions.  I always find it amusing how the marketing “specialists”  target movie audiences.

For example. I’m here to see Michael Bay’s remake – Nightmare On Elm Street (2010, New Line Cinema)  I was thrown a bone, in the form, of several humorous previews for:  Predators (remake,  spin off,  sequel, whatever… It doesn’t look like it’s worth a damn…OH…and it’s director has the first name “Nimrod”… I shit you not),  Splice (which looks interesting, in fact, I read about this film, in the blood stained pages of Fangoria last year), McGruber (yep, a new Saturday Night Live movie) and a new Steve Carrell movie that I can’t recall and…OH…and…STEP IT UP 3D!!!!    Sadly, Step It Up 3D,  looks like it will be a better film that the others..   There’s this BAD ASS wall of Ghetto Blasters in this one scene, that’s really looks neato!

What makes these marketing specialists think horror film fans, dig on cheesy formatted recycled comedy?   Walking into the remake of Nightmare On Elm Street,  I kept a very open mind.  I’m comfortable with this remake. I don’t think it’s necessary, but then again, who the hell am I!?   In the land of the remake, things are never as good as they seem like they’re gonna be.  Millions of fans, over the internet have spoken time again, and asked for NO MORE REMAKES.  Where’s the remake of ” The Slayer”  or “Killer Party”  or lastly, what about a remake of “Mortuary.”   Three horror nods, that could use an update, and aren’t a chapter in the Holy Bible of horror.

The Elm Street remake is directed by Samuel Bayer.  This is Bayer’s first feature.   Sammy is infamous for his direction of the 1991 music video, Nirvana’s  Smells Like Teen Spirit.   A great video, maybe in the Top five of all time?   There’s a reason why it’s taken Bayer almost 20 years!!! to get his first feature to the screen.   In a interview in a magazine I read pre movie, he’s qouted as saying ” well, I’ve been in development hell all this time, and I wanted to pick a project that I knew would get me exposure.”   You picked this project?  Sammy you didn’t have any choice.  It’s been 20 years!   The only people that don’t make their feature film debutt in a 20 year time span, are directors that don’t have any talent!    Kurt Cobain told you that back in 1991..

Scripted as a somewhat homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.   Elm Street starts out following a beautiful blonde Jordan Ladd look a like, Chris.  She’s just witnessed the death of her boyfriend, and now Freddy is coming after her!  At the 10-15 minute mark,  she’s dead,  just like Janet Leigh in Psycho and you’re transitioning into a new female character, Nancy, and her boy toy Quinn, with whom we stay for the remainder of the film.   BTW, Quinn’s dad is Clancy Brown aka The Krugen  from Russell Mulcahy’s – The Highlander (1986)  THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!!!!!!

Everything here is uber predictable.  But that’s ok.  It’s not designed to be a art house gem, or Academy Award winner.  It’s a formula film, to make New Line and Bob Shaye some money!  That’s what it’s about at the end of the day.  And that’s ok.  We as fans have to accept that…The good thing here, is that the script doesn’t have any plot holes, the performances by the actors/models are fine, the photography is appropriate, and the filmmakers do stay true to the Freddy mythology.  In fact, a truly enjoyable aspect, is the fact, that the Freddy mythos is expanded on, and Bayer and company did in one movie, what it took the creators of four Nightmare on Elm Street films to do!   The kills in the film, are boring, and seem like you’d seen them all before in any of the hundred previous Nightmare films.  The CGI effects in the film work well within the story but on the flipside, similar effects created throughout the original Nightmare series, non computer stuff, worked just as well, and those do not withdraw you from the storyline.

The scares you can time on your watch, and are overly enhanced by special effects and sound. In particular, what I like to call the “Cheetah” effect. This is where they double up, and slow down the sound of a Cheetah growling and put it into the soundtrack super loud, every time it’s supposed to be scary…

On note, the backstory details Freddy’s origins.  He was a single white male, rather creepy, who was a maintenance / grounds keeper, in a small town, working for a day care center. Krueger just so happened to live underneath the day care center in the boiler room / basement.   I wanna meet the guy that allowed this.  Who in there right mind, would let a single, white male,  that probably drove a molester van, live underneath a day care center and give him access to young children.   This would have been a MAJOR victory for  N.A.M.B.L.A and pedifiles the world over!

Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy Krueger was a great choice, however, the lack of greatness in the screenplay hinders his performance, and it’s rather flat and uneven He just doesn’t have the personality that worked for Robert Englund.  His  stature fails him as well, as his face combined with the make up, makes Freddy look like this strange combination of the creatures from “The Descent”  and a normal regular house cat.   His voice throws you, especially if you’re a Watchmen fan.  I was constantly hearing “Rorschach” in my head. There are some  well done over-cooked  scenes in Nightmare, in particular (the what will soon be hilarious),  mini Freddy soliloquies.  Freddy’s got TOO much dialogue in this version of the horror classic.  Haley was the shit in “Dollman” back in ’91…

His voice changes in the film at times.   Initially, when Freddy opens his mouth, he sounds similar to Fat Albert.  Hey, Hey, Hey, I’m Freddy wanna play?….  And then later on, it molds into Haley’s more familiar natural gravel’d tone, with a pinch of Billy Bob Thorton chain smoking in Sling Blade, or Forrest Gump trying to talk garbled, with a cock in his mouth.  Sadly, I found that it was just missing some of the original series flair and dark cache twisted humor.  There was no Freddy coming out of television, there was no Freddy appearing via a pepperoni pizza like in Nightmare Part 4.  No Heather Langenkamp  cameo,  no Joey or  Kincaid…Dude, no soundtrack by Dokken?   This new version of Elm Street seems to take itself too seriously, and I think that’s where it fails.

Overall it’s a perfect 15 year old kid, Friday Night date – buddy movie.   Someone once told me in regards to remakes, that they thought remakes where great, cause if the film sucked it would cause the viewer to seek out the original version.   I disagree, I think it would do the opposite.   In theory,  I’m the fool, cause I paid to watch something that I knew had a 98% percent chance of failing.   So who’s smarter? Myself, the critic, or New Line Cinema and Michael Bay?  They’re eight dollars richer now…Remakes do pay off…

Justin Bozung is the Co-Founder of the Mondo Film & Video Guide.  You can email him directly at justinb@mondo-video.com

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