Movie Review: "A Nightmare on Elm Street"

Seen on: April 30, 2010

The players: Director: Samuel Bayer, Writers: Eric Heisserer, Wesley Strick, Cast: Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker

Facts of interest: Produced by Michael Bay.

The plot: Freddy Krueger returns to haunt a bunch of youngsters in their sleep. Meanwhile, they try to stay awake.

Our thoughts: With “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” New Line Cinema has created an unnecessary horror remake that desperately tries to use plenty of cheap scares and the popularity of a classic movie character to keep cinemagoers entertained for a dreadful 95 minutes. To tell you the truth, there is absolutely no need for this film to exist, and I doubt it will be around for long.  At least I hope it won’t.

No need to spend a lot of time talking about story. We’re introduced to a bunch of youngsters who encounter a killer named Freddy Krueger in their dreams, and as a result, they try to stay awake for as long as they can. If they do fall asleep, Freddy will get them and tear them to pieces. So yeah, you know what happens, and if you don’t, you can guess. It’s easy to figure out where it’s heading from here.

“Elm Street” version 2010 is yet another horror flick produced by Michael Bay, and again, it fails to deliver the goods. Although this new version is visually interesting and all, it lacks one of the genre’s most important components: suspense. There’s absolutely nothing remotely scary or intriguing about this movie, and that’s one of the reasons it often feels like an unbearable drag.

Director Samuel Bayer keeps the pace quick throughout, but as I just mentioned above, the solid visuals and impressive production design are more interesting to watch than anything else in “Elm Street.” The acting is bad and the characters are lifeless, and only Jackie Earle Haley occasionally excels in the rather challenging role of bad guy Freddy Krueger. That said, he’s not creepy enough to keep my attention.

Dialogue in this remake is laughable, and the script is rather messy. Folks just keep dying, and the film really tries hard to scare viewers with the usual cheap shock moments. Alas, they pretty much all fail, and only the final showdown is a tad more exciting to experience than the rest. To be honest with you, that’s pretty much all there is to say about it. Sadly, this “Elm” failed to pull me and keep me engaged.

Freaky quote: "Why are you screaming? I haven't even cut you yet!" - Jackie Earle Haley

The final word: What else did I like about it besides visuals? Okay, I confess, Katie Cassidy looks gorgeous and is fun to look at for a while, but then again, that doesn’t make this movie any better. “A Nightmare on Elm Street” proves yet again that these remakes just don’t work on a quality level. Hey, just drop them and hire some people with cool new ideas. Trust me, they are out there...

Article by Franck Tabouring