Elm Street's Fatal Flaw

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker and Kellan Lutz

Plot:

When a boy cuts his own throat in public his friends begin having dreams of a creepy little man in a red and green sweater. Although they know each other in high school they don’t realize they have a past and its coming back to haunt them, big time. As the teens begin to piece together the mystery they drop off one by one. Can they solve the puzzle before its too late?

Review:

Back in the days when slasher films were a dime a dozen, and Friday the 13^th topped box office and sequel charts, a little low budget horror film made its debut. A Nightmare on Elm Street went from 0-60 in 3 seconds flat in 1984 and became an instant hit. This film series with 9 direct sequels under its belt, a TV show, and long awaited cross over film Freddy vs Jason, is an undisputed classic and the 3^rd highest grossing film series of its genera. With all that said, how could a series reboot go so wrong? Its all in the basics. In probing that darker edge that made non-horror reboots like Batman Begins so successful, Nightmare went way off the beaten track and took a blood filled, campy horror romp someplace it didn’t really need to go.

In the original series Freddy Kruger is a dirty child murderer. He is burned alive by the parents of the town of Springwood now haunts dreams of teens, eventually killing them in the dream…if you die in the dream you die for real. In the reboot Freddy is now a child molester…say wha?!?…yes a sick nasty pedophile thus removing anything remotely fun from his torment and eventual offing of the selected targets, making the film quite frankly a waste and effectively killing off any type of sequel in the foreseeable future. Child molestation is not a fun subject, nor one for the likes of a horror film whos history is steeped in one liners and witty repartee from the villain who has an almost anti-hero status (I did say almost). This type of subject matter is best served via dramas and is absolutely nothing to laugh about or address lightly thus giving Kruger’s trademark quips a decidedly darker and sicker overtone which makes enjoying the film somewhat awkward if not impossible (especially for me given my line of work). Granted this is originally where series creator Wes Craven wanted to go but backed down at the last moment. Craven doesn’t support this version (mainly do to the fact he wasn’t consulted for the project as he had been in the past), and rightly so because this isn’t our Freddy anymore, least one I would associate with at parties.

Observations:

Ewwwwwwww pedophile gross!!

Every so-called teen in this flick looks like a Twilight wanna be

Jackie Earl Haley…good performance…bad project

Likes:

New Freddy look (it ain’t half bad)

The way he’d flick 2 of his claws together Nice effect

The overall story while distasteful isn’t bad and it moves along at a nice pace

Dislikes:

Pedophile nuf said….

Twilight wannabes

What I learned:

Pedophilia has no place in horror movies

Best quote:

“What ya screaming for? I haven’t even cut you yet”

Rating:

1 outta 5 for its good performance by Haliey its hardly worth watching.

Final thoughts:

Leave the nasty child rape stuff for dramas, keep horror fun gross and somewhat pure.