With the influx of bad horror movie remakes that have been floating around the scene as of late, watching the reinvention of Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street was, for us, a surprisingly refreshing experience. This time around, Jackie Earle Haley, otherwise known as Rorschach from Watchmen, replaces veteran Robert Englund in the role of Freddy Krueger. The roles of the kids with sleepless nights are taken on by an array of up and coming young Hollywood stars including Kellan Lutz of the Twilight Saga fame and Kyle Gallner, recently seen being seduced by a demonic Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body. The fateful role of Nancy in this outing goes to Rooney Mara, who does a pretty good job considering the pressure she was under to bring this iconic role to life.
For those of you who haven’t seen the original, the basic premise is this: Don’t fall asleep! A Nightmare on Elm Street tells the story of a group of teenagers, who are all haunted by the same menacing figure in their dreams. Dressed in a red and black striped jumper, with a face covered in burns and topped off with a pork pie hat, Freddy Krueger creeps through their nightmares slashing them up with his custom made leather glove complete with knives for fingers. The only problem is, on Elm Street, if you die in your nightmares, you die in real life too. So, armed with caffeine pills, a tonne of red bull, and some other methods of sleep deprivation, our teens attempt to discover why exactly Freddy is picking them off one by one and what it is that ties them all together.
The movie focuses more on Freddy’s sexual deviance than any of its predecessors. His old haunt, the school boiler room is the scene of many of the nightmares once again. Some might find this take on the legend of Freddy a bit too much to palate, but we found Haley’s portrayal to be just the right amount of sadistic and twisted to scare us! His relationship with Nancy is taken to a new level and Mara tackles her adversary admirably.
The only complaint we had with this movie was the amount of special effects make up Haley had to wear. At times, Krueger’s burned and melted face appears expressionless and occasionally it’s hard to take him seriously when he gets up close and personal with his victims. Director Samuel Bayer was directing commercials before he took on A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s a pretty impressive first attempt at a feature length, even if it is a remake. The movie is well made and does the job it was supposed to. The cheesy one-liners are an added bonus. The cast handle their task well, breathing life back into an old fan favourite and leaving plenty of room for a few more gory and inevitable 3D sequels in years to come.
