New Nightmare an Unimaginative Snooze
There’s not a lot for me to say about the remake of Wes Craven’s 1984 low budget horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street. The general critical consensus walking out of my Seattle screening was middling at best, and to say I liked it a bit more than my colleagues isn’t really saying much of anything at all. I was perfectly under whelmed by what one time Garbage and Metallica music video director Samuel Bayer and writers Wesley Strick (Wolf, Cape Fear) and Eric Heisserer (the upcoming The Thing prequel) managed to do here, and while I never hated what the trio had done with the property that doesn’t mean I was having a good time, either.
Jackie Earle Haley is Freddy Krueger in Warner Bros' A Nightmare on Elm Street
The problem is that there just isn’t any point in revisiting either Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley, doing a relatively decent job taking over for Robert Englund, although his recycling of the same voice he used for Rorschach in Watchmen is admittedly annoying) or the teenage children living on Elm Street. For all the original film’s imperfections (of which it has many) the creativity behind the premises and its visceral power to get under a viewer’s skin are pretty much unparalleled, any remake destined to be nothing more than a greatest hits retrospective that no amount of “re-imagining” can improve upon.
Thus is the case here. While Strick and Heisserer open things up a bit by giving Krueger a bit more of back story, nothing either of them can come up with can hide the fact this is one series – thanks to its plethora of sequels, a television series and numerous knock-offs – that’s already managed to wring this well dry. While certain scenes are staged effectively, and while I rather liked relative newcomer Rooney Mara’s take on lead protagonist Nancy (although Heather Langenkamp’s ferocity is missed), the whole thing ended up feeling rather ho-hum. I appreciated it from a technical standpoint, didn’t really mind what the filmmakers were trying to do and never was offended by any of the changes. But I also wasn’t thrilled by any of those things, either.
As streamlined and as bare bones as much of this new narrative is, ironically as quickly paced as it is I found myself falling asleep about halfway through. No matter how hard he tried Bayer just couldn’t generate enough in the way of excitement, and for my money had I actually paid to see this remake I could imagine being just as upset afterwards as the majority of my fellow critics seemed to be.
On the plus side I did think it looked absolutely beautiful. Jeff Cutter’s (Orphan) cinematography, Patrick Lumb’s (Valkyrie) production design and Craig Jackson’s (The Dark Knight) art direction are sublime, and from a purely visual perspective what Bayer is able to accomplish trumps anything that can be found in Craven’s original. I was also quite pleased with Steve Jablonsky’s (Friday the 13th) playful score, the composer managing to echo Charles Bernstein’s iconic compositions in a way that feels fresh and vibrant.
Sadly, looking in the opposite direction I can’t really say all of Strick and Heisserer’s new ideas are good ones. The way they explain Krueger’s parental vigilante mob demise is over the top and nonsensical, while a subplot involving the Elm Street children’s collective memory loss is downright silly. There’s also the unintentionally hilarious use of the new term “micro naps,” its usage at one pivotal point so absurdly ludicrous I swear the majority of the preview audience laughed out loud thanks to the pure idiocy of it.
I’m not going to write much more because, like I already said, there just isn’t all that much to say. For fans of Freddy Krueger and his demonic dreamscape I can’t say this new A Nightmare on Elm Street is going to do much for them one way or the other. For newcomers, the majority of the plot is so threadbare and mechanical I have trouble believing they’re going to be able to comprehend what all the pre-release fuss was about. As for me, I’m ready to move onto something else, and as much as I’m a fan of the genre all these mediocre and boring remakes are making me question why I love horror films in the first place.
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
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