|
 I’d
really like to know what Hollywood felt was lacking in Wes Craven’s 1984
horror masterpiece, A Nightmare on Elm Street, that it required a
remake. Truly one of the scariest horror films ever made (- and the
feature debut of one John Christopher Depp, II), Nightmare’s box
office success single-handedly saved New Line Cinema from bankruptcy and
spawned a not only a succession of sequels but a television anthology
series. That should really have been enough, but when has the movie biz
ever been known to leave well enough alone?
In
this utterly unnecessary remake (- not even clever enough to be
called a “reimagining”), director Samuel Bayer fleshes in the silver
screen’s favourite child murderer. This new version begins as did the
first film with a group of teenaged friends who are all experiencing the
same frightening dreams about a shadowy guy with a taste for 80’s
millinery, Christmas-coloured sweaters and long, metal fingernails. The
dreams of Nancy, Quentin and their pals become increasingly vivid until
they finally acquire a body count. This is the tip-off for all involved
that the nasty cat with the skin condition may not merely be a figment
of their collective nocturnal imagination. A little detective work by
the teens reveals the man of their dreams is Fred Krueger, a pre-school
employee accused of having done something terrible to young Nancy. They
also discover that the PTA from hell had mercilessly hunted the
suspected gardener-gone-bad and burned him alive. A decade later, it’s
the adolescent children of these vigilantes that are getting picked off
one by one as they slumber. You know what they say about payback.
It’s
just not scary. Using nothing but cheap pops and unclever gore for its
thrills, this A Nightmare on Elm Street hasn’t a patch on the original
in any way. The main focus of the first film was the spunky,
resourceful Nancy (- the greatest horror heroine since Jamie Lee
Curtis’ Laurie Strode from 1978’s Halloween), and here she’s a
blank-eyed cipher who means nothing to the audience and couldn’t rescue
herself from the shallow end of a kiddie pool. The focus this time is
spread out amongst her friends, notably the sad-eyed Quentin, the only
one who seems to have a clue as to what’s going on. As a result, this
dilution doesn’t help us care about any of the characters except maybe
to wonder who’s next to die horribly. Then again, even that’s
predictable; flitting back and forth from the canon of Craven’s original
piece to whatever takes the filmmaker’s fancy, there’s nothing
surprising or original here except how poorly made it is and how the
primal impact of the 1984 piece seems to have completely washed over
this pretender. The original film was creepy from the word go; from the
slightly softened, hazy cinematography to the first silhouetted images
of the compact, humanoid creature with elongated arms slowly chasing his
victim down an endless corridor, this truly was the stuff of
nightmares. In the days before Freddy Krueger became a horror cliché,
spouting bad puns and one-liners, the haunting laugh, and knives
screeching against the walls and his ability to use your worst dreaming
moments against you - the feet caught in goo as Nancy desperately flees,
the attacks at the moment one dozed, even in the tub - got under your
skin and stayed there. In this new film, you don’t even have to be
asleep to catch sight of Freddy stalking you. Making a huge post modern
mistake, Bayer doesn’t take the time to build up his phantasmagoric bad
guy, giving the impression that viewers are already supposed to know
Freddy Krueger. That may be fine for a sequel, but it’s cheating and
taking shortcuts when you’re reintroducing the character to a new
audience and most of all, not very scary. Neither really is this new
Freddy. Mind you, I adore me some Jackie Earle Haley, have done since
The Bad News Bears {1976} and couldn’t have been more thrilled
for his successes in Little Children {2006} and last year’s
Watchmen (- which he carried). I was even slightly placated upon
hearing he was meant to play Freddy in this unavoidable remake. Sadly,
Bayer’s failure to create an effective villain (- or film) leaves
the actor’s efforts out in the cold. The new Freddy isn’t intimidating
at all. He’s justifiably angry over the manner of his death, but unlike
Krueger V.1, this one hasn’t learned to have fun with his undeadness.
Freddy here is more emo than menacing, the original freaking people out
with his not only his pointy handgear, but an undeniable sexual menace
as well (- the tongue through Nancy’s phone, anyone?),
which only furthered the whole kiddie-killer creepout. This Freddy is a
little too human; he’s a tiny, thin, badly-dressed guy whose melted face
eerily resembles an action figure of Tom Waits left out in the sun too
long. Seriously, this Freddy could be knocked over by a strong breeze
or a flying shoe, there’s nothing intimidating about him. Even the
glove, so iconic to the Nightmare franchise, is a big meh. The knives
are tiny in comparison to the long 1984 claws and despite scenes of the
odd body part being removed from a living victim, fail to strike terror
in the still-beating heart. However, this being a Michael Bay
production, even the gloves have to have bombast, so instead of being
icked by the trademark fingernails on the chalkboard screech, the claws
light up and spark like tiny blowtorches when run against a surface.
Ooh, so scary. Not to say Jackie Earle Haley doesn’t give it all he’s
got; the short scenes of Krueger pre-tanning accident are actually
effective, giving Freddy an unexpected Little Children-ish sympathy (-
it’s also never made entirely clear what exactly it is he was
supposed to have done to little Nancy that wouldn’t have gotten him
instantly thrown in jail). Haley’s variation of his Rorschach voice
creates the only slightly threatening aspect of this thoroughly
unimpressive Freddy Krueger. Scarred by bad makeup, subpar acting
by both the imperiled teens and bored veterans like the normally
brilliant Clancy Brown, and overall inept storytelling, A Nightmare on
Elm Street is a bad dream for fans of the 1984 movie or anyone who
enjoys well made horror films.
The
original A Nightmare on Elm Street still makes me turn all the lights on
if I watch it on my own. As far as this remake is concerned, I really
don’t know why they bothered.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
April
30th, 2010
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