All Critics (165)
|
Top Critics (27)
|
Fresh (25)
|
Rotten (144)
|
DVD (16)
I did jump a few times, and I liked Haley's dour malevolence, but overall, the new Nightmare on Elm Street is a by-the-numbers bad dream.
Freddy's back -- and he's slicker and more sinister than ever.
It's the Bay touch you feel in the way actors register as body count, characters go undeveloped, and sensation trumps feeling. A nightmare, indeed.
The result of the new Nightmare is, at best, a kind of stand-off between predictability and competent execution.
A Nightmare on Elm Street may be the most unneeded movie of the year. And that's saying something.
Traffics in overly familiar scare tactics, setting up predictable false alarms and telegraphing in advance just when Freddy will pop into the frame and utter one of his labored witticisms.
An homage to Craven's vision that is believably earnest in execution and completely faithful in spirit.
Mara and Gallner make an attractive couple on the lam and Haley, as Freddy Krueger, hams it up to an almost alarming degree.
Haley offers a darker, meaner take on the iconic character.
There's really no reason to see this dreadful picture; better to rent the 1984 feature.
For fans of the Nightmare franchise, and slasher films in general, the new version does exactly what you want and not much more.
This is even less inspired and imaginative than the Friday The 13th reboot and makes Rob Zombie's Halloween films feel like the work of an auteur.
For a film about the dangers of falling asleep it tried damn hard to make the audience nod off.
Haley earns his stripes but Bayer's reboot is a bland anticlimax.
Like many horror fans, I approached viewing the recent remake of the post-slasher classic with extremely low expectations. Not low enough, though!
Jackie Earle Haley is a good choice to replace Englund but the new film doesn?t reinvigorate the franchise.
Like Rob Zombie's Halloween, this new take on A Nightmare on Elm Street gives a movie boogeyman a psychological makeover, though Samuel Bayer directs the thing with all the nuance of a "Stranger Danger" video.
The best part of the film is the musical score; the worst part is everything else. (Blu-ray Edition)
...it has nothing new to say and works with an original that didn't need remaking.
Ultimately, the remake plays out more like the parade of increasingly daft sequels that milked the last drop of blood out of the Krueger franchise.
full review at Movies for the Masses
Haley just ain't no Englund, no matter how much he tries.
More Critic Reviews
66%
——
97%
Top Critic
