A Nightmare on Elm Street Reviews

pointless remake of a classic, ruined by making the once terrifying Freddy into nothing more than an over sun burnt Jimmy Savile.

Another pointless remake that totally misunderstands what was so good about the original. I'm guessing they thought they were making a better film by removing the comedy elements (which all good 80s horror films possess) and making the gore more realistic and Freddy that little more sinister. Firstly, it's the humour, the over the top effects that make the original franchise popular and as much as I like Jackie Earle Haley, Robert Englund is Freddy Kruger and he's so iconic in the role you just can't replace him. It's forgettable, I watched it last night and I'm struggling to remember how it ended already!

Wts

It's amazing to me that filmmakers can't summon up competent remakes of old horror films. Given the source material, and the advancements in special effects, a remake of "A Nightmare On Elm Street", should have been a slam dunk. Instead, it was a miserable, and often boring, disaster. The writing is awful, the characters are lifeless, and the use of C.G.I. in the dream sequences is underwhelming. Jackie Earle Haley's interpretation of Freddy was passable, but there's no way it could overcome the mundane storytelling. This movie is garbage.

I feel sorry for whoever was involved in this movie. Not only did they waste their time, but they got payed for basically ruining the original movie which is one of the best horror movies of all time. The remake to the 1984 Nightmare on Elm Street just shows that remakes never as good as the original. (With few exceptions) Freddy Krueger is just going around killing teens in their dreams and that's the gist of the plot. One thing I was really bothered by is that the scenes in this movie are taken exactly from the original, even almost shot for shot. I know it's a remake, but if you don't add something new then the movie is just dull. The characters in this version aren't as likeable either. In this version Nancy just looks all goth and looks like she doesn't like anybody or anything. The original potrayed Nancy as charismatic and believable as a tortured teen afraid of dreaming. The actors are all really boring as well. Rooney Mara plays Nancy and her line reading is enough to put anyone to sleep. (I suppose if she wants to prevent her friends from sleeping all she has to do is just shut up.) Jackie Earle Haley takes on the role of Freddy Krueger and I really don't like that choice. He talks like he has throat cancer and he's not as fun as Robert Englund's Freddy. The original Freddy was dark and twisted but he also had a funny side to him. ("Welcome to prime time, bitch!") Also, Freddy's design in this is just stupid looking. He looks like Lord Voldemort's Asian brother. Despite my dislike for how depressing the film felt, I felt like the production value for this movie did a good job of matching that of the original. If you're a fan of Freddy Krueger, stick with the original. This version is just a mess and doesn't deliver the scares the way the original did. (Don't even get me started on the CGI wall scene in this movie.)

A pathetic excuse for an effective re-make, the film does a poor job of capturing any real images of horror, and casting it with C grade actors that do a poor job of giving us a good picture of a character.

God I hated the emo look. Not neccesarily a bad film but more of a misfire. As Michael Bay always tends to do with his films, he makes this remake of the horror cult classic visually remarkable with amazing cinematography and very realistic gory effects. Jackie Earle Haley does a decent job portraying Freddy. He's not Robert Englund but he manages to capture the surreal humour that made the character so memorable. It's also the only Platinum Dunes horror remake that tries to better it's inspirational predecessor. As the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was a god awful cash cow. The acting of the teens however is dull and unconvincing and the film suffers from a very cliched script. But ignoring the performances of the cast you have to conclude whether it was scary or not. I jumped quite a lot through out. Freddy didn't scare me. As great as Haley is portraying him he just wasn't that frightening. It was the dark atmosphere and the sinister overtones that creeped me out. It wont age nor will it carry even a fraction of nostalgia like the original in years to come. But this series rehash is probably the best film Bay will ever make alongside the Friday remake. The Friday remake was better than the film that inspired it. Nightmare on Elm Street's remake? Certainly Not.

One of my all time favorite horror movies is "Nightmare on Elm Street". Freddy Kruger is by far my favorite villain from any film franchise. As with any remake, I prayed that they did it justice and not butcher the hell out of it(like Rob Zombie's "Halloween"). Well, the remake is both good and bad. The good, Jackie Earle Haley does a good job making Freddy his own and giving the character a fresh breathe of air. That being said, Robert England is, and always will be Freddy in my eyes. But for the sake of a remake, Haley could have been a lot worse. All the kids are good and well cast for what their roles are meant to be. The remake follows the same template as the original. Freddy Kruger has come back to haunt the teenagers of Springwood, Ohio's dreams and kill them in their sleep. Where they chance it up, is by telling more of his back story this time around. Honestly, I felt it wasn't needed, as the original was so effective because the less you knew about Freddy, the scarier he was. Not the worse remake, but not the best either. As decent as it is, it is ultimately a needless movie, because anyone who wants to see Freddy will go back to the original. There's a reason these remakes aren't referred to as classics;-)

I think I've overstated how much I didn't like this film in other places, but let me reiterate a bit. The remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is such a loathsome and lame attempt to re-envision a classic film series that it's preposterous. Destroying the characters of both Freddy and Nancy, this is the "emo" version of Nightmare, and it doesn't work at all. I don't care about any of these characters and I could care even less about their demise, which is one of the movie's major flaws. The Nightmare series has always worked under the assumption that the audience can relate to the characters and care about what they're going through, unlike most other horror movies. Unfortunately, for this movie, all of that is thrown out and we're left with a hackneyed remake that ends up being the most forgettable film in the franchise by a mile or more.

Of all of the remakes: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street.......this is the most awful in comparison. First off, I didn't like this Freddy and it DID NOT feel like the original in any way what so ever. Disappointed.

A criminally unnecessary remake. "Nightmare on Elm Street" has better effects and better actors but by adding nothing new to the mix, it is a true waste.

Pointless re-make, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Still, why do they have to "re-imagine" everything these days? Isn't the original good enough as it is? I guess it just further reflects the void of new ideas that currently constitutes Hollywood. Jackie Earle Haley is a decent replacer as Freddy Krueger, but he just doesn't have that little extra that Robert Englund brought to the screen. Granted that it's been a while since I saw any of the other Elm Street flicks, but I do remember them to be a lot more scarier than this. As non-frightening as it is, it barely even deserves to be called a horror movie. Adequate entertainment, sure, but it completely lacks any re-watch value. My recommendation is therefore to skip this, and check out its predecessors instead. They may not have the fine-polished special effects that we're spoiled with now, but they sure hold a lot more humor and scare value.

Despite a solid lead from Jackie Earle Haley, this is a reboot that should be kicked by a boot. I find it so cute how scary, dark and ominous these filmmakers think are toning the film. Next thing you know it, they'll start rebooting Hellraiser. Death to reboots!

It's not a complete wash - the tone is nice, and the acting competent - but for the most part this remake is ill-advised and sort of stupid. There's very little effort put toward generating actual suspense, as director Samuel Bayer is content to let obvious sound cues do his scares for him, and though the movie is faintly more adult than its predecessor, that somehow makes it feel less subtle. What was an insinuation in Wes Craven's film becomes reality here, which is bold, but it makes for an extremely awkward narrative turn in the third act. For a movie that hadn't accomplished much besides dumb fun for the first hour, this twist really leaves a sour taste; all of a sudden the fantasy takes a dark, nasty plummet. Like many of A Nightmare on Elm Street's other failures, it seems like it might work in concept, the anchoring of a very fantastical story to a cruel new reality, but the preceding events are just too goofy. The foundation necessary for it to work isn't there.

Other than that, there's really not much to say about this remake. It's a mite darker than most contemporary horror fare, and there are some inventive visual flourishes, but other than that it's almost totally forgettable.

What a tragic disaster of movie making. A killer enters teenagers dreams and kills them, and the remaining kids try to stop him. Jackie Earl Haley was the worst choice in the world for Krueger, his eyes made him look like a asian Freddy Krueger, his scars no just look stupidly made and not real at all, and now his voice was like a Darth Vader voice, not even attempting to keep to the original classic. The plot is basically the same, nothing new, just remaking a good plot and doing nothing special to make this original. I was never scared once, I was too busy watching one of the worst remakes ever made.

The next in an endless assembly line of vapid horror remakes, a new trip to the realm of Elm Street at least held some promise. The famous boogeyman Freddy Kruger was going to be played by Oscar-nominee Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen). Has any other actor of Haley's caliber played a blatant slasher villain in recent memory? And the playground of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise was the world of dreams, which should be fruitful territory for some bug screen chills. I mean you don't have to adhere to earth logic anymore, not that horror movies tend to. I didn't expect much but I expected the movie to do more. Many of the signature moments from the first film are simply repeated. How does an entire school of young kids forget that Mr. Krueger molested them? What is the point of hiring Haley and giving him nothing to do? Lead actress Rooney Mara (soon to be seen in as the "girl" in David Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) looks as bored as somebody watching her movie. Her performance is lifeless for a film that requires energy and action. There is such wasted potential in the world of reams and personal fears. The whole movie just feels so rote and routine, following an established pattern of terrorizing the teens and knocking them off one-by-one; you get an overwhelming impression that everyone was just going through the motions, repeating someone else's song and not bothering to make it their own.

Nate's Grade: C-

Apperently I never rated this after I saw it...So I'll do it now. No this was not okay. There was no need to do this movie. The original is fine the way it is. This is all about the green stuff. They make Freddy look more real and like a real burn victim. And take away the comedy. That's what's fun about Freddy...that he tortures people with a smile on his face. Now he's just a pissed off, burned child molester (Yeah right...like a child murderer isn't sadistic enough)...He's just angry. The real Freddy was just having a good time in the afterlife.

And by the way....Awful....just awful sound mixing. If you can't scare people with what's on the screen. Super loud jump scares is a stupid way to make up for it. Embarassing.

Surprisingly comes up with a new twist that made me sit up and pay attention. Haley is no Englund, but he doesn't embarrass himself, either.

Freddy Kruger would have to be one of my all time favorite charaters, in horror and otherwise. For all the invincibilty of other bad guys in horror movies, Kruger is refreshing in as much as he does not take what he is doing seriously and more to the point has fun with what he is doing. It may sound sick, but sickness is what we want from horror movies and it is nice to see them enjoying in their work rather than seeing it as a chore. He has no regrets, no fear and more to the point he is not boring. He is the eptiome of evil and these movies are epitome of horror, plain gory and wonderful HORROR!

eF you! ooo sounds like fun!
So many good lines to make fun of. :)