Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

Directed by: Samuel Bayer

Release Date: 2010

Saw this opening night and I must say, I wasn’t completely dissatisfied with the outcome. Without revealing too many spoilers, this remake delves more into Freddy’s background and also his crimes. As for thrill factor, not so much. The deaths in the original make the deaths in this movie cringe. Insipid, bland, and forgettable ways to die, I could care less for the first quarter of the movie.
Then the film becomes interesting when we are actually following around Nancy, not her blonde friend. This is a film I would re-watch and contrast with the original movie (a favorite of mine that I watch once a year) and actually own. Considering the film was produced by Michael Bay (who totally botched Friday the 13th but that’s another post), I wasn’t disappointed. However, perhaps the reason there wasn't a sequel to this remake was because this film makes those implicit hidden aspects to Freddy's character come to the surface like never before. He was a pedophile and we know this, but that information is never as in your face like in this film. There were cringe worthy moments that made you squirm a bit. Freddy's make up was pretty decent. But the whopping missing element from the film was: Robert Englund. There's only one Freddy Krueger. And I'm sorry Jackie Earle Haley, but you ain't it.

For the lovers of the original, you may not like this but you may take it for what it is: introducing Freddy into a world that had long forgotten him.