In 2003 a new company called Platinum Dunes did the unthinkable. They remade The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Surprisingly, they did a decent job and the film was a big success. They then began remaking classic horror films on a regular basis and each did a turn, until February 2009 when they released their version of Friday the 13th. This abomination really let me down. I was actually disgusted and as a life long horror fan I had every right to be. When I heard they were remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street, I was scared. Freddy is my absolute favourite boogeyman of all time after all. Thankfully, this remake was more TCM less F13.
After delving into his childhood with a psychologist, Dean Russell (Kellan Lutz) has been having terrifying nightmares. They are so bad that he is afraid to go to sleep. After they witness an incident involving Dean in The Springwood Diner, his friends Kris (Katie Cassidy), Jesse (Thomas Dekker), Quentin (Kyle Gallner) and Nancy (Rooney Mara) all discover that they share the same nightmares. Dreams which feature a burnt man in a red and green striped sweater who has knives for fingers. As they begin to dream, the man attacks them and they soon learn more about him, their secret past and the fact that if you die in your dream you die for real.
Samuel Bayer’s remake begins well with a nice opening credits sequence, but begins second guessing itself straight away, by superimposing formal credits over the hand scrawled childlike chalk ones written on the playground. Its first scene in the dream world is well crafted, as is the introduction to its characters and indeed its villain. Freddy is effective. He’s sickening and witty without wisecracking. The cast are likeable, but I can’t understand why the more appealing members of the group are killed off in rapid succession leaving us with two emos moping around for the majority of the running time.
I liked the back story they gave Freddy, but I hate that they didn’t explain how he is able to do what he does (in fact, the whole reason he has begun showing up in the groups dreams is explained in one throw away line) and the fact that they made the characters doubt he was an evil child molester even though they gave us tangible evidence that he was a kiddy fiddler. This means that when Quentin discovers photographic evidence that Nancy was molested, a potentially shocking plot point is rendered ineffective, as we knew Freddy was a paedo about forty minutes before our protagonists, thanks to a flashback scene where five year old Kris’s mother finds four claw marks on her daughter’s back.
Poor editing choices and scripting aside, any time they bust open the CGI the film is ruined momentarily. The infamous stretching out the wall scene sucks and should have stopped with the rippling effect. Surprisingly, the practical effects are incredible, especially the throat slashings. I also dug the tone, visual style and the transitions between worlds and locations.
OVERALL SUMMARY
A Nightmare on Elm Street is an okay film. It has lots of flaws but it is evident that more care was shown to Freddy than Jason.
