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A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 has been released and is justifiably getting great reviews.
Freddie Krueger is practically a religious icon among horror fans around the world. Even though it has been over 25 years since Wes Craven first unleashed him in 1984, who living today does not know who he is? Freddie Kruger … the child molester who was burned alive by the neighborhood parents. His spirit came back to enter the dreams of teenagers and torment, torture and kill them as they slept. This was a masterpiece of 1980s horror and along with Friday the 13 started the “slasher film” genre, where all that mattered was the body count and how ingeniously gruesome each murder could be.
Robert Englund played Freddie in the original Nightmare series and became an international star with his trademark quips and delivery. Unfortunately the writers made Freddie a little more comical and aloof with each subsequent installment until finally things got so silly that the people stopped going to see the movies altogether.
Well things are different with the outstanding 2010 remake of the 1984 classic. Jackie Earle Hayley takes over the iconic role and plays Freddie as a dark, tormented monster. No free rides here. The producers were smart by giving the pivotal role to Hayley. He is an accomplished, Oscar-nominated actor (Little Children) who has been in about a million movies and tv shows since his breakout performance in 1979’s Breaking Away. As loved as Robert Englund is, you can tell that the new Freddie is being played by a A-list actor in Jackie Earle Hayley. This was the same move made by the producers of the Iron Man movies. They hired Robert Downey Jr, maybe the best actor of his generation, to anchor that hit franchise.
The slasher fodder in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 hasn’t changed much in 25 years. You get a collection of 5 or so beautiful hardbody teenagers too stupid to get out of the way of Freddie, and in most cases perish in a gore-fest of blood and guts. The girls are shapely and beautiful, and you can tell which ones are “dead women walking” by how promiscuous they are. Remember … sex kills.
The road to death, if not the methods, are as of those first films in that these young adults find themselves being killed off one by one. Actually not just killed, but mutilated, sliced and diced in horrific ways. If there is one area of this movie that is flat-out better than the original, it’s the amount of gore, pain and suffering. 25 years of special effects advancements make this Nightmare the most scary and unsettling of all the movies that came before.
As their numbers decrease, the teenagers try to figure out the secrets of Freddie Kruger and why he is killing them. This film spends an extended sequence on the background of Freddie, and why he is the way he is. It might have been better not to go there because Freddie seems more scary as a sociopathic killer rather than someone with a tough upbringing.
This is a fantastic movie, well worth the effort of the remake.
