Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on gigantic television.
There’s an idea that circulates online every now and then is that filmmakers should remake movies that had good premises but turned out badly. Imagine, if you will, a version of Army of the Dead that didn’t suck. Sadly, though, we live in a world where the good and great movies get remade or rebooted, and nowhere does that appear to be more prevalent than in the horror genre. Tons of the classics have been remade with varying levels of skill. And while there have been some real trainwrecks, perhaps nothing has been more egregious than the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Honestly, it seems inevitable. Most of the best work of Wes Craven has been remade (The Hills Have Eyes, Last House on the Left) or rebooted (Scream), so why not his absolute masterwork? This feels like a venal cash grab, something so completely soulless that there’s a whiff of brimstone when one opens the DVD case. And, since the film was produced by Michael Bay, that fits completely.
Even if you’re not a horror fan, you probably know the basics of the story here. High school aged kids are suddenly plagued in their dreams by the specter of Freddy Kruger (Jackie Earle Haley in this version), who terrorizes them. And, as the tradition goes, if they die in their dreams, they die in the real world. And, also as tradition for these films dictate, what happens in the dreams carries over into the real world. If Freddy slashes you with his glove of articulated knives, you bleed out in the real world, seemingly gutted by nothing in particular.
And why does Freddy do this? Because he’s a child molester who was hunted down by a pack of angry parents and burned to death. Now, he’s returned to take his revenge, in this case, on the kids who he abused and who then told their parents. This is close enough to the original movie, but different enough (in the original he was a child murderer) to be worth noting. Beyond this, you know pretty much everything you need to know going in.
So what’s wrong with this remake? Name it, even with a cast that includes Rooney Mara as Nancy and Clancy Brown as the high school principal. There’s some talent on the screen here, but its in the service of something that should not exist. I’m going to start listing these things out. Spoilers might be involved, but that shouldn’t concern you—spoiling this movie is like adding mold to rotten meat; it’s already going to make you ill, so what’s more going to do?
One of the biggest issues is Freddy himself. Robert Englund as Freddy Kruger, who was admittedly a terrible human being, was fun. There was a charm to him. He had fun quips and he was entertaining in the later movies, and in the first movie, he was absolutely terrifying. In this version of the film, we rarely get an actual clear shot of Freddy, and when we do, he looks a lot like the MCP from Tron, or like really poor CGI that is supposed to pass for a man with terrible burns on his face. The entire movie is ugly to look at as well. Everything is a rust orange or a fungus green (or both), and it feels like there’s a dark filter on the film.
In the same vein, there are times when it’s hard to figure out what the hell is going on, but this fits with Michael Bay being the producer. There are multiple times where there are several cuts within the same second, and in moments where we are expecting some action, it’s virtually impossible to follow what is happening.
The film also desperately wants to cop all of the greatest hits from the original—the teen being dragged around the ceiling, the bathtub sequence, the body bag in the high school hallway, and in each case, it feels like the director just pointing at those original great shots and saying, “Look! I can make those shots, too!” They don’t feel natural—they feel forced into the narrative because we expect them to be there.
I hated this. I want to like the movies I watch, and while there are times (like this) where I expect I’m going to spend 95 minutes watching a trainwreck, I don’t want that to be the case. I couldn’t get through this fast enough.
You know what’s good here? That it wasn’t good enough to spawn any sequels. Everyone involved in this should be embarrassed, and everyone involved with producing or directing it should be beaten with sticks.
Why to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street: You grabbed the wrong one at the library.
Why not to watch: Every reason you can think of.
No comments:
Post a Comment