I once again had no idea that it was my turn to review anything today (I blame Dan. He gets to just skip reviewing things whenever he wants. Jerk ass.) Considering I have nothing new to really recommend to you guys and gals, I figured I'd just rip on a movie that I absolutely hate. Recently I expressed my love for the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, so why not explain why I hate this utter piece of shit? With that being said, here goes nothing.
When I first heard they were remaking this movie, I wasn't surprised at all. I was obviously really pissed off, but seeing as ever other mediocre to great horror movie had already been remade, why wouldn't Hollywood decide to ruin one of the best Horror movies of all time?! What a shock, it was produced by Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes! Not shocking considering most of the movies they've done are shitty remakes of perfectly acceptable Horror films. They've all been poorly received, but they make a shit load of money, so they keep making these pieces of shit. As I was saying, I was in no way surprised that they decided to remake this film, I was just extremely disappointed that it was actually going to happen.
So when I finally saw this movie, I was not at all shocked at how much I disliked it. First of all, let's just talk about the big, fat, smelly, pink Elephant in the room. Robert Englund didn't return to the role of Freddy Krueger. That being said, when it was first announced that Jackie Earle Haley was going to take over the role, I was kind of excited to see what he'd end up doing with the role. Sadly, he failed miserably. I can't blame it all on him...he didn't decide how Freddy was going to look. (He looked like a sad little puppy dog. I felt bad for him, not scared at all by how he looked. Not really what you should be going for in a Horror film.) But that fucking voice was so God damn awful. He just did his Rorschach voice from The Watchmen, and they just did some fancy Hollywood work on it to make it sound that much worse. So yeah, that's not much of a start for this turd of a movie.
Let's talk about some other things that really sucked about this movie. First of all, the CGI. Obviously there was plenty of that done on Freddy's face to make him look "scarier". That didn't really work, sorry guys! The scene where Freddy comes through the wall looks better in the 1984 film, which also used fucking special effects...but some how looks way better still with a 26 year gap. WHAT THE FUCK?! Oh, and it seems like every dream has to have some bull shit effect that looks horrible. We KNOW CGI can be done well, yet in most movies it just seems to look terrible. This movie is not an exception. Why not just use some practical effects? Is that too much to ask for?
How about the characters in this movie, or lack there of? They do the same bait and switch kind of thing as the original. They build up one girl at first (if you could really say that) and then she dies and is replaced by the real main character. Rooney Mara who would later go on to be pretty great in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo plays Nancy in this movie. But instead of being a person you can root for and who you want to survive...she's an annoying, emotionless, goth-ish chick. She's terrible. Absolutely terrible. Oh and her partner in crime in this movie? He's an annoying emo kid that you want to see die. Not much for great character development here. Speaking of, let's get to Freddy's story in this movie. He was a gardener at a pre school. First of all, WHAT?! Freddy is a gardener?! Uh...okay. The whole movie you are slowly shown more and more of his back story. The parents burn him alive when their kids tell them stories about what he does with them. He's a child molester...or is he? Yeah, he is.
That's one thing that I thought this movie really could have done differently and it would have actually been a nice little twist. When he finally reveals why he's coming after them, he could say they lied about him being a child molester and got him killed for no reason. Instead he's just like "YOU TOLD ON ME! SO NOW I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Oh, okay. Well we already knew all of this from seeing the original movie. (Though he was called a child killer due to stupid shit happening at the time.) They actually had a chance to throw in an interesting twist and make this their own...and they failed.
The movie ends in a way that looks just as bad as the original ending. This left open the option for a sequel, which thankfully after 3 years there hasn't been one yet, nor have I heard that they're going to do one. It really does suck being a fan of Horror films, knowing full well that all of the movies you love are going to end up being remade. I say that because 9 times out of 10 the remake is just fucking terrible. The fact that I love the original so much makes this movie the remake I hate the most of all. It's just so bad when being compared to the original. I could just go on and on and on and on and on and on about why I hate this movie. In fact, I already have done that. It would be nice if people would stop paying to see these movies. As long as Hollywood is making money on these, there's no need for them to be original. There's no need for them to come up with their own ideas, when they can just remake something else and make money off of the title alone.
I'm going to wrap this up by suggesting that you watch the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Dawn of the Dead (Though I did enjoy the remake) A Night of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and so on. Then go ahead and watch the remakes and see what I mean. Stop fucking with classic horror films and try to come up with your own idea. I'm done. Seriously. I'm fucking done. This took too long and I rambled on for way too long. Fuck. Bye!
