A nightmare on Dull Street

Hollywood movies are funny thing: limitless money, the best actors, groundbreaking special effects, I could go on and on. Now, with all these resources one would think Hollywood would constantly be cranking out mind-bending cinematic experiences that on a daily basis will alter the way we think of the medium and the people who work in.

I don't need to tell you, this is just not the case. For whatever reason most Hollywood movies are pretty much garbage - uninspired cash grabs that do nothing but propel the stereotype. I'd like to say Samuel Bayer’s remake of Wes Craven's masterpiece defied the Hollywood tradition but, once again, it's just not the case.

It's not that "a nightmare on Elm Street" looks bad, it actually looks great. It's dark and atmospheric with mood to spare. It's quite brilliantly lit. The lush reds invoked the heat and fire. While the sterile, almost fluorescent, "non-dream" environments drive home mundane realities of day-to-day existence. Truth is there is enough atmospheres here for 3 J-horror remakes. No, it's not the look of the film that's a problem at all.

Could it be the story? Being a remake we all know the story: crazy pedophile Freddy Krueger is trapped and murdered by a group of vengeful parents, the whole sordid affair is covered up and the children inexplicably have no recollection of it. That is, until the evil Kroger returns as a demonic dream diddling deviant (alliteration clap clap clap clap clap alliteration clap clap clap clap clap) who offs the teen du jour in their sleep. He manages to get midway through his attackers offspring when the wallflower Goth cliché "Nancy" (Rooney Mara) channels Nancy Drew to decipher the monster's secrets and therein how to destroy him.

Well it's not any less clunky than it was in 1985, but it certainly a serviceable story. The concept of being afraid to sleep versus what sleep deprivation does to your body is every bit as intriguing as when Craven first contrived it. Any writer worth their salt could easily mine a plethora of scary scenarios and inventive set pieces out of this concept. "Nightmare" is not without its good ideas and as I said before, the thing looks great. But that's it.

We were promised the reinvention of a horror icon. What we got was 90 minutes of underdeveloped characters milling about in beautiful well-conceived images. Imagine a music video without any music, some weird fusion of A Korn and a Emo hit. A bunch of dark, crazy shit goes down and a bunch of kids wander around and pout.

Having said that, not everything was a visual delight. One of the most exciting things about this project was Freddy himself. I for one could not wait to see what the tough kid from "The Bad News Bears" brought to the table. If his Freddy was half as bad-ass as his Rorschach, this new Freddy would be super bad-ass. It's not that Jackie Earle Haley did a bad job, the he certainly didn't have a lot to work with. But when your makeup is so awful you couldn't scare an eight year old spastic with a bad makeup phobia, your horror movie is in dire straits. Truth be told. FK’s horribly burned mug bears more than a passing resemblance to the crazy old dancing guy in the Six Flags commercials.

Another horrible mistake, in an effort to keep up with other more recent horror remakes, inventive kills were replaced by simple and brutal grab-and-slash. This technique worked perfectly with Michael Myers in a minimal effect with Jason Voorhees. But if you were a supernatural force of nature who had the ability to appear in, and manipulate, stupid teenagers dreams, I suspect you could come up with a little better than stabbing folks with your razor glove. Boring, boring, boring. There is absolutely nothing to care about in this film, not the terrible actors (most of whom look 45 and are more creepy milling around lockers than an ol "no flags Kruger" could ever be), not the lackluster delivery of what on paper seemed like a solid script, and certainly not the lousy looking villain.

Boring, slow, and underwhelming. Here's another remake for the pile.