A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)


It’s really easy to tear apart Michael Bay’s horror remake production company, Platinum Dunes.  I’m not going to spend this whole time trying to destroy any good reputation that they have.  That may be too easy.  Plus, they have made movies that I don’t dislike.  However, A Nightmare on Elm Street is the only time I have watched a Platinum Dunes film and wondered “What was the point?”

The 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street stars Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger a dead man who haunts the dreams of Katie Cassidy and Rooney Mara among others.  The difference between these nightmares and normal nightmares is that when Freddy causes harm to you, that harm happens outside of the dreams.  Scary stuff!

What was the point of this remake?  I have not yet been able to determine that.  Freddy looks less real, and many of the iconic images of the original were changed or removed completely.  I understand changing certain aspects to make a different movie.  I really do understand that.  But to remove almost all of the moments that made the original what it was kind of bastardizes the film, does it not?  Remember the shot where the girl is dragged up the wall and across the roof while her boyfriend watches from the bottom corner of the screen?  Let’s take that scene and do some quick cutting while the girl flies around the room with lots of CG blood spraying around.  Remember the scene with the bed and the hole and all of the blood?  Doesn’t even happen.

That’s not even the worst of what they did with the remake.  I’m not sure there is any mention of Elm Street or if there is, nothing really happens regarding Elm Street.  It’s called A Nightmare on Elm Street, yet Elm Street has next to nothing to do with anything.  It seems to be a weird way to rework the movie.

This was just another style over substance movie.  I don’t think the style was that great though.  The look of the movie was the same as almost every other movie released by Platinum Dunes.  And the CGI sucked.  I’ve seen worse, I guess, but it took me out of the movie every time I saw the CGI.  It didn’t mesh well with what the movie was doing and it killed any suspense or horror that was in the movie at that point.

Jackie Earle Haley was an alright Freddy Krueger.  He’s no Robert Englund though.  That’s really all I can say on that point.

After watching the entire movie, I’m left wondering what the point was.  Why did they remake it?  They added one little thing about micronaps, but they had no effect on anything that happened.  There were no consequences of micronaps really.  That’s the only thing they brought to it and they didn’t work it as well as they could have.  There was potential with this remake.  It didn’t live anywhere near the potential and was a crazy disappointment.

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