Fowler's Frights 2015: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner
Directed by: Samuel Bayer


Now would've been the time for my Happy Halloween review. But frankly, I didn't think this movie was worthy of that honor. After giving a great tribute to Wes Craven in my New Nightmare review, I really didn't want to follow up with the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. As a huge fan of the original series, I was skeptical when this film first came out. Wes Craven had no involvement and even Robert Englund didn't reprise his role as Freddy Krueger. The trailers made it look scary enough, so I was hoping things would be great. Then the reviews came out...and it was bad. I mean, BAD bad. Then I saw the film, and it was truly THAT BAD. I felt unclean to review this film on Halloween, one of my favorite nights of the year and the time of year when I celebrate one of my favorite film genres. This film was unworthy of ending things, but it is unfortunately the end of the Nightmare series thus far, so I have to close it out. Hopefully I can think of something else I can do to bring some proper balance and momentum to it all. But alas, let's talk about the horror remake abomination that is 2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Jackie Earle Haley tries his hardest to make Freddy Krueger scary again, but all that means is making him sound like Batman or Rorschach (who was also played by Jackie Earle Haley in Watchmen). Simply put, he's not Robert Englund. Robert Englund will always be Freddy Krueger and there's no way around that. Any actor they would have chosen to play him here wouldn't have been received well. I will say I didn't actually mind majority of his makeup. It actually looked like how a burn victim would work. But that realism is a tad off-putting when the lines between horror and real life are blurred. The element of it not being real is what makes a character like Freddy fun. That effect is ruined when we see realistic makeup and are shoehorned with the less than subtle story of Freddy being a child molester in this film. Yeah, there's no subtext like hinted at with the earlier films. They flat out make it the main plot point. It just comes out of nowhere, and when it does it becomes the main focus. It takes all the fun out of what the film could've been, and just like that, my expectations deflated like a balloon and it was all downhill from there.

There's really no point in mentioning the main characters other than you'll find most of them having better times in better shows and movies. For me, that's how I feel with Rooney Mara playing Nancy. She's gone on record to say this filming experience made her almost quit acting. Shortly after, she appeared in one of my favorite movies The Social Network (seriously...my top 5 of all-time), and it's a film like that where I go "I swear she's a good actress." The only one who actually looks like they're trying is Kyle Gallner as Quentin, but that can't save the movie from what it is.

The big problem with the film is that it takes itself WAY TOO SERIOUSLY. The original film, while serious in some moments, was only serious for the fear and knew when to add comedy to lighten the tension. Here, even when Freddy's not around, the teenagers are so melodramatic that it alienates the audience. It's boring. Plain and simple. The Nightmare on Elm Street reboot SUCKS. You can see why I thought this film was not worthy of reviewing on Halloween. It's such a sour note to end the horror month on, though. Wait....there's a Friday the 13th in November?!??! Screw it, I'm reviewing the Friday the 13th movies next.


Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars.

Way too serious for its own good, the Nightmare on Elm Street remake is really hard to get into. It can range on boring, the actors don't look like they want to be there, and it feels like an overall disappointment to any fans of the original serious. Avoid this film like the plague.

Comment below to share your thoughts on the movie or to discuss a topic that I left out of my review

A Nightmare on Elm Street and movie images are copyrighted by Warner Bros.