A Nightmare on Elm Street – Directed by Samuel Bayer – 2010

Very Good, Possibly Better Than Craven's.

Plot: The plot is nearly identical to the classic Nightmare, with a few slight differences on Krueger's origin. That having been said, one of my major gripes with the first one was the ending. Nancy's plan was to simply stop giving Freddy power by not continuing to think about him. This might have worked in a book, but not on the big screen, especially when the last second scare at the end of the that movie completely contradicted it. The ending of this movie worked much better, probably because they now have a better idea of where they want to go with the series.

That said, the plot is far from perfect. As I see it, the plot moved too fast. The original Nightmare gave us an unexpected, unexplainable scare and then waited a good long time to really try and scare us again. In that time we got to latch onto the characters and get to know them. This movie seems to think the audience will get bored if they don't keep having scares every five minutes or so. B

Characters: As expressed in the plot department, this is a major weakness in this movie. We don't spend very long with any of the major characters before they are dispatched. As a result, I can't tell you anything about most of the people in this movie. We don't even get to spend long with Nancy, the survivor girl from the original, as we spend most of the movie over the shoulder of two other characters until they are dispatched.

That said, Jackie Earl Haley's Freddy is terrifying. I don't know if I'm ready to say that he's better than Robert Englund, but he's definitely the best part of this movie and is worth the price of admission on his own, both as dream demon Freddy and the living Freddy.

Lastly, special mention goes out to Clancy Brown. Good to see you in a movie again, Kurgan. Does anyone else remember the fact that he used the pseudonym of “Krueger” when he checked into the hotel in the original Highlander movie?

It's hard to assign a letter grade to this category, as I want to give an A to Jackie Earl Haley and an F to the rest of the characters, so we'll compromise at a C.

Visuals: People who don't like CG are going to disagree with me, but I thought this movie looked amazing. One of my big complaints with the Nightmare franchise is that I never felt that it reached a boiling point, in that Freddy, being a dream demon, never really created a dream world that was all that more terrifying than the real world. The best dream world in the old continuity can probably be found in Freddy vs. Jason or Wes Craven's New Nightmare. This movie's dream world is a bit more dreamlike. The ground turns to liquid, mazes grow out of the ground from nowhere, the laws of physics be damned, and Krueger seems able to do anything his imagination can think of. Granted, it's almost all CG, and practical purists will no doubt cry that it looks fake. To me, this is a choice. You either decide to ride with this movie or you decide to reject it, but the choice is yours. A

Audio: There were enough points where I found myself fighting the urge to cover my ears when I expected to next scare to appear on screen, so I can't think of a better compliment than that. The score is creepy, the original Nightmare theme is reworked effectively, and the Everly Brothers' song “All I Have to do is Dream” makes a very appropriate feeling appearance. B

Overall: This is a very good movie. Is it better than the original? I really can't say right now, as I need to rewatch the original first, but from what I remember I think it gives the first one a run for its money. It does some things worse, but it also fixes some problems that I had with the original. Overall, I give it a B.


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