The decade from 1974 to 1984 established four of the most celebrated horror movie franchises of all time: Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. These groundbreaking films created larger than life villains that kept audiences addicted well through the 1990s.
Writer/director Wes Craven introduced the last of these famous anti-heroes with A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. His film’s villain Freddy Krueger, a murder who torments teenagers in their dreams, became a surprise hit in the horror community. Played by Robert Englund, the man who became synonymous with the role, A Nightmare on Elm Street was so successful, that it launched a franchise which would eventually include six sequels. Englund’s version of Krueger joined a club of immortal slasher film baddies, a group which already comprised Michael Meyers, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface. These characters would continue to delight audiences craving gore for a number of years.
By the first decade of the new millennium, Hollywood’s success with these characters started to dry up however. Films like Jason X, Halloween: Resurrection, and the long anticipated Freddy vs Jason, failed to excite audiences in the way they once had. The studios knew that they could still make money with these franchises though, so they came up with a plan to drum up viewer interest again. They began reviving these characters under the guise of putting a fresh spin on the famous villains, bringing in directors from the music world like Marcus Nispel and Rob Zombie.
Remakes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween met with mixed success, while the new “Friday the 13th,” was not as popular. A Nightmare on Elm Street, became the most recent film of the four series to receive a new beginning this year. The remake, helmed by music video director Samuel Bayer feels much more like a rewind than a reboot though. It recreates scenes from the original film and most of the same aspects of the story, without contributing much more to the lore.
Similar to the original, this film takes place in the town of Springwood where a group of teenagers are being terrorized by a mysterious burned man in their dreams. This man who sports a glove with razor blades attached has the ability to inflict injury upon them in their dreams that seems to be there when they wake up. Thus if these teens die in their dreams they will be dead in real life.
In the Springwood diner, Dean Russell falls asleep, where he encounters this burned man we immediately recognize as Freddy. His girlfriend Kris and the waitress Nancy watch him commit what appears to be suicide at the blade of a knife even though they see him talking to an unseen figure. As if this is not traumatizing enough for Kris, old photographs at Dean’s funeral bring back memories of friendship with Dean as a child. Her concerns are simply brushed off by her mother as simple lapse of memory.
Kris becomes Freddy’s next target, as he terrorizes her dreams until she is almost delirious from her lack of sleep. The only person that believes Kris at first about Freddy is Nancy, who seems to willing to accept the unusual. Nancy also has Freddy stalking her in dreamland, prompting her to pop pills and drink coffee in a desperate struggle to stay awake. As Freddy continues to claim victims, getting even closer to Nancy, she decides to join forces with Quentin, whose father works as their high school’s guidance counselor. Together Quentin and Nancy decide to face Freddy head on, attempting to discover why he has chosen them as targets.
This film differs from the original in a number of ways, mainly in how it defines its villain Freddy. Krueger receives more of a back story, painted as a child molester rather than an outright murderer. He also actually has direct connection to the children unlike the first film. This time Kreuger is played by Jackie Earle Haley, known best for his role of Rorschach in “Watchmen.” Earle Haley has a gruff voice as Kreuger and his makeup is done more realistically to look like that of a burn victim. He spends more time talking to his victims, tormenting them with words instead of his actions. One bit of flair he adds on his own to the character though, is a swishing of his knives that he does when approaching his prey.
A new concept of micro naps is introduced that is not present in the original film. Its explanation is that when people become tired enough will lapse into sleep for seconds at a time without realizing it, making them much more vulnerable to Freddy. As an idea though it’s not effectively separated from regular dream sequences enough to be useful as an interesting quirk. While there are a couple of decent moments that make you jump in the film, you’ll find that if you’ve seen the original film, there’s really no need to catch this one. Shots and scenes recreated from the first film really just receive a visual effects upgrade, without introducing anything dynamic.