SYNOPSIS:
Five teenage friends
living on one street all dream of a sinister man with a disfigured
face, a frightening voice and a gardener's glove with knives
for fingers. One by one, he terrorizes them within their dreams--where
the rules are his and the only way out is to wake up. But
when one among them dies, they soon realize that what happens
in their dreams happens for real and the only way to stay
alive is to stay awake. Buried in their past is a debt that
has just come due. To save themselves, they must plunge into
the mind of the most twisted nightmare of all: Freddy Krueger.
Jackie Earle Haley plays the legendary evildoer in this contemporary
reimagining of the seminal horror classic.
MOVIE REVIEW:
With “Friday the 13th” a modest but unspectacular hit, the Platinum Dunes people are moving on to attempt their reinterpretation on yet another classic horror franchise, the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series. Wes Craven’s “Nightmare” series first introduced audiences to one Freddy Krueger, the disfigured killer with the red and dark green striped sweater, brown fedora and metal-clawed brown leather gloves who stalked his victims in their sleep, his last outing the inventive “New Nightmare” back in 1994.
Music video and commercial director Samuel Bayer’s feature film debut however takes it back to its origins, forgoing any references to the earlier films. Here a group of five teenage friends living in the same neighbourhood start having nightmares of the same person, Freddy Krueger, and when one by one they start dying in their sleep, it becomes clear that Freddy is not a nightmare that you can wake up from. These deaths unfold in typical horror movie fashion, so fans of the genre shouldn’t have any difficulty anticipating who is about to meet their death next.
Like recent horrors, Bayer’s version also does not shy away from gore, so each demise is preceded by significant amounts of bloodletting. Of course, the gore is no substitute for well-mounted suspense, and it is in this regard that Bayer falls far short from Wes Craven. Craven was a master at keeping his audience on edge before the kill; Bayer however doesn’t have the same fiendish ingenuity. Instead, Bayer likes his ‘boo’ scares, but his injudicious use of them somewhat cheapens the movie.
What it lacks in cleverness, Bayer makes for it by expanding the mythology of the Freddy Krueger character. So Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer’s screenplay builds a subplot of the town’s kindergarten gardener who turns murderous and becomes Freddy- while credit must be given for their attempt to rationalise the beginnings of this character, it is also unnecessary.
A large part of why Freddy was scary was because it was like, many of our fears, irrational and defying explanation. We don’t always understand why we have certain nightmares or certain fears- and Freddy was like one of them. Explaining the myth however takes away some of its lustre, especially since that reveal isn’t that inventive after all. Even a last-minute twist doesn’t save the story from its ‘been there, done that’ feel and there’s never a moment that feels inspired.
Best known for his role in Zack Synder’s “Watchmen”, Jackie Earle Haley steps into the shoes of Freddy for the first time. It is also the first time that the role has been played by someone other than Robert Englund, and Haley puts in a commendably terrifying performance that has every bit the menace Englund had, though none of its kitsch. Nevertheless, even Haley can’t overcome some of the embarrassingly bad dialogue in the film, especially the one-liners supposed to inspire fear (Scared teenage boy: “Oh, God.” Freddy: “Just me.”)
Bayer’s reimagining therefore is no more than a glossy but ultimately mechanical remake of the superior Wes Craven original. Reduced to no more than a vengeful serial killer, it is unlikely that this remake will win over any new fans. It passes quickly enough if you aren’t fussy about it, but those who have seen the original will find little to enjoy in this derivative slasher.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
NIL.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Just one featurette- “Freddy Krueger Reborn”- that has cast and crew trying to explain why they decided going back to basics in this movie. The behind-the-scenes shots of the prosthetics that Haley wore for his character of Freddy though are interesting for the amount of preparation that he had to go through daily- which has Haley cheekily says “really helped him get into the role”.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Gabriel Chong
Posted
on 21 November 2010
|
