Visitors Review

hausrathman (2012-05-26 07:49)

Completely Uninvolving

I saw the original film in the theaters and found it fresh, excitingand genuinely scary -- three attributes sorely missing from the tired,uninvolving reboot. I know the original film was low budget, but thisfilm felt even cheaper. Is it my imagination or are there only aboutseven people in the whole freaking movie. Everything seemed like sets.Nothing was real. The special effects weren't bad, and the juxtaposingbetween the real world and the dream world was interesting at times,however, film lacked any and all humanity. I didn't care about any ofthe characters, who were little more than thumbnail sketches at best.This is particularly surprising since a high profile writer like WesleyStrick was involved. Most disappointing was Freddie himself. He was notRobert Englund.I wanted to like the film. I was in the mood for a horror movie.However, I soon found myself headed into the other room to check myemail. Then Facebook.... Then the movie was over. Fortunately, when Ireturned to the TV room Vincent Price's "The Pit and the Pendulum" wasplaying on MGM HD. It might have been old and a bit corny, but itentertained.I'd watch any of the lame sequels with Robert Englund than this filmagain.

Chad Kinnair (2012-05-25 13:42)

Freddy's Back...

Well. The start of the film was rather slow and boring. I thought tomyself that the film was going to be rubbish; however about 25 minutesinto the film and the action become I was rather obscene with my lastviews and objected as the film turned into a proper horror film. In allof the American horror films I've seen they always have a more suspenseor happy ending - never the less the ending of this film was jumpy,quite horrific but how a slasher/horror film should end. Throughout thefilm I was pretty annoyed about the child molester story line. This wasnever introduced in the 1984 film and again put me down again. - Isticked to that feeling. When the film finished I compared it to theoriginal 1984 version and knew this version was much better; despitethe storyline of Freddy lusting Children it was still a compellingstoryline and left me startled with the ending.

(2012-05-25 00:51)

Gave it a shot!

Like many of the new horror film remakes that have come out over the last few years, I approached New Nightmare with a little bit of apprehension, however unlike the other horror movies to come out, Friday the 13th and Halloween being the two biggest culprits, New Nightmare was actually refreshing.First: To start, all of those that are approaching Freddy with a "you're not Robert Englund, you'll never be Freddy" are not giving the film the chance it deserves. Haley isn't Englund, but he does decently in his own right. There was a creepy atmosphere from the film without a complete reliance on blood and shock value, (Halloween) Which to me harkens back to my first time seeing A Nightmare on Elmstreet as a kid. It was creepy and to me New nightmare covers that particular ground quite well.Second: The characters in horror movies are rarely fleshed out enough for the audience to like them, otherwise the audience would be upset when they are killed off. If you go back and actually watch the old classics, I'm sure you'll notice that the characters that get killed off are woody, without a strong background. You aren't supposed to love them, they're fodder for the wolves. The only characters that the audience is supposed to feel a strong connection to are the ones who will "hopefully live." It's not always the case but for the most part the well developed characters are the ones who live. Nightmare did a decent job with Quentin and Nancy's story line, not great, but better than most.Third: The problems I found with New Nightmare; The back story doesn't fit as concise as the originals. Keep in mind that I love that they tried to view the back story through new eyes, and absolutely loved that they made me question all that I thought I knew about the story, even if it turned out that what I knew all along was correct, but the back story was patchy in places and to me fell apart in a few places. All of that could have changed with a few tweaks to the over all line, but again it wasn't as horrible as it could have been.Last: I'd like to take this time to say that I overall enjoyed the movie, thought it was a breath of fresh air, one of the few that have come out recently that were worth watching at least once, and it made me want to go back and watch the originals. Freddy wasn't meant to be funny, the direction the old movies went felt wrong to me, and like a few other commentators on this site this movie felt like a step back in the right direction for the franchise. All in all I'd recommend the movie at least as a rental, on the condition that you view it in its own light. It's not the Original, but it's not bad either.

Michael_Elliott (2012-05-24 08:47)

Like a Bad Train Wreck....

Nightmare on Elm Street, A (2010) * (out of 4) One, two another dumb teenagers turn dead teenagers movie is here. Thelatest remake from Platinum Dunes has Freddy Krueger (Jackie EarleHaley) stalking a new group of teenagers whose parents turned him intothe burnt freak that he is. Okay, I'm not against remakes and willadmit that I enjoyed some of this companies previous remakes likeFriday THE 13TH and THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE but while those had atleast a little imagination, this thing here is a complete mess fromstart to finish and manages to be the worst film in the NIGHTMAREfranchise. I'm really not sure where to start but I guess we can beginwith the obvious bad screenplay. The screenplay never seems to know ifit wants to be a serious horror movie or if it just wants to be lazyand copy what we saw in the first film. We get a couple death scenesand a few more situations that are copied from the original movie butthey're so watered down and tame here that they're almost laughable.Another problem is Freddy himself because they start off showing him asthe "scary" guy but then during the final fifteen-minutes they turn himinto "joke" Freddy with some very dumb one-liners (including one fromNIGHTMARE 4). The acting really isn't much better as most of it goesbeyond bad and turns rather annoying. The screenplay doesn't do theactors any real service as they're all very dumb characters constantlydoing dumb things. Just check out how incredibly stupid all of theparents are. There are countless logic problems with the back storythey give the kids, their parents and Freddy but I must admit that theonly real highlight of the film comes when we see the flashbacks as towhat Freddy did. Speaking of Freddy, I don't mind change consideringthe original one seemed to change from film to film but there's nothinggood about him here. He's no scary. He's not funny. He's pretty muchnothing. The character is all over the board on what he's trying to bethat it was really shocking to see how poorly he was written. Ipersonally didn't care for the make up as he looked more like an alienbut the clothes and glove are all fine. The biggest problem however isthe incredibly awful voice deepener that made me smile every time Iheard it. The way they distorted the voice to make him sound more likea demon was an awful choice and I can't believe in post-production noone stood up and said this here was ruining the movie. It's meant to bescary but it had me laughing a couple times. Laughter isn't what youwant when watching something you're suppose to be afraid of. As forHaley, a fine actor but he doesn't get to show anything here as thecharacter is just too poorly written and the voice thing certainlydoesn't do him any good. I must admit that I got frustrated with thismovie around the ten-minute mark as it was obvious there wasn't toomuch thought going into the film. This is yet another example of acurrent horror film that doesn't want to scare you with atmosphere butinstead it just wants loud sounds coming from the speakers to make youjump. The first "loud bang" from the speakers will make anyone jumpbecause your ears aren't ready for the noise. After that you justbecome numb to it and you're left with countless dumb things jumpingout loudly. What happened to building atmosphere? In the end, remakesaren't evil but bad remakes are and this here manages to be a reallybad one and easily the worst film to feature Freddy.

jbluv2005 (2012-05-23 00:29)

Stick To The Blueprint

First off, let me say that my "out of 10" vote is as high as it is,simply because I like Jackie Earle Haley as an actor. Do I think he wasright for this role? No, not really. And I don't know whether or notthat is because he literally did not fit the original mold of theFreddy we've come to know and fear, OR if it is because the charactermakeup seriously sucked.All in all, I really don't understand why "remakes" can't stick to thescript. Of course, with technology being what it is today, some thingscan and will be different. But they should be better. If a remake isbeing done, NOTHING involving the plot line should be changed. Maybe aname, an outfit, night and/or day - but the major details in a storyshould not be substituted. And they definitely were in this newNightmare on Elm Street - hence the movie falling miles short of itsoriginal.It's very annoying to see a person try to make a classic into his/herown. NO. NO. NO. It's details are the reason why it is a classic. Ifyou're going to take a stab (literally) at remaking a milestone inAmerican Horror History, do it right. For example, despite the originalmovie not being from America, The Ring was as successful as it wasbecause (for the most part) it stuck to the script. The second (again,literally) it tried to go off and do its own thing, it got stupid -hence the hot mess we got with The Ring Two (American Version). Somefilmmakers' arrogance is astounding. I really did have high hopes for this movie, but it fell short.Horrible acting, nonsense story lines - I was not feeling most of it,at all.

(2012-05-22 12:30)

A Great Reinterpretation, not just another remake

I have to say I liked it. It didn't come off as a remake, instead it seemed to me it was a reinterpretation of the character. Of course I don't like that Freddy was a pedophile, but since they made it that way, I liked the back-story with Nancy and the other kids, and how they played up the "need" in Freddy for making the kids remember to give him a sort-of new life in their dreams. The only think I didn't like is the fact that the glove itself was not really a major factor. There was no scene included of Freddy making his glove. They only showed a brief scene of him looking at a garden rake and suggesting the idea of a glove. In the same regard, since Freddy was not necessarily a child murderer, they really gave no explanation of why he even made a glove in the first place. There were the back flash scenes of some kids with scratch marks on them, conceivable from the glove, but no "why". I would really have liked to have seen more of the glove, after all it is a horror icon. On the plus side, Freddy, after the burning, came off as a great character. They made him look like a genuine burn victim and not some monster. They left the voice alone too and he sounded rather human which I think made him more disturbing. All in all I thought it was pretty good. I hope they continue the story.

Scott Baldwin (2012-05-16 18:13)

One, two, Michael Bay's coming for you...

Hollywood loves remaking things these days. In fact, that's anunderstatement. EVERYTHING is being remade nowadays. Coming later inthe year, Alexandre Aja, the king of remakes, will be releasing histake on "Pirhana" in 3D, as well as Robert Rodriguez's take of"Predator". Is Hollywood running out of ideas? In some aspects, yes. ANightmare remake was in the talks as far back as 2007. Obviously RobertEnglund was too old for the role of Freddy, as his swan song was in"Freddy Vs. Jason". However, rumours that Jackie Earle Haley was goingto be the new Freddy were spreading when Watchmen got released… andthose rumours are true.A Nightmare on Elm Street, directed by Sam Bayer is a remake of a movieby Wes Craven, to state the obvious. The original movie spawned anentire franchise of seven sequels. I took a liking to it when I sawFreddy Vs. Jason when it got released on DVD, and, well, at the time Iliked it. I hadn't seen a single Jason movie before, nor did I ever seea single Freddy. I have since seen every Nightmare on Elm Street movie,and I was excited to go see this movie today.So, did I like it? Well, I'll be honest: Unfortunately, it was justaverage at best.The movie starts off well. Dean is in a diner, falling asleep, and hewants some coffee. He sees the waitress go back to the kitchen andignore him, so he goes back and finds weird stuff. What he doesn't knowis that Freddy's near. So like seen in the trailer, he turns the cornerand BAM, Freddy's there, and he slices his hand. He wakes up, and isthreatened by Nancy to be thrown out. He looks at his hand and BAM,there's a cut. After a conversation between Quentin, Jesse and anotherdude, in an ordeal over Dean and Kris, Dean falls asleep again, andbam, Freddy's there, and he forces Dean to slice his own throat open.Bam!!! Good way to start the movie.As with back in 1984, the movie focuses on Nancy, a teenage girl whogoes to school and works at a diner. After the death of Dean, FreddyKrueger, once a gardener who abused children and was burned to death bythe parents of those children, starts appearing in all of their dreams.However, not all of them survive their nightmares. Quentin and Nancyare brought together after both of Kris and Jesse are killed by FreddyKrueger in their dreams, and then start to notice that Freddy is intheir dreams too. However, they are both the next target on Freddy'slist. United by this fact, both of them go to solve the mysterysurrounding the deaths. However, Freddy's especially headed for Nancybecause she told her parents about her abuse. They then try to make onebold move: Stop Freddy for once and for all.Now first off, I didn't actually hate this movie at all. I mean, it wasgorgeously shot, and had some good, eerie, creepy moments. Jackie EarleHaley is pure cash money with every performance he gives, and hecontinues to prove so here. He can do no wrong. If anything, I thinkhis Freddy may be even creepier than Englund's. His creepyRorschach-meets-Englund voice definitely sent shivers down my spine. Idefinitely think this guy deserves more credit. Also turning in a greatperformance was Kyle Gallner, and I usually don't like that kid. Herehe breaks away from his usual role as a sexual neurotic and plays ateenage kid who, as soon as Freddy comes for him, pops pills and drinksRed Bull to keep him awake. Also, I gotta say I did enjoy the fightscene and the "gotcha" ending.However though, where my concerns is… well… pretty much everythingelse. My biggest gripes are the characterization, script, and pacing.The characters were just plain empty. Of the teenagers, I only likedQuentin. Nancy was a pretty BAD character here. It could also be due toRooney's acting. She was so wooden that I kept expecting Freddy to comeand make a wooden stake out of one of her arms. Kris and Jesse are bothkilled off before I get the chance to have any connection to them, butwhile that worked in the original 1984 classic because it was not onlyscary but also provided the "anything can happen" motto, here theircharacters were so empty and bland.Pacing is also another issue. The movie is really rushed and poorlyedited- none of the scenes have any real "flow" to them. Some scenesend before they even begin. There's one creepy, tense moment where Krisis in a nightmare, and she enters her house, to walk by a room to findthree girls playing Skiprope and singing the "One, two, Freddy's comingfor you" song, then Freddy says "Ready or not here I come", thenlaunches for her. That scene was a whole lot of buildup to an ending ofa scene so quick that I went "Whoa". The movie's pacing is really odd-the first third is incredibly rushed, then the second third slows itdown a bit, then it speeds up towards the end, then just… ends. As wellas the writing and dialogue range from "mediocre" to "AWFUL".Thankfully Freddy isn't stuck with lame and cheesy puns like in "TheDream CHild", but some of the dialogue is just BAD. And I don't meanAdvent Children English Dub bad.It isn't totally awful, like I said. It had some good creepy moments,was gorgeously shot had good performances from Haley and Gallner, and agood fight scene at the end. But unfortunately, Platinum Dunes andMichael Bay has laid their curse again upon the horror Franchise, andin the end, I was left disappointed.

peter-bruck (2012-05-16 06:20)

Ironically enough, I fell asleep

I'm always very willing to go see Michael Bay's re-imaginations ofcult-horror pictures of the 70ies. I was satisfied with Chainsaw,especially with the prequel, but Friday and Nightmare... I don't know.The originals were accidentally funny. Watching them, I always hopedsomebody would finally make them right. You know, with a budget, withgreat gore, with a screenplay that actually manages to add somesuspense to the plot, not just depending on the sound effects. But thenFriday and Nightmare turned out to be nothing more then the originals:the same killings, the same lines, the same showdown all over again.There's nothing new to it, so it's not quite a re-imagination, it's arecreating. So what's the point (beside making money)? I would haveloved a decent remake. But watching this has no surplus inentertainment compared to the seven movies before. Sad to say: Freddyvs. Jason was the climax. At least it was very funny. Now it's gettingboring again. Maybe people were scared of Freddy back in the 80ies.Today he's a given. Why so serious? Make it more thrilling, gorier,funnier, whatever- ier. This is the 21st century. We need superlatives!

(2012-05-14 06:17)

BRUTAL !!!

Enough with the remakes ..... this movie is horrible !!! Having someone else play Freddy , is like seeing your favorite band with a different singer . Just a bad product ....

atinder (2012-05-13 17:21)

Ending saved me from giving this movie 1 out 10

Freddy is back and now is be redone! When i saw the 1st trailer forthis movie, i did not like it one bit and i was thinking this moviewould be really bad, then came out with the second trailer which madethe movie look really good.The new Freddy was not as bad i thought it would be, it was creepy andmake up was not to bad, as we loved the old Freddy for some many years,i think it would to really hard replace old Freddy in one.I think the main problem is movie is the script,there is no atmospherein this movie at all, there was great ideas in this movie but it failedas there was no atmosphere in at all.The acting in this movie was not that good at all, it was almost as badthe acting from The Final Destination.The Girl who played Nacey's she was dreadful, she add the same faceexpressive for whole movie, they should paid for one scene and playthat over and over again, i don't think it would make that muchdifferent.The only reason i am giving this movie 3 out 10, it did somethingbetter the old one, the ending was really well made, i did enjoy thatgory moment and it did make Freddy scary at the end!

Geeky Randy (2012-05-08 01:45)

Geeky Randy's summary

A bland, dull and unnecessary remake of Wes Craven's 1984 classic ofthe same name. Like the original, this film captures the nightmarishqualities during dream sequences, however it lingers too long andfrequently in the scares of Freddy approaching rather than getting tothe point. All the actors do a wonderful job at reinventing characters,especially Haley as the new Freddy (Englund played Kruger in tenfilms!), however the remake doesn't do as good of a job reinventing aclassic movie. The creativity is turned down a few notches, with Freddychoosing to just slice and stab his victims rather than pull anythingnot overdone and not expected.** (out of four)

aladinsyne (2012-05-07 14:23)

Just as advertised......A REMAKE!

The original 1984 "NIGHTMARE" is and will always be the best of the"nightmare franchise",which WES CRAVEN both wrote & directed. ThisREMAKE, well...director Samuel Bayer did absolutely that...he made aremake...AND by doing so, he failed to incorporate what WE CRAVENcreated, the scary alternate world of a nightmare, a world where FREDDYKRUGER reigned supreme & the "ESSENCE of EVIL" from the original. Thisremake failed to carry over the intensity of the scenes, the FEAR thatRobert Englund conjured as FREDDY. All the CGI and special effects inthe world failed to resuscitate this "all ready dead by Fred" at thegates effort of a remake. HOWEVER, a stellar performance by KyleGallner, a role originally played by Johnny Depp, his medicated yetrighteous take on teen angst stole the thunder from everyone, includingthe lead. This movie failed to even scare a single hair from mybody....I gave it 3 stars simply because, it had the original inmind.....sorry folks, no nightmare here....

samkaveli (2012-05-06 10:54)

Started off good but Spoilers

Turned into ****... random thoughts on the movie.JEH as Freddy: First JEH was the **** as Freddy, the best actor in themovie. hes not Englund, but a wordy replacement. if only he had WesCraven directing him. this Freddy was also very angry, I like that. hewas pretty funny. but not really scary like the Freddy from theoriginal movie until the end. his make up was alright, but the pizzalook is better IMO... if you like his make up here no problem.Dialogue: In the original the conversations seemed real. this, you cantell their reading off a script. people who say the original had badacting. I don't see how they thought the acting in this one was anybetter. it was worst, very rushed. like the actors where bored in justwhere ready for their pay checks to be signed... very bad. the mothersargument with Nancy was so forced. in the original, you can tell Nancyis upset. this, not so much. so those who diss Heathers acting, andthink this girl is better, your wrong.Deaths: Lets start with the worst. Cris, her death was to quick,everything happened to fast... in the original, we got to see Freddytaunt Tina, you can feel the hopelessness and felt sorry for her. butin this, you could give a **** about Cris, or the rest of thecharacters deaths. how they thought these death scenes where good orscary is beyond me.WTF moments: Why does the character Cris mom look just as young as her?makes no sense... and too many jump scares, seriously, they where notscary, because I didn't jump once. the micro naps where pointlessreally, I guess they needed a excuse to put in as many unnecessarydream sequence as possible. the class room scene had no tension theteacher comely act like nothing happened. in the original, you can tellthe class are like WTF. but in this, no one seem to care. the studentsshould have been talking about her as she walked by(they should have atleast did that)their was nothing to indicate they had a WTF moment,NOTHING.CGI and Scenes form the original: Oh god, the CGI on the well was justbad. wow, how the **** do you **** that up? not just that, but all thescenes from the original were so forced and crap. how does thisdirector insult Wes Craven about the way he did his dream sequence.then go on to **** up all the classic scenes in make them worst? howthe **** do you do that? how the ****? not to mention his dreamsequences sucked. they don't hold a candle to Wes dream sequences. whata prick, thinking he could do better then Wes lol.Ending: Way did they keep the original ending? they could have donebetter here. and when they pulled Freddy out of the dream. it was soforced, heck everything in this movie is. the ending fight(I guess thatwhat it was)was the only good thing about the ending.Final Thoughts: This movie just sucked. how anyone can think this is agood movie, or even more laughable, think it's better then the first isbeyound me. I thought it was good up until the funeral. then just gotworst, and worst, so bad I wanted some one to shot me. it's a goodthing I didn't pay for this, PD once again makes a horrible horrormovie. the only thing "horror"about this remake is setting throw it.godwhy? I think I'm going to get drunk to forget about this movie.don'tsee this movie at the movies, see it online. at least you wouldn't haveto pay anything for it. oh and the red hair kid was good too. I can seehim as the Joker in the dark knight sequel( put that make up on thatkid) he sorta looks like Heath in some scenes that kid has a future.Anyway 3/10 if you love PD crap you'll love this movie if not you'llhate PD even more.

liam_jessup (2012-05-05 21:51)

put your time to better use and watch the original

Like most remakes these days..this one was god awful. Jackie EarleHaley did an alright job playing Freddy but no one will ever playFreddy better then Robert Englund. The thing that annoyed me the mostwas how they made him look, nothing really like the old Freddy and thevoice...he used the same damn voice as he did playing Rorschach. Irealize i'm comparing this allot to the original but inst that thepoint? it is a remake and I feel like they could of done a better job.And the actors, personally i think they weren't fantastic but they didalright I suppose. Overall I give it a 4, maybe 5 out of 10. I was verydisappointed but after seeing the Friday the 13th remake I wasn'tsurprised honestly. With the new child's play movie in the works, Iwon't be keeping my hopes up for a descent remake.

acidburn-10 (2012-05-05 01:11)

I could have lived without this

All we seem to be getting is remakes of old slasher movies, some goodsome bad and in this case this is one of the bad ones. For a startnothing new has been added apart from tweaking the storyline, whichmade this movie really annoying and frustrating. Like some of the deathscenes are just watered down from the original, and the newly addedspecial effects are just lousy.It has really bad pacing issues in the second act, some seriouslyquestionably acting from the young cast, and a lot of ideas thatweren't fully realized mostly due to budgetary reasons (or so I heard).If any remake screamed potential it was this one, yet the opportunitywas blown.The new guy playing Freddy isn't fit to play Robert England's shoes andthe new freddy face is awful, looks more like a skinned cat than aburned face. And the rest of the cast are just 90210 lookalikes, thenew Nancy was wimpy and had no spunk, unlike Heather Langenkamp and theothers were just forgettable.All in all what a mess doesn't rank anywhere near the original Freddymovies even part 5 is better than this.

oneiroi (2012-05-04 23:48)

Three, four......this is such a bore

While watching this remake, somewhere around the forty minute mark, Ibecame incredibly drowsy. Ironic, isn't it? I'm just grateful I didn'tpay to see it, although I'll never get that ninety minutes of my lifeback.This movie is truly bad and there are plenty of reasons why. Lacklusterwriting with illogical plot holes, sluggish pacing, poor editing,unappealing characters, dull, uninspired kills, banal, pedestriandreams sequences, bad acting and a non-menacing, non-threatening,non-charismatic villain. Some key elements necessary for a successfulthriller/horror (suspense, tension and atmosphere), are nowhere to befound. Instead, we get jump scares (with the requisite high volume)that have no effect, as every one of them is telegraphed ahead of time.Like nearly every horror movie of the last decade, Nightmare isvisually drab, dreary and a touch grungy, relying on eitherdesaturation or over-saturation of green, orange or blue. The jumpscares and depressing/nauseating color palette are tropes that havelong outstayed their welcome.Recycling lines and scenes from previous Nightmare films is sheerlaziness and the recreations of the iconic scenes from the original(wall, bathtub, body bag) feel like last minute inserts hurriedly addedas an afterthought. Poorly executed, they fail to deliver anythingresembling creepiness or suspense. (As a side note: am I the only onewho noticed that Nancy obsessively drawing grotesque and frighteningpictures is lifted from Wes Craven's New Nightmare?) Kris' death wasunintentionally hilarious, what with the somersaulting and ping-pongingaround the room via obvious wire work, but even worse, it wasanti-climactic. Another problem was that there was no emotionalinvestment created with any of the characters, so their deaths had noimpact. The viewer doesn't know them at all or finds them so bland thatyou either don't care what happens to them or want them to die asquickly as possible.Nancy's perpetually expressionless face and leaden monotone made mequestion if her diet consisted solely of Quaaludes and pasty faced, emoQuentin looked liked he wandered in off the set of a Twilight movie. Iwas hoping Jackie Earle Haley could offer something to justify mywatching this, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. Freddy in thisremake is far too chatty, not in the least bit frightening and doesn'tpossess any of the physical gracefulness and élan that Robert Englundprovided. I don't, however, blame Haley, but the director and writer.Some other maddening items. Freddy's glove is never explained. Nor whyall these kids suffer from repressed memories/collective amnesia forall those years, or why Kris' mother kept her daughter's dress(presumably torn by Freddy). The excuse that Freddy fled town beforethe parents could call the police was nonsense; if the parents wereable to track him down, surely the police could have? Nancy andQuentin's non-reaction when they learn they had been molested byGroundskeeper Willie - sorry, Fred Krueger - is not only laughable,it's beyond stupid.I'm not sure which Platinum Dunes remake of an '80's classic I detestmore; Nightmare or that exercise in the craptastic, The Hitcher. Itreally doesn't matter, because the Anti-Christ Michael Bay and hisminions will continue to churn out the product, ie: s*** sandwiches;flavorless processed lunch meat on stale white bread which willcontinue to be consumed by those with short attention spans who wereweaned on flash edited MTV videos. Avoid this and watch the originalinstead, or the excellent four hour documentary, Never Sleep Again: TheElm Street Legacy.This remake is nothing but a crass cash grab and it shows.

ChrisBG (2012-04-30 02:22)

Another lifeless film from Platinum Dunes filled with jump scares and not much else.

Extremely average film.Hard to believe this film shares the same title as a classic horrorfilm. This is a truly average film. Before you jump at me for being aFreddy fanboy, I am not. Let's get this out of the way first - the factthat Robert Englund isn't in this movie is not the reason why this filmsucks. Robert is great, of course, and he plays a much, much betterFreddy than in this film. But that really is the least of this filmsproblems.Listening to Director Samuel Bayer in a few interviews, I had tocringe. The guy obviously has no idea about what makes a good film, andthis has to be perhaps one of the most poorly directed major studiofilms in a while. It is obvious Samuel Bayer comes from a background inmusic videos. So obvious that in fact this film is basically shot andcut like one...or a TV series/drama.There is no on going tension. No scene dynamics. So whenever it lookslike something good might happen - it just falls to pieces. This is howthey shot this film - basic coverage, nothing more-- and then time inthe editing room cutting it together. Most of the scenes go like this:Establishing shot. Cut to medium. Cut to close ups. Very occasionalextra shot. No motivated shots. Cut. End scene. A few wasted trackingshots here and there but seriously nothing dramatically motivated. Thisis poor directing 101.Poor Samuel basically got raped by the studios in this future coffeeholder. They needed someone to push around so who better to get thansomeone who's never made a film before! YAY! As soon as I heard him say"I'm a fan of Michael Bay" I knew this was going to be terrible. It'ssad too, because Wes Craven is so passionate about his original film,that by the way, was made for under 2 million.Platinum Dunes just came in, spat all over it. Disregarded most of thesubtext of the original film. No drama whatsoever. One jump scare afteranother. Here's how the film goes: Jump scare. Some plot. Jump scare.Some plot. Jump Scare. Some plot. Some plot. Jump Scare. Some plot.Falling asleep now...Jump scare. Oh, back awake. Third act, jump scare,some plot.This film tried to bring in some of the original ideas and scares ofthe original, unfortunately it was embarrassing how bad they failed atthis. The thing is - you can't just bring in ideas and expect them towork in any context. For example, the bathtub scene in this film (asseen in the trailer) is horrible. Just awful. No tension whatsoever.Again, Samuel Bayer has no idea how scene dynamics work.The acting was bland for the most part. Kris was extremely boring, andthe guys in the diner were too, I was waiting for them to die. Kris'character seemed thirty years old. It doesn't matter that she's only23, or whatever, she didn't LOOK like a High School student. And that'swhat is important. Nancy and Quentin's actors delivered decentperformances, but it was just that -- decent. They're talented actorsbut in the hands of Samuel Bayer, they're just mediocre.You can't expect someone who's biggest direction to date would havebeen "look hotter" to suddenly be able to direct decent performances.But whatever.Jackie Earle Haley was pretty good considering what he had to work with- basically nothing. The times he was on screen, he was masked in Closeups, I think they were conscious of giving him wide shots due to hisheight, but unfortunately it made him seem like he was doing absolutelynothing but walking from one mark to the next. Absolutely terrible forthis character who in the original moved around with such drama.Score was average. Extremely forgettable. They chucked in a tiny hintof Charles Bernsteins original theme but only a little tiny bit. Therest is generic BS, a few chord progressions with some strings, somehigh strings, some booming percussion, but nothing clever or evenemotive, minus the opening track which was nice. In the composersdefence, the film was poorly shot and cut dynamically, so there wasn'ta lot of room to work with, even though this IS a feature film.Script was alright. Just your average Hollywood blockbuster script,that's had one too many suggestions by the studio and producers. Notterrible, not great. Just meh. I think it's just sad that they turned a film about dreams, thesubconscious, the blur between dreams and reality...into a film about aburnt cat walking around slashing people. This is how the dreamsequences go, literally: "We're in a dream, we're in a dream, oh cut,back to reality!". No blurring. No exploring the concept any furtherthan "Dream, cut, dream, cut".The original as I said was made for less than 2 million, and most ofthe effects held up fine then. It's actually shocking how this newversion did not really improve on anything other than making thedialogue and "mood" a little more realistic to the present time.Is it scarier? No. Is it scary at all? No. All they did here was makeparts of the film quiet, and then basically just play loud, ultracompressed noises and score in the jumpy bits. And sometimes you jump,'cause it's so damn loud. But it's not freaky. And again it comes downto the directors lack of understanding of how horror films work - howscene dynamics play, how audiences respond. What subtext is. Whatdreams are all about. Everything. It's embarrassing how average thisfilm is. Nightmare on Elm St doesn't deserve to be spat on like this.As far as I'm concerned, the only molesters around here are the guys inPlatinum Dunes.

lc2005 (2012-04-29 16:31)

A welcome change in the horror genre

It focuses on socially-awkward teenagers in a race against time to findthe truth of why their dreams are being haunted by the murderous spiritof a man they don't even know... or do they?The aim of this movie was to make it scarier than the original. I can'tsay that they achieved that with more than loud noises assaulting yoursenses (you can blame Michael Bay for that), but i felt it gave themovie that dream-like quality of not knowing when you're awake orasleep.As far as teen-horror-slasher movies go, this was a welcome change inpace. It actually seemed to care about the value of it's sourcematerial, and had NO sex scene, which really drags down every modernhorror movie.The acting is good. The story keeps you guessing, and has been returnedto what Wes Craven originally intended. The scares are kind of cheap.Freddy is more serious; he has memorable one-liners but they're verydark, and he's much more ghost-like. He doesn't reflect much on the funguy you used to know, but he does achieve his own personal status as ahorror icon to be remembered.His motives are never made clear which i felt made the ending fallshort, but (not to give anything away) there is 2 more sequels planned.I don't think it deserves the critical hate it's received, if only forbeing of a higher standard than most horror movies these days. I giveit 6/10.

jg-gryphon (2012-04-28 16:28)

great movie

I've rated this a 10 out of 10 because people do not realize that thiswas a great movie. One, people look down on this movie because it's aguy's first time directing and they don't see it because they think itwill automatically be bad. Two, people miss the old Freddy. I do to butthings change and while you're watching this movie you have to forgetabout the old Krueger and think about the new Krueger. Give it anhonest review people if you can't and follow reasons above then don'tgive it a review. Now on to the movie. Fantastic actors were actuallybelievable and I liked the special effects of Krueger. This movie hadreally scarred me. When Freddy is popping out he will make you scream.A high school girl was on the bus to school the car scene made herreally jump. And once again give this an honest review.

dancer-91 (2012-04-28 12:35)

Not bad, but not good

I think I have way too low expectations for movies these days, since myfirst thought was that this wasn't half bad.Everyone knows the basic story of the Nightmare on Elm street -movies.Freddy Krueger. That's about it really.Freddy is an iconic character. He's one of those characters that youreally can't beat because you don't live in the same world. He is atruly terrifying character, because you can't survive without sleep butif you sleep, you're dragged into Freddy's world where you really can'twin. I like the fact that they didn't change this. It's still reallyobvious that Freddy is the king of dreamworld and that the kids don'thave any chance against him.What I didn't like... I didn't like the fact that they killed Kris andJesse so fast. Dean's death and the whole opening sequence was reallygood but after that it didn't work so well.You could have kept Kris alive longer, making the audience believe thatshe was the hero and then kill her. Now it just felt like we didn't getto now her enough to believe that she would be the hero before shedied. And we didn't get to know Jesse enough either. It felt like thedirector wanted these two character's out of the way so they couldfocus on Quentin and Nancy.I did like the cast. I loved Kyle Gallner before this film and now Ifell in love with Rooney Mara. I even liked Katie Cassidy. ThomasDekker is always good. Jackie Earle Haley was good as Freddy. But therewas something missing, he didn't quite achieve the same intensity thathe did with Rorschach in Watchmen. But I think he did a fine jobanyway.So... The movie could have been way worse, but it had a lot of flaws.It did leave the bitter aftertaste of teen horror. But the cast savedthe movie from being that bad