A Nightmare on Elm Street (Movie Review)
A Nightmare on Elm Street
When was the last time you saw a good slasher flick? That singular brand of horror where young and attractive teens have sex with increasing risk of evisceration, and where the maniacal demonic force perpetuating such events does so with an undercurrent of parody? The first two Scream films from the late 90s are the latest decent slashers that come to my mind. And quite frankly, I’m at a loss for others beyond those two. I’m hesitant to call slasher films anachronistic, despite the fact that the best of them seem to belong to the 70s and 80s. Yet this whole remake/reboot/reinvention craze hell-bent on thrusting the satirized slasher jewels of yesteryear back into theatres with middling market success surely must indicate that the golden age of gushing gore inflicted upon promiscuous pretties has long since passed. Freddy Krueger is the most recent terror idol to take a stab at sparking a genre renaissance, and the new iteration of A Nightmare on Elm Street, if nothing else, seems to demonstrate that there’s no limit to just how far you can fall from grace.
Before I being, it’s worth stating that effective plot summaries are generally rather difficult to write for reissues of well known material, and that such a trouble is not lessened when there’s dreadfully little plot to consider. For what it’s worth, A Nightmare on Elm Street follows the mayhem wreaked upon Springwood teenagers by Freddy Krueger, a boogeyman existing only in dreams who is haunting the children of the men and women responsible for his vigilante immolation years earlier. Before Krueger’s targets can sleep soundly once again, they come to the conclusion that they must discover the truth of the town’s dark secrets.
Given the above description, anyone familiar with the very first Nightmare from 1984 should immediately realize that something is a bit off about its remake, and perhaps even come to discover exactly what its chief failing is. The truth of the matter is that the original Nightmare didn’t offer very much by way of backstory for Freddy Krueger, and as a result he became a much more imposing and terrifying menace. Instead of shrouding the boring bits of Krueger in mystery, this new iteration is all about Krueger and his history, his agenda, and his motives. The film endeavours to explain and rationalize what should be neither explained nor rationalized. In fact the core story seems to have been rebuilt from the ground up in order to focus more on Krueger himself than on his paranoid and trembling prey, and as a result the entire production suffers. Giving both more screen-time and more history to the adversary severely compromises its ability to elicit genuine fear and terror, simply due to the fact that the audience then becomes familiar with his tricks and learns what to anticipate.
Having said that, it should become clear that A Nightmare on Elm Street is not a particularly faithful reproduction of the original on which it is based, making both major and minor changes to everything from plot points to aesthetic details. Both Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley) and Nancy (Rooney Mara) remain central to the overall proceedings, and indeed some of the more iconic scenarios from the original are transplanted, including the death of the first main protagonist and the razor glove in the bathtub. But that’s where the similarities end. This new version, above all else, aims to chronicle the life of Krueger, revealing tidbits here and there between somnambulant assaults. This stands as a stark contrast to the original in which Nancy and her lone compatriot schemed to guarantee survival and to be rid of Krueger at their earliest convenience instead of making sure all the questions were answered first. Back then, what we learned of Krueger came about indirectly due to the efforts of the protagonists, and not due to the whims of the filmmakers. As a result, urgency and a sense of pacing have been traded for the sake of characterizing the one player in a horror film who should never be characterized.
With all desire for characterization misplaced and squandered, the notion that none of Freddy Krueger’s victims are particularly memorable or likeable in this particular iteration looms overhead. Say what you will about the generic foursome of 1984’s Nightmare, but at least Nancy rose to the challenge of confronting Krueger with laudable gusto and ingenuity. This time around, the events leading up to the final confrontation are rushed through almost as if they were an afterthought, occurring in rapid succession once all but one secret (the one secret that obliges those who’re still alive to investigate ground zero) has been revealed. And be aware that those details, including a trip to the local clinic and a scrap of Krueger’s clothing, were almost certainly an afterthought, lest the movie should focus its energy on doing something that would help the terror and atmosphere rather than hinder it for once.
Yet for all my lamenting of the botched narrative execution, I must admit that it isn’t the writing which sells slasher flicks. For you see, the human body is the favourite plaything of the slasher villain, full to bursting with blood and bone; and the better, more gruesome and more creative a character’s death, the higher the regard in which horror cults will hold the film. This is why A Nightmare on Elm Street’s most criminal shortcoming, barring the fact that it neither blends reality and dreamscape in a unique fashion nor offers any subversive pitch black humour, is that it features no memorable death sequences. Even the modern recreation of the Krueger’s first kill from the original pales in comparison to Craven’s surreal and hyperbolic forerunner. Second best to this is the pre-title credit throat slitting, and then this Nightmare just gives up entirely by having Krueger run his blades through the stomach of the poor chap after suddenly popping out from dimly lit corners for a while.
Slasher flicks aren’t particularly sophisticated films, nor are they ever particularly scary. At their very best, they offer those cheap and campy thrills reminiscent of carnival and theme park haunted houses. 1984’s Nightmare was aware of this, and played a variety of visual and gross out gags to remarkable effect, making use of everything from gushing fountains of blood to creepy crawlies to exaggerated and prosthetic body parts. With its reinvention, the colour and humour are notably absent and everything is so drab and dreary because it demands to be taken seriously. In fact the audience is coaxed into feeling sympathetic towards Krueger as part of the final twist, and as a result he doesn’t toy with his prey or fool around cracking jokes lest that investment become compromised. Why is the remake of a satiric slasher being so uptight? Why is the audience being compelled to care for the villain? Why aren’t we having any fun? So many presentation errors and miscalculations rear their heads in 90 short minutes that all included aspects appear to be sabotaging each other.
The only saving graces of A Nightmare on Elm Street are the occasional jump out scares that might cause a date to bury their face in your shoulder, but there’s absolutely nothing else that makes it worth a look. While I won’t dislike a horror film too much for lacking creativity and being joyless, the complete absence of any thrills or terror is too great a failing to overlook. Frankly, I don’t see how a person wouldn’t be able to sleep easily after watching A Nightmare on Elm Street, and I can’t say that I’d be all too surprised if you fell asleep during it. Not quite the result a horror film should be proud of effecting, despite the advice its tagline offers.
Oh god, Andrew’s been bitching to me about this remake for like a week. Actually, we had a recent discussion about what the most pointless horror remake of all time might be. Andrew said Psycho, and that’s a pretty good choice because why on earth would you remake a Hitchcock flick? The Omen and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are up there for me. I hope to god they never remake The Exorcist or that’ll win hands-down. Thoughts?
Also, I loved your ending line.
Hey, if you don’t want me to bitch about your movie, quit remaking classic movies! Christ, they even aped the bathtub scene?! Have you no shame?! It’s bad enough they replaced Freddy’s head and hands with a crappy CG replica for the bed scene; Tina looks like she’s doing wire-fu while she’s getting sliced up now; “This is God” becomes “No, just me” (to hell with psychological subtlety, we say); and now you’re aping the bathtub scene…
But that’s not even the worst part. Aping classic scenes doesn’t necessarily make this a bad remake; just a pointless one. No, what makes this a truly bad remake is twisting the focus onto Freddy’s history and motives, and the possibility that he was actually innocent. Since when is it a good idea to have a sympathetic villain in a slasher movie? Why on earth would I want to feel sorry for Freddy at the end of the movie after he’s killed most of the principal cast? No, I should feel relieved that we just toasted his ass and we’re safe until the inevitable sequel. Holy hell, you people got it so wrong. Now maybe you can argue that’s not what people want these days. Okay fine, if you want to have a plot involving a sympathetic villain, that’s great. But that’s not a slasher movie. We’re trying to bring old-school slasher horror into the modern day cinema. If this is what it takes to do so, then it isn’t slasher horror anymore.
Now I would argue that there is a place for the slasher horror flick in today’s cinema landscape. People still love being scared as much as they ever did. The problem seems to be muddying the waters with elements of other successful films of modern day, rather than recognizing what worked so well about these older movies and refining it. You know, I just read that Wes Craven is signed on to direct Scream 4. My initial reaction was “Why do we need another Scream movie?” but now I know. Scream was great because it so successfully aped the mockery that the very genre that Craven helped define had become (and damn that’s a horribly confusing sentence to read on my part). It was supposed to be a wake up call to the filmmakers. Well I guess they need another one.