A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Review

“I’m real”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

When people say start from the top, that doesn’t mean making a whole new template that abandons the point of the story’s existence. New Line Cinema found out the hard way when remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street.


PLOT


The 2010 film is a whole new story that has its beats from the 1984 classic, but has a much different narrative in comparison. The story begins in a diner where teenager Dean Russell has been nightmares of a burnt man with a clawed glove attacking him. It seems to be proven reality when a slash on his hand palm affects him in reality as it did his dream. He tries explaining this to his girlfriend Kris Fowles, but she doesn’t believe this until after seeing him slitting his own throat (forced by the burnt man in his dreams). After Dean’s funeral, she starts finding an unfamiliar connection to him as she sees a portrait of him when they were children, but doesn’t remember meeting him until high school. She starts having nightmares of the same burnt man attacking her to the point where she tries avoiding to sleep again. With her mom Nora (Lia Mortensen) going out of town for a business trip, tells her ex boyfriend Jesse Braun of what she’s been dreaming about and he believes her since he’s been sharing similar dreams. He keeps her company staying up for the night, but it isn’t enough to stop Krueger from killing her, tossing her body around her bedroom before fatally slashing her torso. Jesse runs away in shock that triggers home security and gets arrested for fleeing the scene shortly after telling classmate Nancy Holbrook what he saw, thus connecting she’s been having similar nightmares as well. As the burnt man kills Jesse in prison, Nancy reaches out to his friend Quentin Smith for help on why they could be all connected. Within his research, he finds out they went to the same preschool as those who recently died. She calls out her mom Gwen for hiding this secret, forcing her to admit that the school’s groundskeeper, Fred Krueger was accused of molesting the children at the time and apparently ran away when she alerted the other parents. Off of that, she believes the dreams are just repressed memories. Feeling there is more to the truth, Nancy continues the research by hoping to look for the other kids in the picture only to find out they died long before Dean. She does find a blog site by Marcus Yeon who chronicled his past nightmares, believing Fred wanted him to find something before dying in his sleep. Quentin would fall asleep in the midst of swimming practice and would see that Krueger was burnt alive by the parents, led by his dad Alan who ended up becoming principal of the school he and Nancy attend. They both confront his dad of what he did, where he admits they never found proof of the accusation against him, thus believing he could’ve been innocent. This leads to both teens deciding to go back to the preschool and find the truth if he was said who he was accused of. On the way, they stop at a pharmacy to collect amphetamines and Nancy is able to pull a piece of Krueger’s shirt with her into the real world when waking back up. With micro-sleeps affecting her and Quentin, they stop at a hospital to steal EpiPens due to the latter running out of prescribed refills. At the school, they find a secret cave that contained evidence of Krueger’s crimes, crude photos of Nancy when she was a child. This means Krueger’s ghost wants revenge on the kids for disclosing what he did. When Nancy declares pulling Freddy out, Quentin arms himself with a paper trimming blade, but gets incapacitated by Krueger the moment he falls asleep. He does wake up when hearing Nancy screaming for dear life and uses the EpiPen to wake her up as planned, thus pulling out the slasher in the process. Together, they gain the upper hand by severing his clawed hand before slitting his neck and torching the room before leaving. When the authorities arrive to pick them up and Quentin is taken to the hospital to recover from his injuries, no body is found inside. Although Nancy returns home and tells Gwen she understood her intentions, the film ends in a cliffhanger where Krueger kills her mom and she screams in shock.


THOUGHTS


Michael Bay was on a roll producing horror classics with his company Platinum Dunes, from The Amityville Horror to Friday the 13th. And with no need to argue, it’s easy to say this one is the worst of the bunch. The main thing that was bold with this movie was not being coy and leaving us guessing that Freddy could’ve been innocent until proven he was indeed a pedo. Wes Craven never forward with that because being a child killer was enough to hate him, but it seemed like director Samuel Baker and the writing duo of Wesley Strick & Eric Heisserer had to put an extra emphasis we shouldn’t root for this slasher at all. I honestly don’t blame this approach because with Jackie Earle Haley onboard as this villain, having already played a sex offender in Little Children, you know he’s gonna be an ideal creep that’ll be constant in upsetting you which is the whole damn point. In a modern era of filmmaking that is the 21st century, a lot of technical changes were also too much to cope with because it starts destroying what made the original film such a standout of its genre. It is one thing to recreate the bathtub shot of Fred’s arm sticking out or Kris’ death reflect Tina, but having VFX for him sticking out of the wall was too much. The only time those effects work is when we see Freddy stab Gwen from behind, which ages better than how the first film ended. The biggest complaint fans also had was redesigning his appearance, but I can support this change since the intent was to give an accurate look if someone was burned alive. In this generation, the whole point of this remake was to continue spreading the word on the importance of facing our fears, yet it felt much forced this time around. What I do applaud is having an ensemble of characters in the need to try setting things right. If you’re remaking a slasher from scratch, it felt right to bring back its original final girl. I really didn’t mind Rooney Mara as Nancy because despite being socially awkward due to being quiet with her paintings, she was able to be strong enough to face her fears. Although Connie Britton depicts Gwen to be a secretive mom, she did it for the right reason. She was strong enough to keep a secret from her kid because she didn’t want her to grow up living in trauma. Because she got to understand this as she  kept searching for the truth, she was able to accept the actions that were taken rather than be blindly resentful. On the bright side, she went to the right person for help. Kyle Gallagher was enjoyable as Quentin because even though he came off geeky as well and rightfully anxious, he was able to resourceful enough to better his and Nancy’s odds. He was attracted to her before discovering their connection because he felt how special she was without thinking of her beauty and she would feel the same in return because she appreciated the sincerity of his actions. Since the terror didn’t end yet, I’m sure they kept remaining on the same page to keep fighting evil until it was done for. I definitely want to give a shoutout to the preceding victims that carry the story before the focus shifts toward Nancy. Kellan Lutz brought authentic agitation as Dean, Katie Cassidy was constantly frantic as Kris, Aaron Yoo expressed such accurate paranoia as Aaron in his given time and Thomas Dekker was just erratic as Jesse who wasn’t even sure either when it came to finding answers. A part of him thought he could if he had Kris’ back, but that wasn’t enough to save either of them. Because Nancy and Quentin are still breathing, I’m sure they defeated Krueger to the point where nothing that had happened was in vein. Having said as much good as I could, there are still some things that don’t make much sense upon rewatching. For starters, I feel like Dean should’ve shown Kris what happened to his hand if he wanted to back his case on Freddy. It’s definitely one thing for the diner to not have cameras when that happened, which I can also say with the hospital when Quentin stole the EpiPen, but it’s totally another for authorities to not investigate the randomness of when Jesse died with no visible weapon for his cell mate to use. And if this movie is set in 2010, Jesse should’ve just texted Kris he was coming over rather than put her through one more jumpscare. Also if this movie wanted to be smarter, there should’ve proof of an investigation towards Krueger after the fire. And I can go on wondering if Marcus actually posted his last blog after he passed out or it was done automatically, but my biggest gripe is that this movie doesn’t explain why Freddy is able to return to the dream world after being defeated in the real world? If he made the same deal of demons like in Freddy’s Dead, there should’ve been a better hint about it. With all of these flaws being too visible to ignore, I have to be honest when saying 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street destroyed most of the franchise’s credibility to the point where it will take a longer time for another entry to come about and do it justice like New Nightmare. If you’ve remained a fan this long, trust me when I say you’re guaranteed disappointment when you reach this remake.