Warning: There may be spoilers.
Remaking a horror classic is mostly seen as a huge mistake, especially if the remake changes core ideas and aspects of the original. In 2010, director Samuel Bayor and screenwriters Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer decided to do just that and bring everyone’s favorite nightmare back to the big screen. Enter A Nightmare on Elm Street. Right off the bat, we’re hit with a truck; the only person to play our titular “nightmare” character, Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, is nowhere to be seen. Problem #1. His makeup is different too. He doesn’t resemble Krueger at all. Problem #2. Did you see the trailer? New Line Cinema must have skimped on the acting department this round. Problem #3. Just the fact that this is a remake makes problems #4 to infinity.
The horror community wasn’t exactly nice to 2010’s Nightmare. But to be fair, reimagining a quintessential part of horror cinema isn’t generally taken too well, and very rarely will a new film match or surpass the original. Grossing at $63 million with a $35 million budget, this film did surprisingly well. But compared to the 1984 original (over 1000% increase in profit), it doesn’t even come close. That said, there’s people like me who can (at times) look past the money grab and see a movie for what it is — not too shabby. The Nightmare on Elm Street remake is by no means my favorite film of all time, but it’s not trash. Let me explain.
I’ll address the biggest elephant in the room first: a missing Robert Englund. Englund is a top-notch actor, one I admire for all of his roles, not just as Freddy Krueger. But playing one of his most recognizable roles throughout the entire series does leave big shoes to fill in the event that he can’t film another movie. Jackie Earle Haley of Watchmen fame is a pretty solid choice as a replacement; his acting skills as anti-hero Rorschach match perfectly to the anti-villain Krueger. That said, it’s frowned upon to do an exact impression of another actor’s work when it doesn’t call for it; Haley brought the horror back to the series by keeping Krueger’s wit while returning to the chilling and intimidating monster he has become. I much prefer the original to its sequels with a funnier and pun-ier Freddy each installment. It’s definitely refreshing to not sympathize with a child murderer and instead be scared of him (… all while secretly waiting for the kill scenes). He did commit a bunch of crimes that all led to this — let’s remember that.
Though the acting wasn’t my favorite and I think the cast could have been a bit more uh, lively, I did enjoy more thought-out sequences. For example, it somewhat bothered me that supposedly supernatural deaths happened supernaturally, in front of witnesses, while still being denied as supernatural. 2010’s Nightmare did bit of a patch on that. We still have scenes, like Kris’ bedroom death, that remain supernatural as Kris levitates in the air. But we also have scenes where it would make sense that witnesses believed the characters were just mentally unstable as opposed to being attacked by a ghost. Dean’s restaurant “suicide” and Quentin’s swim practice-gone-wrong are just that — accidents that are easily explained by non-paranormal actions.
Then we have the “micro-naps.” This was sort-of explained in the original, but just barely. Here, we have a full-on, psychological definition of the real-life condition and how it might look if you experienced it yourself. You probably wouldn’t just blink and be automatically transported to another world; your vision would likely gradually add in hallucinations until you were fully asleep. I loved the feeling of being safe, but slowly realizing little details were amiss until we meet the child killer himself. Realism always gets extra points in my book.
And that’s reason enough to bring up my next point: make-up, both on Krueger and other cast. Freddy Krueger was burned alive. He is a burn victim. His makeup, up until this remake, didn’t say “burn victim,” but rather “pizza face.” And that was fine for the original, but not now, especially considering how many people today have seen images of burn victims in medical TV shows or on the news. Andrew Clement and the rest of the make-up department WENT HAM recreating these characters with prosthetics, makeup, and CGI that helped sell their story. Freddy’s burns combined with the visually-exhausted main cast, I totally believed these people were skipping sleep the entire film.
The Nightmare on Elm Street remake is certainly not Oscar-worthy, and it’s definitely not an even replacement. I do think it is deserving of some praise though. I am perfectly capable of seeing the genius of the original while still appreciating small details of the remake — the world is big enough for both. Remakes are oftentimes inevitable, and the least we can do to honor the original is to spice it up a bit. The 2010 remake did just that; it brought old fans back to the days of pizza-face Krueger while giving a new generation nightmares to come. And with that, I’ll leave it up to you to decide.
Do you have an unpopular opinion about A Nightmare on Elm Street or another movie? Let us know by leaving a comment down below!
