I am going to attempt to review the film in an unbiased fashion, and to that end am going to write it in two segments: the first will be a traditional review, as if this is not a remake at all; the second will be a small section comparing and contrasting the two. And away we go

In the town of Springwood, the children are having trouble sleeping. Well, that isn't exactly true. They sleep just fine. They sleep too much, in fact, and even when they try to stay awake they just end up dreaming on their feet, which is a problem. You see, the bogeyman is after them, and he is all too real for a dream bad guy. His name is Fred Krueger and he wears a red and green sweater and a suave fedora, neither of which will distract you from the fact that his face is horribly burned. He also sports a glove fitted with knives and a really bad attitude. And when he kills you in your dream, you are dead in real life.

 

Why is Freddy so pissed off at these kids? Well, it might have a wee skootch to do with the fact that their parents hunted him down and burned him alive, just for starters. They were under the impression that he had abused their kids, sexually and otherwise physically, for which he insisted, pretty adamantly, they were mistaken. But rampaging parents have a habit of missing the finer points, stuff like proving guilt and calling the police in lieu of vigilante justice. But hey, I have a kid. I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing.

 

And et viola, we have a movie! With Devon remembering Freddy, Freddy's spirit springs to life and begins tormenting Devon in his dreams, eventually killing him in front of his friends. This violent and unexplained act is the catalyst Freddy needs to instill terror into his victims, and they all begin dreaming about him in earnest. This naturally leads to some grisly deaths and grim realizations for the teens, who must then band together (what few remain) to find out what Freddy truly wants from them, to suss out his guilt or innocence, and put an end to the supernatural episode.

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street is kind of like the guy you work with, but don't know really well, so you just say hi to each other in the hallways and go on about your day. He's a little odd, and you don't always understand what he's getting at on the off occasion that you do have a conversation, but he does his work diligently, if mechanically, so you give him the benefit of the doubt. In simpler terms, move along, nothing to see here. It's a workaday genre thriller, neither outright sucking nor inspiring any particularly pleasant thoughts. Uniform is a good word to describe it. The kids are appropriately perfect looking, the camera work is steady, the lightning adheres to the darkness code for horror films, and the effects are the proper mix of practical and CGI so your eyes have no sharp corners to hang on.

The adults in the film don't fare much better. Each kid is apparently only allotted one parent apiece in Springwood, and they don't really have much to do. The sins of the parents haunting the children aspect of the story is given short shrift, as is the fact that the dreams of teenagers are killing them, when dreaming, in the metaphorical sense, is what teens do best. The only emotional point really tried for is Freddy's despair at having his existence erased along with his face, but even that is muddled and sort of tacked on at the end.

 

Speaking of Freddy, he is played this time around by Jackie Earle Haley, who has grown up a lot since his Kelly Leek days with the Bad News Bears. His portrayal of Rorschach in Watchmen was inspired, and is no doubt what earned him the role as everyone's favorite fricasseed child killer. Even though the makeup job makes him look like Mason Verger from Hannibal, Haley's innate talent shines through, and he is the only strong character in the film. Alas, he suffers from the Transformers disease, and starts as a seriously menacing character who devolves into one-liners, and that is a shame. I would say it saps the tension out of the conflict scenes, but since they never really generate any, I guess that is a moot point.  

Now for a comparison to the original...well, there really isn't one. In the original, Freddy was a gleeful, prancing maniac who instilled terror by any means necessary, up to and including cutting of his own fingers or slicing his abdomen open, releasing coils of putrefying intestine (but never with one-liners). In the remake he is solid and well-played by Haley, but never generates much heat in the terror department. He jumps and slices, and he delivers some decently menacing lines, but he doesn't even pull his face off once. Some lip service is paid to the original, vis-a-vis recreating scenes from it. But they are uninspired and do nothing for advancing the plot. Nancy performs the strangest slide into a bathtub I have ever seen, and then immediately sets her phone alarm and goes to sleep! This is presumably so they can show the glove coming up between her legs from the water. Lots of little things like that. They never struck me as homage; more like attempting to appease fans of the original who will otherwise be bored by their bland remake. Like me.

 

About the only two improvements I can see here are the full-body burn when Freddy gets lit up, since CGI-enhancement can get rid of the stuntman covered in 800 layers of clothes look, and the end scene. If you know the fate of Nancy's mom at the end of the original you'll recall how unearhtly stupid it looked. That is taken care of here, and is actually one of the few standout moments in the film. Other than that, the original is fun, quirky, and honestly scary, whereas the remake is just sort of blah. Too bad. I wish I cared enough about it to hate it.

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