Welcome to ‘Revenge of the Remakes,‘ where columnist Matt Donato takes us on a journey through the world of horror remakes. We all complain about Hollywood’s lack of originality whenever studios announce new remakes, reboots, and reimaginings, but the reality? Far more positive examples of refurbished classics and updated legacies exist than you’re willing to remember (or admit). The good, the bad, the unnecessary – Matt’s recounting them all.

We can all agree remakes are a cinematic inevitability. No property or icon is sacred enough to remain unmined for fresh generational rebirths (and monetization). Wes Craven’s A Nightmare On Elm Street invented the smash-hit slasher Sandman horror fans now adore, spawned sequels upon crossovers, and etched a burn victim’s mangled bust onto the genre’s Mount Rushmore (Mount Gushmore, maybe?). Robert Englund assured his place in genre history books of past, present, and future, yet even that kind of untouchable notoriety couldn’t spare Freddy Krueger from a recasted, rebooted fate.

In 2010, New Line Cinema and Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes moved forward with their “dark, gritty” A Nightmare On Elm Street remake as guided by the time period’s exploitative nostalgia craze. Platinum Dunes were riding a semi-appreciated wave that included The Amityville Horror, Friday The 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Swap Englund for Jackie Earle Haley (a solid choice), bring in music video director Samuel Bayer, and wrangle a cast of up-and-comer talents who’ve mostly escaped Turtle Freddy’s monumental disappointment for bigger, vastly more rewarding projects.

Wait, sorry, I just revealed my hand. I’m supposed to ask “What could go wrong?” before voicing an opinion, but hell, there’s a reason A Nightmare On Elm Street 2.0 hasn’t found the same lasting success as Craven’s original franchise. Something I learned the hard way when Bayer’s “new nightmare” hit Netflix only a few weeks back.

The Approach

Writers Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer start anew with Freddy Krueger’s origins, allowing Haley the opportunity to build his perfect demon from humble pedophile beginnings. It’s the same Freddy Krueger we know, red-and-green sweater included, redesigned as a pure mauler uninterested in sequel-bred comedic angles. This Freddy comes for blood, barely teasing his prey. Hence “dark, gritty” classifications, as the very first sequence features a rather alarming public suicide sent as a message by the sinister slumber invader.

Rooney Mara steps in as final girl Nancy Holbrook, no longer surname “Thompson.” Teenagers in her town start dying mid-sleep, as surviving classmates whisper of a man who’s stalking their nighttime delusions. Katie Cassidy is playing the “Tina” role as Kris, Thomas Dekker as the “Rod” type Jesse, and Kyle Gallner assumes Johnny Depp’s love interest shoes as Quentin. It’s a faithful adaptation in terms of immediate structure, but again, far more grim and grimy as darkened color saturation paints every scene with a dungeon’s ambiance. Not as heavily involved with dreamland manipulation either, as Haley’s Freddy Krueger is just here to shred innocent flesh without any frills.

It’s apparent that Strick and Heisserer are doing their best to respect Craven’s source while simultaneously penning their own signature touches. The introduction of “micronaps” introduces an element of hypnotic hazard that allows characters to fall into a seconds-long sleep state induced by the brain, meaning you don’t always know when characters are dozing or awake. On the surface, you can register an attempt to step away from generic remake comfort zones.

Does It Work?

Listening to Freddy’s steel dagger fingers scrape across a chalkboard is a more pleasurable experience than what transpires on screen.

In horror’s canon, there are villains who’ve become larger than life. Freddy Krueger is one such slasher whose infamy intertwines with the actor breathing life. Take a killer like Jason Voorhees and anyone can don the mask – but Freddy Krueger? Few can picture a take on the role by anyone other than Robert Englund, meaning the bar for acceptance is higher than an Olympic pole vaulter’s world record. Jackie Earle Haley was handed an almost unconquerable challenge, and he needed flawless execution across all cinematic facets to execute such a tremendous feat. As we all know, no such gratuity was afforded to Haley’s mean-streakin’ Krueger.

I’ve had daydreams scarier than 2010’s A Nightmare On Elm Street. The only interesting addition comes in the form of the micronap dangers, as Freddy’s threat can now strike at any given moment. Maybe a quick doze during library studying or even during swim practice while Quentin is readying for another time trial. If you pay super-close attention, Bayer uses blink-and-you’ll-miss cues to alert perceptive viewers of these micronap sequences. Watch the water droplets dripping off Quentin as he waits for instructions from his coach, which fall in reverse for a brief second. This is the only revolutionary thought introduced by Strick and Heisserer, and a clever one at that – but it’s not an excuse for other rehashed repetitions without Craven’s ambition or energy.

A Nightmare On Elm Street for the modern era cherrypicks scenes Fred Heads can immediately recognize – Nancy seeing her reanimated friend in a body bag, Freddy pushing through the elastic wall, so on – without the enthusiasm. Where Craven employed practical effects and let his imagination run wild, Bayer’s production relies heavily on cheapskate animation that can’t hold a torch to 80s funhouse trickery. Craven sparks fiercer examples of fear in most scenes, pick one at random, than Bayer strings for his film’s entirety. Strick and Heisserer presume audiences will enter inherently knowing Freddy’s importance, which translates into a weaker sense of establishment. Quick to the draw, using Freddy more as a jump-scare prop than a master of murderous ceremonies.

Not to mention, studio interference hacks the hell out of whatever version of A Nightmare On Elm Street hit theaters. Watch any number of trailers to see alternate character deaths (Dean falling off a roof). At some point, there might have been a more adventurous take on Freddy’s return. What we get is by-the-books duplication that only aims to spoonfeed franchise faithful commemorative images that feel incomplete. Like putting Freddy Krueger on screen is enough to ensure worthwhile returns. Dance, spooky-stabby monkey!

The Result

Samuel Bayer’s A Nightmare On Elm Street is a rotting shell of Craven’s original, much like how Haley’s Freddy is a hollow replicant of Englund’s unforgettable monster. 

It’s not even that Haley’s mumble-growler Freddy fails Englund on performance alone – if anything, Haley is dropped by complementary filmmaking aspects that translate smaller let-downs into a bigger disaster. His makeup alone formulates this “Turtle Freddy” as I deem, removing more “human” attributes and eliminating Nu-Freddy’s neck. Cosmetics are so thick and emotionless that frequently when Haley grumbles another “zinger,” his mouth detailing barely articulates. The actor has Freddy’s glove-hand twitch down when stalking, but otherwise embodies this rigid Freddy who slices, dices, and ruins dialogue. Not representative of the character we once knew, now championing the lunchbox-decal idea of Freddy Krueger over actual antagonistic development.

As sequels to Craven’s original promoted Freddy “The Comedian,” Platinum Dunes and New Line Cinema used this restart to remind us that 1984’s A Nightmare On Elm Street is straight-laced horror. The issue becomes that, while true, Strick and Heisserer also forget how Craven toys with the fantastical as a means of creative expression.

As Englund’s Freddy establishes himself as Elm Street’s executioner, he does so by wielding the unbelievable unrealities of dream-state limitlessness. The first image we see is a Stretch Armstrong Freddy with a Boeing jet’s wingspan. As sons and daughters attempt to rationalize the scorched man under the hat, Freddy torments them with a removable face gag, or licks Nancy as a “Freddy Phone,” or slices himself open to spill maggots covered by neon-green slime. What Bayer’s reimagining lacks is Freddy’s gleeful disposition when tormenting, as cat-and-mouse gamesmanship is sacrificed for a sobering-as-fuck narrative that drags an already suffering production into befuddling murkiness. We’ve seen these types of “shadow cinematography” slashers over and over again, which traps a household terrorizer like Freddy in “just another hack-em-up flick.”

The film’s for-better-or-worse signature is its reliance on Freddy’s pedophile past. Strick and Heisserer come out the gate pinning Freddy as a deviant predator, which means we get plenty of perverse abuser Freddy and repressed sexual trauma. You know, because that’s what every horror fan was asking for in another Freddy movie? “Your mouth says no, but your body says yes,” hisses a triggering Freddy as he caresses Nancy’s thigh, the girl dressed in an outfit from preschool days. No doubt a surefire way to assert your Freddy as unlawful evil, but also the sourest of turns that leaves nothing but a bad taste. The *idea* of Freddy being wrongfully accused or judicially extinguished is one thing, an actionable subconscious weight dangling high above, but heavy reliance on such an in-your-face subplot assurance did not result in a Freddy Krueger audiences petitioned to see again.

The Lesson

Some characters have become renowned because of the actors behind prosthetics. Freddy Krueger, as confirmed, is one of them. Robert Englund and his invincible alter-ego are inseparable, which puts any remake effort at a disadvantage. That’s not to say no other actor could ever succeed in elevating their own interpretation on Krueger’s representation, but Jackie Earle Haley’s go-around doesn’t make the cut. Nor does Samuel Bayer’s basic-as-white-bread vision.

• Going “dark and gritty” does not immediately assure your remake will conceptually thrive just because it’s considered “different.” Freddy Krueger always carried this air of phantasmic grandeur, which when removed, takes the wind right from under the nightmare haunter’s sails.
• If you’re going to recreate an original film’s most memorable shot selections, probably don’t do so using craptacular CGI? From “Freddy On Fire,” to “Wall Pusher Freddy,” to the weakest attempt at honoring Craven’s bedroom blood geyser, 2010’s A Nightmare On Elm Street is a continual effects warehouse blunder.
• Sometimes the easiest path to horror icon explanations isn’t the best, as dictated by the film’s unfortunate leaning into Freddy’s sickening and despicable abuser’s history.
• You have to treat remakes as if the original franchise never happened. Scripting continually stumbles over the shallow pitfall of moving forward with the assumption you already know Freddy instead of building a “better” (updated) killing machine.
• Put respect on a goddamn idol’s name, because any horror lover’s analytical microscope is going to be on the highest definition.
• Everyone knows what studio interference looks like.

Despite grossing roughly $115 million on a reported $35 million budget, no sequels have spawned from this critically savaged A Nightmare On Elm Street reboot. In fact, Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema teased in 2015 that *another* remake was in the works, which begs the question – did a studio actually listen for once? Box office returns typically translate into capitalizing on trends, which didn’t continue and seem to even have been avoided. While another “nightmare” is inevitable, no one wants it to be associated with this soulless slasher misfire.

Let’s be honest, can you blame them? Not even in your wildest dreams.