A Nightmare on Elm Street

The update of A Nightmare on Elm Street did not do a lot for me. It's middling, it never really reaches the lows of being terrible, while at the same time never really being good, and while never dull, it fails to generate even the slightest bit of tension. It does manage to do one thing, for better or for worse. It makes Freddy Krueger (portrayed here by Jackie Earle Haley, stepping in for Robert Englund), quite arguably the most charismatic and interesting of the movie monsters who slashed and sliced their way through the 80s, into a rather boring and surprisingly generic creation.

There's certainly nothing to complain about Haley's performance. He tackles the role with enough gusto, even if he does basically seem to be giving the exact same performance he gave in Watchmen last year. The fault lies, as it often does, in the script itself. It doesn't seem to understand the nature of the film's villain. He's a twisted sort who enjoys messing with the minds of his victims, and takes enormous pleasure out of it. Evil as Freddy may be, you could never argue that the guy did not love his work. We don't sense that evil joy in this new Freddy. His one-liners are quite lame, the best he can come up with being pointing at one of his intended victims with his razor-sharp claws, and growling "Tag, you're it". But the worse offense the movie makes to the character is that Freddy is now a generic "boo" monster, who sits around waiting for his victims to fall asleep, then literally jumps out of nowhere while a loud noise blasts on the soundtrack. He does it over and over again to the point of tediousness. There's no originality in this Freddy. No sense that the guy is toying with the person he's stalking, no sense of patience or timing. He just shows up, kills, and waits to kill again.

We see some flashbacks of Freddy before he became a terribly charred dream demon. Back then, he was a groundskeeper who worked and lived at the local preschool. He was good with the kids, but then some of the kids started talking about how he was sexually abusing them. The parents got mad, decided to take the law into their own hands, and trapped him in a building, setting it on fire. Now Freddy is seeking revenge by invading the dreams of the kids who ratted him out, who are now all teens who go to the same school, and have no memories of the events that happened long ago. Why Freddy waited a good 10 years or so to kick his revenge plan into motion, the film fails to explain. Was he just biding his time, or was he procrastinating? The teens who begin to be threatened by the ghoulish Freddy include cute blonde Kris (Katie Fowles), her on and off-again boyfriend Jesse (Thomas Dekker), talented young artist Nancy (Rooney Mara), and her somewhat boyfriend Quentin (Kyle Gallner).

By the way, that's not a basic description of the four lead characters, that's literally all there is to their thinly written personalities. They are brought together when one of their fellow students (Kellan Lutz) dies mysteriously in a diner. Before he died, he was talking to Kris about strange nightmares that he was having. The kids quickly realize that they are all having the same dreams with the same demonic figure haunting them, and before long, the small group start getting picked off one-by-one, until there are only two left to uncover just what Freddy wants with them. The parents who took revenge on Freddy long ago show up, closely guarding their secret. They're played by actors like Connie Britton (from TV's Friday Night Lights) and Clancy Brown, but are given literally nothing to do but to look nervous when their kids start asking questions. It's about this point that we realize that the filmmakers have no intention of expanding upon the original 1984 film, or its ideas. This is just a quick cash grab for everyone involved.

There's a curious lack of imagination in this Elm Street update. The nightmare sequences are depressingly trivial and mundane, a far cry from the surreal images and special effects that graced the earlier films that probably had a smaller budget. Aside from a sequence where young Nancy enters her bedroom and finds it's snowing inside, there's no images that stand out. Most of the dream sequences take place in Freddy's world of pipes, steam, and fire, or the ruins of the old school where it all began. Director Samuel Bayer (a music video director making his feature debut) doesn't seem to grasp the concept of what made the original films stand out - There was a twisted wonder to Freddy's madness. He liked to mess with their heads, and got enormous pleasure out of seeing their reaction to the bizarre images and creatures he would haunt them with. He was so much more than the simple killing machine this movie makes him out to be.

This is a standard movie all around for its type. The characters are thin, but the performances never really offend, and it seems to have been made with enough competence so we're not bored. We just never get involved, never feel any tension, and don't really feel anything in general except for a few moments where we jump in our seats. The movie plays out, fades from your mind the second the end credits start to roll, and when you step out of the theater, the past 95 minutes or so feel like a dream where you kept on wishing you were doing something else.

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