Although I am aware of the movie franchise, from back when I was 13-14, I had only watched the original A Nightmare On Elm Street and the crossover with the Friday The 13th franchise, Freddy vs Jason. I hadn’t seen any of the sequels as of yet and although I like Robert Englund a lot (been a fan of his since his appearance as “Willy” in the scifi tv series V from 1983-84) it wasn’t something high up on my list to watch. However this afternoon I sat down to watch the reboot or remake from 2010 A Nightmare On Elm Street directed by Samuel Bayer, and written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer. And yeah – produced by Michael Bay!!! Sheesh, anyway let’s take a look at the movie and what I thought of it.
The movie is ofcourse a combination of slasher with supernatural elements. The film stars Jackie Earle Haley (as Freddie), Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker and Kellan Lutz. The movie starts off with Dean, a high school student, falling asleep and in his dreams he is attacked by Freddie Kruger. In front of his girlfriend Kris & also watched by fellow student Nancy, he falls asleep and cuts his own throat with a knife, although in his dream his throat is cut by Freddie. Freddie is depicted as a burned & disfigured man in a fedora and a metal clawed right hand. After the funeral Kris begins to have dreams of the same man and can’t go back to sleep. She falls asleep in class and he torments her, making her scream. That night her ex-boyfriend Jesse comes to keep her company as she is alone but Kris is murdered in her sleep, being dragged to the ceiling in reality and slashed by an unseen force.
Jesse is confronted by the cops and arrested for her murder as he runs away from the scene and is killed by Krueger when he falls asleep in his jail cell. Nancy begins to suspect a connection as her friends keep getting murdered one by one. She & her friend Quentin dig into records and discover that all her friends and her had attended the same preschool as kids, although none of them can remember meeting each other before teenagehood. Nancy’s mother, Gwen (Connie Britton), reluctantly tells Nancy and Quentin that there was a gardener at the preschool, Fred Krueger, who abused Nancy and the rest of the kids. Gwen explains that Nancy was his favorite, and that she came home one day telling her mother about a hidden space in Krueger’s room and the things he did to her there. Gwen claims Krueger skipped town before he was arrested. Nancy & Quentin do not believe that he escaped and begins to track down the rest of the kids in the preschool only to find out that all of them are dead, and most died in their sleep.
Meanwhile, Quentin tries to accept that his nightmares are nothing more thanĀ repressed memories, but he falls asleep during swim practice and witnesses what really happened to Krueger. In his dream he sees Freddie running away, being chased by the parents of all the kids and then burned in a building he tried to hide away in. Nancy & Quentin confront the latter’s father Alan about killing Freddie without real evidence that he has molested the kids and that Freddie is killing the kids now as revenge. Nancy and Quentin eventually make it to the preschool uncovers Krueger’s hidden room and the evidence that proves Krueger was in fact abusing all of the children; they realize that Krueger actually wants revenge on them for telling the truth. Nancy falls asleep and is attacked by Freddie and Quentin uses adrenaline to wake Nancy up and pull Freddie into reality with her. With Krueger distracted by Quentin, Nancy uses a broken paper cutter blade to cut Krueger’s gloved hand off, and then slice his throat. Afterward, Nancy torches the secret room, with Krueger’s body left inside, while she and Quentin leave. Nancy and her mother return home from the hospital; Krueger suddenly appears in a mirror’s reflection and kills Nancy’s mother before pulling her body through the mirror while Nancy screams.
I’m not really sure why we needed the reboot when all fans love the original so much. I thought it was just Bay being Bay and creating a movie with several ideas from each of the original and it’s sequels. 7 out of 10!