I remember at a young age I didn't want to watch any of the original 'Nightmare' films because the idea of Freddy Krueger gave me actual nightmares, or at least the thought of him just gave me the worst creeps possible. As I grew up, though, he became somewhat of a joke. I can remember seeing at least three of the original 'Nightmare' installments when I was at that young age, but I had pretty much subconsciously avoided watching any of the movies until news of this remake emerged. Then I figured I'd go ahead and watch the original one so I could compare the two. After seeing that one at my age now, it's completely different. Yeah it was still kinda scary, but it all seemed a bit cheesy. However, the character of Freddy Krueger became an icon for a reason, and it's not because of the sequels. This guy with the burned face and the "claws" was just as unique of a character as, say, Hannibal Lector. You just can't forget him. But with this remake, his character (as it is portrayed in the film) is as forgettable as the Tooth Fairy in 'Darkness Falls.'
I thought the first trailer actually looked pretty sick, and I was a little hyped despite everyone's (including my own) rant that "these remakes gotta stop!" When I saw that Michael Bay was involved I began to doubt it, but it still had that 'Clash of the Titans' hype, because Samuel Bayer was directing it, and he directed music videos for Nirvana, Green Day, and My Chemical Romance. I just knew it was gonna be awesome. I just knew it. But boy I was wrong. My first mistake was ignoring Michael Bay, who had too much control over a film that should've been left in the hands of Bayer, and I blame Michael for my final verdict on this film.
My biggest problem with Bay is that his obsession with making implausible subjects realistic is getting annoying. I admit I kinda liked the 'Chainsaw' remakes. I liked that Bay was all about the gore. The "family" was messed up in an exploitative way, and I liked that, but the victims were too stereotypical. Bay's reluctance to give his film's most important characters "cardboard" personalities only reveals that Bay has the widely-popular, misconceived idea of what a horror movie really is (or what any type of real movie is).
This idea started as a cheap way to gain audiences, but basically filmmakers ripoff the concept of what made films like 'Psycho' and 'The Shining' (and many others before and after) so popular: making the "killer" the most interesting person in the movie. Over the years writers, directors and producers of horror movies have paid less and less attention to the [victim] characters, so at this point they're as typical as cars; they're just the background of the same painting that gets torn apart every time. There is no feelings of sympathy for the paintings when there are more than one of same type. This concept has developed into a warped, cliché assembly line of the same stupid, stereotypical victims getting ripped apart (sometimes the way they're ripped apart is advertised as something "new," what we call a "gimmick" film), and the only thing that ever changes is the killer.
In this case, those victims are in the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' painting, and there is nothing new about it. The same thing happens, nothing has changed, except that with Bay's obsession with realism, we learn more about the history of Freddy Krueger that we felt more comfortable simply assuming in the past films. We know Krueger has the burned face, and the old version is just funny now because I know that's not what a burn victim looks like. He just looked scary because of those eyes and that smile, and that dastardly vile tongue. In this round they go all out into making actor Jackie Earle Haley look like an actual burn victim, and they succeeded, and I think that may have been the only cool thing about this movie. After a while, though, it did start to look silly, and my attitude towards him changed. He didn't have the eyes and he couldn't smile or stick his tongue out because his mouth was so small. He didn't even have the menacingly eerie voice either, it honestly sounded like Rorschach, or even worse, Batman.
I also gotta give some props to the script. The scripts for all of Bay's other horror movies were pretty bad, but this may have been the worst one yet (I don't pay much attention so I'm only assuming). The stereotypical high school students were bad enough, but the dialogue was just too typical. Every once in a while the characters would come across something interesting to talk about (like for instance they compare Krueger to the Pied Piper at one point), but since they obviously didn't have any emotions (besides fear) or logic or reasoning (and didn't live in a realistic world when the story was trying to be realistic), they never went far with anything, since all they could say were phrases I felt like I've heard so so so many times already.
I liked Samuel Bayer's direction, as he is pretty skilled, but like I said earlier, Michael Bay ruined it with his "genius" skills. I'm not going to necessarily beg you not to watch this, as it has its entertaining moments and it would be okay as a movie to have playing in the background during a Halloween party, but I don't recommend it as a must-see. This is nothing new or revolutionary about it. It's just like every other bad horror movie made today (not that they're all bad), it's just that it's an unnecessary remake that makes it even worse. Yeah, it is a waste of time to watch it, but if you're up for wasting time...
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