Well, the short answer? They bastardized it, like Freddy's the bastard son of 100 maniacs. They have completely thrown out everything that made what Freddy was, and re-imagined him as a "dark, brooding, and more sympathetic individual". I have not seen a film try so hard to convince people that it's scary, and yet be so uninspired in it's approach to be scary that it's not even funny.
When I went to see this on the Saturday of opening weekend, I went with the only other person I know who is just as big a fan as I am of the series: my sister. I have to admit, without her, I'd probably more interested in seeing Twilight than in actual horror films. But I still would have seen something that would have still pissed me off. But I digress. We'd made sure to get there before 6:00 P.M. Or as I like to call it, Dating Rush Hour. We took our seats, and waited through the trailers before they fully dimmed the lights. I was slightly expecting some different types of kills to happen, but my sister didn't think that was going to happen. And damn it all, she was right.
The story takes place in Springwood. The state? Fuck if I know, but the original took place in Ohio. So that is most likely where it took place again. But from the looks of it, I'd say the thing took place in Conneticut. Why Conneticut? Well, why don't we ask the characters who live in such a safe place that they don't lock up their cars, roll the windows up, or EVEN HAVE FUCKING ROOFS ON THE TOP OF THEIR CARS! Seriously, that's how complacent these people are? What the fuck! Nobody I know who live in well-to-do families do that, so why the fuck would they?
We start the movie off at the the Springwood Diner, where Dean (played by Kellan Lutz, who got his start in Twilight) is spazing out, obviously drawn and tired from too many nights wondering when he's gonna get his fix of Vampire Sparkles. His girlfriend, Kris (played by Kate Cassidy, daughter of a Monkee and most known for CW works) enters worrying sick over him. And by worry, I mean holding his hand and looking like she's gonna be told that Gossip Girl is gonna be canceled like Heroes. As the basic tension starter is given by Dead, er I mean Dean, they are being served by Nancy (played by Rooney Mara, best known as the younger sister of Kate Mara).
While Dean and Kris continue being WB quality actors, Nancy goes over to wait on a table of bad boys, one of whom is Kris's ex-boyfriend, Jesse (played by Thomas Dekker, who is better known as John Connor in the Terminator TV series. Oh and as LITTLEFOOT and FIEVEL MOUSEKEWITZ. Yes, he was the voices for those characters for the straight-to-DVD releases of those movies). Jesse leaves in a huff, noticing that Kris is still with Dead meat instead of him. The group's last friend, Quentin (played by Kyle Gallner, most well known as the last meal Megan Fox had in three years in Jennifer's Body) apologizes and rushes off to make sure his friends don't ditch his ass.
All of that takes 5 minutes. Seriously, there's talk of Dear in the headlights being scared to fall asleep because of some guy he seeing in his dreams, but there is absolutely no tension whatsoever to aid him. Yes, he did get attacked while in the dinner by Freddy, but it's just a quick grapple to prevent getting stabbed, that's it. Well, when Kris goes to the bathroom, Dean is attacked this time, and while fighting him off, Kris and Nancy watch as he is killed, his throat slit by a steak knife that they can't see Being held by Freddy. One body down, four more to go.
After Dean's burial, Kris has a vision of a girl in a sundress with the midsection sliced open. It's at that point Kris starts going Nancy Drew on what was going on, and why she can't remember Dean from many years ago, claiming she just met him in High School, whereas there's a photo of the two in preschool.. She starts seeing Freddy in her dreams, even going so far to figure out if the guy was real or not. And it's 30 minutes in and we finally get to what is quite possibly the whole authentic start to the original movie: The part where Tina dies.
Crap. I just figured it out. Kris is short for Kristina, isn't it. That's fucking retarded. Tina's name in the original was just Tina, not KRIStina. And it's at this point the eschew almost all originality for the sake of re-make. That's right, kids. It's the Tina death scene. And guess what? The "Roger" of this movie, being Jesse, is in the room as Kris is dragged all across the walls and ceiling and sliced open. But not Quentin or Nancy. They're too sensitive, what with Nancy dressing in dark, multi-layered clothing and drawing frantic pictures all the time, and Quentin on antidepressants and wearing Joy Division shirts. So I guess they aren't as cool as the other kids. What with Jesse wearing the latest designer hipster clothes and being the bad boy, or Kris being the blond haired preppy prep valedictorian type.
But unlike having the other characters there to validate the innocence of Jesse like in the original, Jesse takes off after leaving his fingerprints ALL OVER KRIS'S BODY, still covered in her blood. The closest house is Nancy's, which he breaks into to give Nancy the warning to "not fall asleep, or else someone named Freddy is going to get her" before trying to book it again, but getting caught. And that was only the first 35 minutes. The rest I don't have to go into, because it really becomes cliche at that point.
The main problem I had with this movie was that it tried to pad too much to make it the full length release. And that includes the scares. There were one or two good scares, one in a bookstore, the other in the old preschool. But on a whole, there was just too much to just take up space, and not contribute to the film itself. Jackie Earle Haley, who plays Freddy, was really good. But unfortunately, this film draws so much away from the character that Freddy wasn't allowed to be the monster that he truly is. It's no slight against Haley, in fact he's the sole saving grace of the film. Not even the scares were there. Do you know how many jump scares there were in the film? 19. There were 19 FUCKING JUMP SCARES in this, what is supposed to be a horror movie. Jump scares are not what's frightening. TENSION is what makes a film scary. But there was none to be had.
Now, let's get to one of the most important aspects of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, if not all Slasher films: the kills. They should have called this the Burned Man Stabby Slashy Movie. There is absolutely no imagination in the kills whatsoever. All the characters get killed in the exact same pattern, except replace the really innovative ways (the noose, the bed, and the glass) with the characters being stabbed and/or cut open in really graphic detail, with Kris's death being a direct ripoff from the original movie (mostly because they couldn't find a way to cut or stab her even more dead than in the original).
Another point about this series is Nancy. Guess what? Nancy needs Glenn ( I mean Quentin) to take him on after spending the whole movie telling people that they might have killed an innocent man, and then in 2 minutes spent in grief after finding (amazingly great quality) Polaroids of all the children that Kruger molested. You read that right. They out and out admit that Kruger was a child molester instead of a child murderer.
I face-palmed so hard that Jason in Hell could see that I face-palmed at that revelation. My sister (who is currently in college for Criminal Justice) was most disappointed by this fact. We both knew Freddy was a child KILLER. But instead, they turned him into the stereotypical pedophile. That is not how it works. Pedophiles always go after one of either genders, but never both. Though think they would go after both is in many ways very misleading for the general populace to know, and shows how much research went into the writing for this film.
So what does Nancy do for the final battle with Freddy? She has Quentin wait with Adrenaline ready to wake her up if she is unable to wake up herself as she goes into the Dream World for Freddy. Oh that's right. I forgot to mention the scene where Nancy is in the Hospital. She fell asleep and was cut by Freddy, so her mom took her there. No clue where her father was, but considering the original Nancy's father was played by John Saxon, I'm not surprised they couldn't find someone to play her father in the remake. So I'm not surprised they cut the role entirely. Well, while at the Hospital, Quentin steals Adrenaline from an unlocked Nurses Station. That does not happen. Either it would be in a storeroom that Quentin would not be able to get into, or in a SELF-LOCKING STATION. Quentin should not have been able to get to it at all.
Something else that the film-makers had no clue how to handle, direct or act is the fact that they want to get this message across: All teenagers are stupid, and don't know what the hell they are talking about, which is only going to gt them in trouble, and put on meds to keep them under control. The teenagers (?) in this film had some serious fucking leaps of logic that would have put Stephen Hawkings to shame. The only active participant in this entire film is Quentin, but his father (the principal of the school, played by Clancy Brown, the Kurgan himself) keeps him on medication and under close scrutiny throughout almost the film.
Now for the additions: Effects and Music. While I do admit the prostheses were interesting, in the end added absolutely nothing to the character, outside of looking like a melted action figure. I did like the look of the glove, made to look more like a razor-tipped gauntlet, but that things would hurt to use in real life. Most of the individual make up for the character without prostheses (as far as I could tell if any had plastic surgery) was distracting as well. Whoever did the make up failed miserably, with most of the characters having a sheen or glow to their faces that would be seen on shot on video projects. And the music? Barely there at all. You couldn't even tell if there was a score in a vast majority of the film. "But Knight? What about the original theme?" you might ask. Well, guess what? The original THEME wasn't there, but they kept the nursery rhyme. And before you say something, NO! It is NOT the original theme. The theme was far creepier than the music they provided. Which was so loud and jarring that it seriously hurt my eyes to listen to it.
If you hadn't seen this film yet: don't. It's not worth your money. Not even for a rental. If someone else is paying for it, go right ahead. But be warned, if you love the original, you WILL be pissed. No sleep will be lost over whether to see the new Nightmare on Elm Street by me or frankly anyone else.
For the sake of completion, here's the original theme. Enjoy!
TRIVIA: The picture of the kids from the preschool that the main characters had took annual photos of all the kids that went to it. In the picture, the individual kids that Nancy tries to track down are named after individual characters from the previous series. Except for the Asian kid. Fuck if I know where he's from. Must be a new character for the film.
No comments:
Post a Comment