- Nightmare on Elm Street - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ee/A_Ni
The Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise began in 1984 with Robert Englund starring as Freddy Krueger, whilst in the role he played Freddy at least eight times (the final time being in Freddy Vs Jason in 2003). The franchise had its ups and downs but it effectively ran out of steam and seemingly was allowed to die, however, after the revivals of Halloween and Friday 13th, it was inevitable that Freddy would return to our screens.
The Rebooted Nightmare
Dean (Kellan Lutz) dozes off whilst in a diner with his girlfriend Kris (Katie Cassidy), and whilst asleep he dreams about a man with horrific burns and a hand with five razor sharp blades on the fingers. Whilst in his sleep he is killed and his friends begin to realise that the dream he described before he died sound chillingly familiar.
Several other teens including Nancy (Rooney Mara) and Jesse (Thomas Dekker) also begin to experience nightmares centred around the same burnt figure. They begin to realise that they are being stalked by a man named Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley), and if they fall asleep then they are going to die.
Unfortunately the body requires sleep to survive and within seventy hours they will start to have micro-naps, which means they’ll be asleep even though they are awake, before eventually they will fall into a coma. As one by one they fall asleep Freddy hunts them down leaving the survivors to try and figure out what he wants and how to destroy him.
Same Nightmare New Freddy
The eighties gave the world the slasher films with the unkillable bad guy, and saw so many sequels that the films became almost indistinguishable from one another. Halloween was the first to be resurrected as a reimagining of the original and offered a different slant on the character of Michael Myers. This version of Nightmare on Elm Street is basically exactly the same as every other version, and as anyone who has seen one of the films will know the basic plot is as follows: teens die in their sleep, the survivors tell of the burnt man, more teens die, the remaining teens try to stay awake, they find a way to apparently destroy Freddy, Freddy is killed only to return in the closing few moments. Rinse, lather, repeat. What was rather frustrating about this film was that there was a very good idea dropped in about midway through which would have taken the franchise into new territory. But that idea was ditched not long afterwards which results in this film staying firmly within the boundaries established by the previous films.
Jackie Earle Haley steps into the role of Freddy Krueger and portrays him in a straighter light that Robert Englund’s portrayal. In the first Nightmare on Elm Street Krueger was a really nasty piece of work only becoming funnier in later incarnations, this version goes back to Krueger’s twisted origins and whilst Haley does utter the odd humorous line Krueger is returned to his roots as a very unpleasant character.
All in all Nightmare on Elm Street is just the same thing served up again, and is essentially just another sequel with nothing new to shout about. Those new to the franchise will probably enjoy it, but for those familiar with the earlier films there is nothing but more of the same on display.
3/5
Same plot just a different Freddy.
Christopher Sharman - In 2009 I self-published my first novel entitled The Darkness Saga: The Light (currently available at amazon.co.uk) which has been ...
