Sunday, November 14, 2010

A Nightmare On Elm Street: When Remakes Go Horribly Wrong

I loathe remakes for the most part. I dread them like the dentist. Why you ask? Because most are freakin awful. Remakes of films like Psycho, The Grudge, When A Stranger Calls, The Hills Have Eyes, Last House on the Left and a zillion others are never as good as the original. The main reason is that we have already seem what is going to happen, robbing us of any suspense. If you are going to do a remake, there are several things that have to occur for it be successful. First, get an upcoming director with a superior sense of style and a writer who knows what he's doing. This is why the guaranteed failure of the Dawn Of The Dead remake actually turned out to be one of the best zombie movies ever. I love that remake because Zack Snyder is a true visionary director whose failures are more interesting than most people's successes (hello, 300). Then, hire a good cast. Nightmare did all that and still failed. Miserably.
While not a shot for shot remake ala Psycho (still the worst remake ever or least until the long gestating Exorcist remake surfaces again), it does crib heavily from the original and not one shot is ever as good. We all know the story of this movie. Freddy is Jackie Earle Haley, one of my favorite actors right now. His turn on Human Target is incredible and the Oscar nod he got for Little Children was well deserved. But here he's hidden by less than convincing burn make-up. I used to win awards for my Freddy Kruger costume and trust me, my crappy make up job blew theirs out of the water. Freddy gets killed, comes back to kill the children he molested, the end. Only it wasn't that mercifully short. Instead we are subjected to whinny kids I couldn't care less about it. Ronney Mara, from The Social Network and the upcoming Dragon Tatoo remake (that one could be interesting as David Fincher directs), is badly miscast as Nancy. She's way too slight for the part. Nancy was a strong fighter in the original. Here she's a pouty teen. As is everyone else in this movie.
The worst part of this film is they had a good cast filled with great young actors. But then came the writer and director. They took a chance with music video director Samuel Bayer, who apparently can only direct music videos. This film was terrible, director wise, with a total lack of suspense or terror at any given point. More must be heaped on hack writer Wesley Strick who has written such garbage as Wolf and Doom. No more films for this guy please. He hasn't written a good script in almost twenty years. Time to let the healing begin. A few of my friends actually liked this movie (cough cough Brendon cough), which makes me question their taste, sanity and the ability to distinguish between good and bad. This was one of the worst movies of the year, which is no surprise as the studios put it out Graveyard weekend, which is the last weekend in April before the big tent pole films open. Oddly, it made a profit from dumbasses paying to see this drek. As a result a sequel is on the way. I'd rather shave my head with a cheese grater while chewing on tin foil than pay to see it(Ten points to anyone who can name what show that's from). Avoid like the plague. A matter of fact, I'd rather have the plague.

0 stars of 5

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