A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Having recently viewed and been disappointed by the original Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), I went into the remake thinking Wes Craven’s brain-child was an excellent candidate for a cinematic reawakening. The effects would be updated, the actors could be upgraded and the story – which suffered several missteps in the execution of a truly great concept about a psycho who kills you in your sleep – could be smoothed out and perfected in the second going. The folks at Michael Bay’s remake factory, Platinum Dunes, made several strides in each of those keys directions when producing the new Nightmare. But their end product takes a massive step back in the wrong direction.

Retro Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

You know what A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is? It’s an idea – a really cool, really interesting and extremely frightening idea. Over the past 25 years Nightmare has maintained elite slasher flick status, propelling writer/director Wes Craven into the Horror Hall of Fame and installing Freddy Kruger as a cinematic household name. Aficionados who came up in the 80s look at it as one of the greats. It maintains an astounding (and alarming) 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, beating out other slasher classic like the original Halloween (93%), Scream (81%), and the original Friday the 13th (60%). In fact, if you don’t count Psycho (which, to be fair, isn’t structured like a slasher flick), Nightmare is the most acclaimed slasher flick of all time. And not just on Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic, the New York Times, etc. all view Nightmare as a pinnacle of its genre. A truly classic horror film.

And it may in fact be just that. You may have watched this flick as a kid and been haunted in your sleep for weeks. But guess what – I watched it the other night, and I thought it sucked.