Wednesday, May 19, 2010

A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) Review


A Nightmare On Elm Street, 2010
Reviewed by Dan S.
Directed by: Samuel Beyer
Written by: Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer
Starring: Jackie Earle Haley

Much like its 1984 predecessor, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010” is the tale of four teens terrorized by a disfigured serial killer in their dreams. Cutting most of the memorable meat from Craven’s original narrative, screen writers Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer’s version of the classic film dully unfolds as a series of predictable jump scares and unimaginative death scenes. In his feature film debut, veteran music video director Samuel Bayer’s vision of Freddy’s dream world is a lot like your average studio horror movie complete with the now standard digitized blue/green color scheme and sloppy hyperactive editing. His occasional CGI enhanced recreations of the franchise’s signature visuals only serve as a reminder of how much better executed the scenes were in the original film. The musical score is equaly uninspired, lots of cliches with a sporadic keyboard nod to the original theme

Prestigious, Oscar-nominated actor Jackie Earle Haley struggles to make any kind of lasting impression as Krueger. Buried behind convincing, but stoic make up, with a toneless, digitized voice. It is only during a very brief flash black sequence that the make up-free actor hints at the complex ambiguity he could have brought to the role. Speaking of wasted potential, cult favorite Clancy Brown has maybe two lines that he can’t do much with. Unfournately, the audience is forced to spend most of the movie's running time with an ensemble cast of forgettable pouty face teens as they struggle to remember if human Freddy touched them in their special areas or not when they were little...

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