A Nightmare On Elm Street

Bringing the iconic cinematic bogeyman Freddy Krueger back from the dead, the remake of the 1984 slasher film A Nightmare On Elm Street is a distressingly timid horror movie. Director Samuel Bayer largely adheres to writer-director Wes Craven’s original, but despite character actor Jackie Earle Haley’s presence as Freddy, this would-be franchise reboot seems haunted by its reliance on genre conventions.

Rather than displaying any fresh ideas, music-video director Bayer mindlessly grafts Craven’s narrative framework on top of dreary modern-day horror clichés.

Opening domestically April 30, A Nightmare On Elm Street will benefit greatly from both audience familiarity with Freddy Krueger and a lack of horror competition in the marketplace. But the oncoming one-two punch of Iron Man 2 (May 7) and Robin Hood (May 14) will soon slice significantly into Nightmare’s male fan base.

A group of classmates, including introspective artist Nancy (Rooney Mara), are having the same nightmare in which they’re terrorised by a disfigured, knife-fingered maniac named Freddy Krueger (Haley). But once Nancy’s friends start dying in their sleep, she realizes she must stay awake to avoid the same fate.

Though made on a low budget with spotty acting, Craven’s 1984 offering firmly established Freddy Krueger as a memorable villain. Several misbegotten sequels, including the 2003 Freddy Vs. Jason spin-off, quickly diminished the character’s legacy, but clearly this Nightmare remake is meant to revitalise the franchise by retelling Freddy’s origin story.

But rather than displaying any fresh ideas, music-video director Bayer mindlessly grafts Craven’s narrative framework on top of dreary modern-day horror clichés, resulting in a film that lacks the jolting newness of the original. As for Haley, the remake allows for a more expanded back-story for Freddy, but the man who ably portrayed a sympathetic child molester in Little Children isn’t given enough to work with here to make this bogeyman truly monstrous or indelible.