REVIEW : NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)

Well it finally happened, it was only a matter of time before they tried to reinvent this generations most iconic monster. Yeah they took on Leatherface, Jason Vorhees and even the Amityville house. Now comes the re-imaging of the king of them all, as Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes bring us Freddy Kruger for the 21st Century.  
The children of Elm street see him in their dreams, the man they called Fred Kruger. Once a local gardener at the pre school nursery, he disappeared many years ago, now he has returned. But in the form of something evil, something sinister that stalks the teens of Spring-wood in their dreams and so it begins again as Platinum Dunes reboot the Nightmare franchise and oh how wrong they got it.


Lets just get straight on with my absolute main gripe with this movie, apart from the fact that it is soulless, cardboard-cutout horror, is the casting. Never before have I seen actors that literally can't convey any kind of emotion across the screen. I've seen bad actors, you need only head to reviews lower on this blog to see that I watch some right crap, so I would like to think of myself as a bit of an expert on terrible b movie actors. 

But this is Hollywood, they have the money to cast the best, or at very least the second best.  Yet every time someone speaks within Nightmare On Elm Street, I suddenly wanted them to die. Instantly. Maybe this was the intention, although I find it hard to believe that they would also want this quality from the two leads Rooney Mara (The new boring Nancy) and Kyle Gallner (The new Johnny Depp, I guess) who do terrible jobs throughout. 


The only casting they got potentially right was drafting in Jackie Earle Haley as the new, although not so much improved, Freddy Kruger. The man clearly has the chops as we saw in Watchmen with is portrayal of Rorschach, but his make up here is miss done, his voice over dubbed to the point it doesn't match his lip movement, turning Freddy into what feels like a limp, pathetic and almost laughable villain.

Add to this the uninspired Nightmares, terrible dialogue, awful CGI and you have a film that keeps you amazed that they even got it to the finish line intact. 

OVERALL


Usually I try to leave a positive note on even the worst of films, but for lack of any better words A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is 'shit'. What a shame. Good day.