A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

I could sum it up by saying I felt the same way as when I watched "Star Trek" last year:  on its own the movie is OK, but in comparison with its predecessor it's not that good.  I only watched the original Elm Street once and that was on basic cable, though I have to admit of all the late 70s-80s super killers Freddy Krueger scared the crap out of me.  I think it was just that creepy burned face.  One thing that bothered me then with the remake is that the face looks wrong.  It doesn't look as scary or even very real.  It looks like some CGI'd it, like "The Mummy" or something.

The plot follows along the same lines as the original.  Some high school kids are terrorized by the evil spirit of Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley), who wears an ugly striped sweater and wields a hand of razors that he uses to slash his victims to pieces.  He appears in the kids' dreams where their parents can't protect them.  Not that any of their parents seem to be interested in protecting them, or are even around 90% of the time.

After a few deaths, two kids are left standing.  Nancy (Rooney Mara, aka soon to be known as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) and her friend Quentin (who's obviously a fan of Team Edward from his pastiness).  They try to figure out who Freddy is and how they can destroy him, all without falling asleep.

I was looking forward to this even though I wasn't a big fan of the original.  Having seen "Little Children" and "Watchmen" I thought Haley would be well-suited to playing the psychotic pedophile.  And generally he's creepy and scary, but is he Freddy Krueger?  Not really.  He doesn't have the same panache as the Robert Englund version.  Maybe some would say the original was kind of cheesy, but that's what made it enjoyable and helped it spawn eight sequels or so.

That's kind of the way it is with the movie in general.  It would be an OK horror movie if taken on its own, but since it's called "Nightmare on Elm Street" there's a lot to live up to.  The movie just doesn't.

BTW, I watched this after midnight, alone, in the dark and slept like a baby afterwards.  So in my estimation, not that scary.

That is all.

My score:  50/100 (2 stars)
Metacritic score: 35/100 (1.5 stars)