So yesterday Carolyn and I went to the old as dirt theater here in CB to see Nightmare On Elm Street. As you may remember I was pretty pessimistic about it too. I was right about that by the way.
First I feel the need to explain our little run down theater. It was quite the hoppin' place back in the 1970's and unfortunately never updated. The screen is like watching a 13" television from across the room and the seats...well those I think are rather new because they bought them from another theater that probably bought theirs from another theater who bought theirs from....anyway, the seats are not that bad and now they even have cup holders. Yes our little theater is moving on up. Before 6pm tickets cost only $2...after 6 they are $3. Not bad. The popcorn though is best left alone. Last time I ate it I had a hard time choking down the stale kernels. Oh and after a sat down I stepped onto something of substance....under my shoe it felt about the size of a candy bar. At least I hope it was a candy bar. It didn't smell like dookie around my seat so I am pretty confident that someone didn't take a hard dump in the 3rd row.
So, Carol and I splurged and spent 3 Bucks to see a movie that we both agreed would never be worth $9 at a first run theater. After the movie we kind of wanted our money back. I think it was worth a dollar....Redbox DVD rental worthy. Nothing more than that.
Now for the Movie
We were a little disappointed that Robert Englund would not be Freddy in this remake. Granted he is 63 years old but it isn't like Freddy is an attractive 30 year old or anything. The actor that portrayed Freddy in the remake is Jackie Earle Haley who has actually been in quite a number of different tv/movie projects but more recently he played Rorschach in Watchmen. I thought he did a great job as Rorschach. As Freddy though....meh.
This review might contain some spoilers....but honestly this is a remake....isn't the entire movie a spoiler???
As the storyline went....it was changed quite a bit but still held onto the whole Freddy will kill you in your dreams thing. Nancy is the only recognizable character. None of the characters are really friends, whereas in the original they were. Tina, Rod, Glen and Nancy made up the group. The other closest to the original would probably be Kris....at least in the original Tina's real name was Christina.
The beginning of the movie jumps right in with a guy who might be in a nightmare but you just don't know until you see Freddy. It also spends the first 1/3 or so of the movie surrounding Kris and her boyfriend. It was a little weird. Kind of like the film people were following Kris around and when she died they all looked at each other, the director said "Well that sucks. What'll we do now? OK here's what we are going to do...keep the cameras rolling and everyone follow Nancy. Now GO!"
The Kill Scenes
No horror movie is worth dirt unless it has some awesome and gory kill scenes. Some of them were OK in the movie. Some...I swear I saw them before somewhere LOL. Kris's death was very similar to Tina's in the original. The opening kill scene.....well just didn't make a whole lot of sense. It suffered from too many special effects. Yes it does happen. I'll tell you about another instance in a bit.
First kill scene....the opening guy ends up kind of killing himself. At least that is what it looked like to witnesses. Of course they couldn't see Freddy forcing Dean to do it. Let's just say that this involved a steak knife and a throat. The problem I had with this was that the steak knife wasn't some sort of serrated Ginsu knife. It was one of the big bulky rounded ones that you find at places like The Golden Corral. What's up with the rounded tip anyway? It's like a safety scissor's version of a steak knife. Sure one could shove a 5" safety knife into one's throat....with enough force one could shove a spoon in there. But to make one clean swipe across the entire throat (buried to the hilt by the way) with a knife that could barely cut against the grain of a fillet Mignon? Maybe if you took the time to saw through the cartilage and tissue, but honestly I don't think so....that might be an experiment worthy of Mythbusters.
Another kill scene that didn't make much sense was when Jesse was in jail. Freddy thrust his entire hand (knives and all) through Jesse's back and out his chest. Of course in Jail all you see is blood and gore erupting out of his chest cavity. He falls onto his stomach and dies. There is no marks on his back at all. So, what's the issue then right? If you remember from the original Rod dies in jail but "hangs himself". This made sense because of all the cameras. The whole thing with Freddy killing is because if there are witnesses no one would believe them. Who is going to believe that a water bed sucked someone into it and spewed them out like Old Faithful filled with tomato soup instead of plain water. (By the way...not in this movie...what? No one has a water bed anymore???) But in jail with all the cameras....that shit will end up on YouTube. Try explaining that one.
Writers take liberties on Freddy's background
In the original Freddy is a child killer. Pretty horrible huh? In 2010 what could possibly be worse than a child killer. Let's make him a pedophile. Yep Freddy liked the kiddies. I think they spent way, I mean WAY, too much time on this. At one point Freddy gave me the Chester the Molester creeps. This was not the way it was supposed to be! Freddy should scare the crap outta me (maybe that was a petrified turd I stepped on) because the boogie man is scary...he will kill you...you can't fall asleep because he wants to kill you. Not because he wants to show you his secret place and give you candy if you will help keep it a secret.
Special effects are only special if used sparingly
Not that I ever thought about proving this as a point but thanks to this movie I can now say "A-ha! It is true." Remember in the original Freddy liked to run his knives along metal and creating little sparks? Pretty cool actually. Now picture him doing this for what seems like an entire football field. Now picture the little sparks looking like someone welding something complete with the sparking fizzle sound. Either that or someone Punk'd Freddy and attached sparklers to his finger tips. It was that ridiculous.
Let's wrap this up folks
So overall am I glad I watched it? Still not sure.
Am I glad I didn't spend $9 when it came out the end of April? Hell's Yeah!
Do I wish I would have gone the Redbox $1 route? Naw...I still had a good time with Carol.
Am I glad I didn't bend over and touch whatever was on the floor? Forever Grateful.
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