What was so bad about this film? I was fine with it but I didn't grow up on the old films cause I was 2 scared to even look at the covers. But I actually liked this version. Don't get me wrong the older ones were pretty cool. But can someone point out the flaws for me?
shareI just couldn't stand the new Freddy. Robert Englund was irreplaceable and this actor was just bad!
shareI'm going to refer to the original nightmare film, not the sequels on why this remake was bad.
First of all the concept of freddy was a jumbled mess. What was the point of his glove? What was the point of the boiler room ? Beats me he was just some pedo Gardner. None of it made any really connection and the film makers just threw it in because it's freddy, basing it on the fact people know the character. For anyone who didn't , what and where did the razor glove come from ? He wasn't a midweek, it made no sense with the plot.
Now, compare this with the 84 film, the opening couple of minutes sets the tone and shows the glove being constructed in the boiler room where Fred works. It all connects in one simple sequence. Craven was a master storyteller. The new film couldn't even get the opening sequence to equal the first 5 minutes of crave a film.
The Tina death sequence was poorly done, watch the sequences side by side and the 84 version is pure horror, but incredibly inventive at the same time.
I could go on , but it really isn't very well made. It's a very big standard film. Freddy was messed around with to the point he just wasn't scary. The 84 version seemed a complete psycho. It's bad because if done right it could've been really good, I was looking forward to it but it's a letdown.
It isn't THAT bad. I didn't think Jackie Earle Haley was bad at all, but it's hard to replace Robert Englund. Rooney Mara really phoned it in--long-distance, from a pay phone, with the charges reversed--but she IS a two-time Oscar nominee. She doesn't have to try too hard to equal the raw acting talent of Heather Langenkamp.
Making Freddy a pedophile was an interesting idea. He was SUPPOSED to be one in the original, but they shuttled the idea because of the McMartin Pre-School case in the early 80's. They actually kind of used that case here. Ironically, those people WERE totally innocent, but that doesn't quite work with Freddy as one of the other posters pointed out. Still, the child murderer thing in the original doesn't make sense either. How would you NOT know a serial child murderer lived in your town? Who got off on a technicality? Then burned to death in a mysterious fire? That plot wasn't believable in 1984 and it certainly wouldn't be in the modern internet age. But this one also doesn't really work.
There is some real stupidity in this, like when Nancy's mom first talks about Freddy Krueger molesting kids, and Kyle decides that that's a logical explanation of why they're all having the same dream and Nancy is just crazy. Except that three of their friends have already been butchered in their sleep at that point. Explain that, Dr. Freud! This version has problems, but it's not as bad the remakes Black Xmas or When a Stranger Calls or Prom Night. It was also marginally better than Friday the 13th or Rob Zombie's Halloween (even WITHOUT Rooney Mara or Katie Cassidy doing any gratuitous nude scenes).
"Let be be finale of seem/ The only emperor is the Emperor of Ice Cream"
The whole paedo back story took away from freddies menace. Too much signposted exposition that ran way too long into the film. Its an eighties film grounded in the teen anxiety and guilt around that time. Craven bottled lightning. Poltergeist remake suffered from the same thing.
shareThe problem was it was bland. They tried to be "Realistic". It's a movie about a monster killing teenagers in their dreams. BE CREATIVE.
shareI actually didn't mind Jackie Earle Haley in this, I thought he did okay. Though Robert Englund will always be the first and best Freddy, I thought JLH did his best to give his own take on an iconic character.
My problem with the film was that was they seemed to think that once you had Freddy, you didn't need anything else.
Look at the original film. You cared about the other characters in it. You cared what happened to them. For example, Tina's death scene was inventive, scary, was played with charisma by Amanda Wyss and was just generally very, very well done. You were surprised and scared when you saw it. There was nothing in the new film that was like that.
Heather Langenkamp, though obviously an inexperienced actress, made you root for Nancy. You wanted her to win. You were upset by her parents obvious short comings. Rooney Mara has admitted since that she hated working on this film, and just was phoning her performances in. It showed. Nancy was very blah in this version.
In slasher movies it isn't enough to get the villan correct, you need to care about the teenagers they harass. In my opinion JLH did alright in the role, but you didn't care as much because you didn't care about the people that were trying to stop him. People criticise JLH's interpretation of Freddy, but it was the iconic character of Nancy that wasn't done well.
Also, at lot of iconic scenes were just carbon copies, the bathtub scene, the Freddy dropping down from the ceiling scene. Kind of felt pointless. It didn't help create tension.
completely agree with everything you said 100%. its funny so many people hate this film and i do as well but for completely different reasons. the best thing about it is jackie's freddy. obviously i much prefer robert englund but jackie did an ok job here and is by far the best thing about this mess of a film.
nancy is where the ball was dropped the most. i couldnt care less what happened to this expressionless dull emo girl with zero charisma or personality. the rest of the teenage cast were just as bad, but the LEAD cannot be this useless or the film is dragged down completely.
also the iconic scenes were done so poorly here. the cgi in the wall-above-the-bed scene was SO poor. it's hard to believe that it looked better 25 yrs earlier.
Well said I agree with everything you said
shareI’ve been a die hard fan of the original Nightmare since around 1990 or so. I was prepared to hate this remake but there are a few good things. I like the story line. Originally Freddy was to be a child molester but that cut due to a court case going on involving a daycare. It’s called the McMartin trial or something like that. Due to this they made a few changes to the script. This is discussed on Never Sleep Again.
I hated how Freddy looks and talks in this but he is a lot scarier. He’s darker.
I also liked how the teens go searching for how and why Freddy is after them.
So that’s my view on it. I like it but I don’t love it. Only Robert England can play Freddy
I actually don't mind this film, so long as I divorce it entirely from the others, however what defined its failure for me was that when Nancy first encounters Freddy, she's not scared - so why should I be?
The teenage characters were just so nonchalant about their situation, it's a bit insulting to the audience when looking for someone to root for as they don't seem that bothered about one another or even themselves!
If they'd gotten rid of the 'remake' scenes, this could've been a decent 'side-quel', Freddy's adventures killing other teens inbetween events of the other movies (as alluded to in Dream Warriors).