How was the remake 'god awful'? It was actually quite good.
here are a few of the things that i dislike about this remake.
*didnt like the pacing of the film. thats the biggest problem i had with this film. it felt so accelerated and im sure thats for the target teen audience with their short attention spans, but the story doesnt flow along like youd expect with them fast forwarding like they did. so it just really irked me. theres no time to even get to know the characters, which really throws things off balance. there was no time to linger and give some dialogue.
the original had a slow build to things and it worked.
*i thought the cgi in this movie was cheap looking. i guess i just prefer practical effects. those practical effects just worked so well in the original. i wanted them embrace what the CGI could do , which was enhance the dreamscape than practicals could ever afford to allow. and i felt they just didnt utilize them in this remake.
*the one scene i never forget from the original is when Nancy falls asleep in the classroom. to me that was just such an effective scene. it was the one part of the entire film that really creeped me out as a child. to see it butchered in this remake, was very disappointing. not only is it not Nancy but they use CGI to have all the students explode within seconds. completely took me out of the movie. what should be this eerie dream of the character discovering the boiler room and coming to the revelation that what happens to their body in the dream results in reality, turns out to be just a cheap scare.
*the more Freddy talked the less i liked him. i was hoping to see a more menacing Freddy and didnt get it. every time he delivered any kind of dialogue he was just so flat. he wasnt at all scary or evil or creepy.hes not physically imposing against these teenagers. had they gone with the original choice of Kevin Bacon as Freddy then i probably would have enjoyed the character more. Haley was wrong for the role and wasnt served well by the material. didnt like the makeup either, at times he seemed like a muppet. said to be realistic looking but it just didnt work for me.
*Freddy is a child molester, not a child killer.he just touches them and hurts them but doesnt kill them. this to me has forever changed his iconic status. so you cant cheer for the killer in this modernized version of the character. and yes i know that Craven initially intended to have Freddy as a pedophile AND killer, but because there was highly publicized pedophilia cases during the time of making the film,Craven didnt want to feel like he was utilizing that for extra
publicity.so he removed it from the script.
making him repulsive is asking me to be scared and like the protagonist.thing is he wasnt scary and Nancy in this film is uninteresting & doesnt have any screen presence.
they are going darker but its not fun to watch and its kinda pretentious cause they arent following through with any of it.
*no showing the origin of the glove. you dont see him make the glove. of all scenes to rehash, THIS was the one!! and they didnt do it. most of what you even see of Freddy before hes in the dreams is all in a montage of clips. theres no actual scenes that show what i was really hoping to get with this remake. which was the origins of Freddy. because honestly whats the point of a rehash of the original? if theres gonna be a remake then it should have more depth, more dramatic tension, and better actors. because the original as much as i enjoyed it..it has its faults..which i was really anticipating this remake to resolve. but it just failed miserably.
*for a few moments in the film they try to make it seem like if Freddy was wrongfully burned. and was a victim because the parents got the wrong idea & the children lied about being molested. i thought they were gonna take it there, and i could have gone with that approach because at least it was an approach at something different.. but they then turn things around again and to me the whole thing just seemed unnecessary and the delivery of those scenes happened so quickly that it seemed ridiculous.
also have a problem with Freddy's backstory because it takes place in the 90s not the 50s or 60s. who the hell would let a single male gardener live in the basement of a pre school in the 90s??
*didnt buy the whole plot of all these kids having no recollection of knowing each other or of being molested. repression i could get, but i wouldnt think itd happen to ALL the kids. just seems too convenient and lazy.
what really bothers me above all is that the director cant even stay in the same frame for more than 5 seconds, hes always cutting from one shot to another. which is disorienting. the only time they ever linger for more than 5 seconds is when Freddy is gonna attack. which takes away any tension at all since u can pinpoint exactly when he will appear because of this. the whole film for that first hour seemed like nothing but clips and snippets and not full thought out scenes.
i wouldnt say im a 'hater' because i wanted to like this film. im a fan of the Elm Street series and was in anticipation to see this remake. only detail i did like was the whole micro-napping. it explained why the characters fall asleep so quickly. apart from that one thing, visually the only appealing thing was the way Freddy rubbed his blades together when approaching a victim. probably the only thing Haley brought to the character but it worked.
everything else was just awful. seemed like a waste of time to watch this movie.
my theory as to why this movie turned out so terrible, was that perhaps the director turned in a 2 hour cut and the studio slashed it to bits to make it suitable for teens with short attention spans.
if this is true then if theres an extended cut that turns up on DVD that will resolve all the issues i had with it. then ill give this film another chance when its on home video.
reply
share
lunacyregnant
13 years ago
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head of why the remake does not work, so thank you for that because now I know I'm not the only person that can't stand the remake. Though I'm going to nitpick and say because of poor grammar I didn't understand your point of "they want me to hate Freddy and root for the protagonists and that's bad". You do realize that prior to any sequels after Nightmare 3 depicting Freddy as a wise-cracking smart ass he was supposed to be this dark intimidating killer and we were supposed to side with the protagonists because they were well-written characters as opposed to anything after Nightmare 3 that turned all the characters into unlikable people that you just couldn't wait for to die as is what many other horror sequels were doing to their protagonists. If anything, that's the only thing the remake does right is return Freddy to his dark serious personality he had in the first three movies.
Also, as for this whole business with this Lito person being a "co-producer" of the documentary, exactly how do any of us know this is true? Why should we believe him? Anyone could come on here pretending to be whoever they want. For all you know, I could be Jesus Christ or Bill Cosby or Katherine Hepburn. But just because I claim it, doesn't make it true.
Oh members of IMDb, yours is a dim-witted and insane lot!
reply
share
TysonBoi
13 years ago
It is true, I'm friends with him on Facebook
TySoN
Boy, I don't mean to freak you out, but I'm calling you from inside the trunk
reply
share