Remember the chilling terror of the 1984 horror masterpiece, A Nightmare on Elm Street? Now, imagine if that iconic film was filtered through the lens of Michael Bay, the director known for explosive action flicks like Transformers. The 2010 remake, Elm Street Nightmare 2010, essentially embodies this terrifying prospect, delivering almost every conceivable pitfall of such a cinematic collision.
Despite the chorus of negative reviews – and this critique will undoubtedly join the ranks – an undeniable curiosity drew me to witness this reimagining of Freddy Krueger’s sinister world. When a fellow critic invited me to a screening, I accepted, hoping against hope that perhaps the negativity was overstated.
Surely, it couldn’t be that bad? This was intended to be a darker, grittier interpretation, rescuing Freddy from the self-parody he had become. The screenplay had a connection to serious cinema through Wesley Strick, who contributed to Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear. And the new Freddy was portrayed by Jackie Earle Haley, a respected, Oscar-nominated actor fresh off his chilling role as Rorschach in Watchmen. How severely could they misstep?
The answer, shockingly, is profoundly. Director Samuel Bayer, known for his music video work and making his feature film debut, achieved his stated aim of stripping away the dark humor of the original Elm Street series. However, in doing so, he also tragically eradicated any semblance of genuine fear. What remains is a murky, dimly lit experience plagued by unengaging characters, stilted performances, and a complete void of tension, suspense, or any discernible energy.
While a comprehensive dissection of the film’s flaws could fill volumes, two critical issues alone condemn this Nightmare remake.
The New Freddy Krueger: Stripped of All Terror
The most glaring misstep is undoubtedly the reimagining of Freddy Krueger himself. He is simply not frightening. Robert Englund’s original Freddy, while evolving into a more comical figure later in the series, was genuinely menacing in the initial films. Jackie Earle Haley’s Freddy, however, lacks any such presence. His diminutive stature makes Freddy appear weak, and his voice is a bizarre, exaggerated imitation of Christian Bale’s Batman growl, unintentionally funny rather than terrifying.
Haley’s performance is further hampered by the dreadful new Freddy makeup. Supposedly aiming for a more “realistic” depiction of burn victims, it instead renders his face immobile and expressionless. This Freddy is not scary; worse, he is utterly uninteresting. He lacks the sinister charisma and gleeful sadism that made Englund’s Krueger so captivating, even in the silliest sequels.
Uninspired Kills and Blatant Copying
One might anticipate that a remake, even a misguided one, would at least deliver inventive and gruesome new “kills,” a hallmark of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Sadly, this is the second major failing of the 2010 film. The kill sequences are few and far between, and the few moments that are somewhat effective are directly lifted from the 1984 original. Fans of the classic will recognize numerous scenes recreated almost identically, albeit with a larger budget but devoid of any artistic creativity or suspenseful build-up. These scenes feel like pale imitations, lacking the original’s raw impact and innovative spirit.
The acting, with very few exceptions, is also remarkably poor. While some of the actors have shown competence in other roles, here they deliver laughable performances. It’s hard not to place blame on Bayer’s direction, which seems to have stifled any potential nuance. Thomas Dekker’s portrayal feels like a bizarre, failed attempt to mimic Casey Affleck, if Affleck had suddenly forgotten the fundamentals of acting. And he is, surprisingly, one of the better performances.
Among the leads, only Kyle Gallner manages to inject some much-needed personality and a touch of humor into the otherwise bleak proceedings. Gallner’s presence makes the final act marginally more engaging, primarily because by that point, the audience will likely be wishing for the demise of nearly every other character from the film’s opening scenes.
However, even Gallner’s efforts are undermined by Bayer’s heavy-handed direction, which telegraphs every jump scare and dream sequence with excessive obviousness. A key element of the original Elm Street films was the subtle, unsettling blurring of lines between reality and the dream world. Bayer completely misses this crucial aspect. Every dream sequence is starkly delineated, obliterating any sense of disorientation or suspense. The audience is never left to question what is real and what is not, a fundamental component of psychological horror.
The film frustratingly dedicates a significant portion of its runtime – nearly two-thirds – to laboriously unraveling Freddy’s backstory, a narrative that is already widely known to anyone familiar with the franchise. It briefly teases a minor twist on the original plot, a fleeting moment of originality that quickly vanishes, like a fragile flower struggling to emerge from concrete, only to be immediately crushed.
I am a devoted fan of horror films. My expectations are not unreasonable. I simply ask that they deliver on at least one of two fronts: A) genuine scares or B) entertaining fun. Ideally, a truly great horror film achieves both.
But with a complete absence of scares and a severe deficiency of fun, this Elm Street Nightmare 2010 remake barely scrapes above a failing grade. It’s a cinematic nightmare, but not in the way intended – it’s a nightmare of bad filmmaking.
