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Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010)

Unpopular opinion time... this was good...

By Reed AlexanderPublished 4 years ago 5 min read
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There was nothing really wrong with this remake. Actually, it was pretty damn good. Sure, there was tons of unnecessary CGI, yeah it wasn't Robert Englund's Freddy Krueger, YES the original A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984 (Elm Street) was better, but this was good, damn good.

Look, the acting was good for the typical horror standard; the practical FX were excellent, the plot was on point, the atmosphere was perfect, the new Freddy looked solid; everything about this movie was done right. So, let's start by getting the typical bullshit fanboy complaints out of the way.

First bullshit complaint "No need for a new Freddy": Really? Because at 72 years old, we're gonna keep dragging Robert out for 'shameless cash grab trash films' after Wes Craven firmly ended the franchise with A New Nightmare? Yeah, he might be able to take out the old claw for another mashup, like Freddy Vs Jason, but how much longer can we expect the guy to do this? News Flash! Even Robert doesn't want to do it any more. We gonna badger the actor until he's 90? Robert has retired the glove. Ten years ago, when this came out, he'd already moved on to new projects.

Second bullshit complaint "The new Freddy looks dumb": No, the new Freddy looks like a burn victim. Yeah, the old look of the never healing flesh from the original Elm Street was awesome, but the director decided to try something new, and GOOD. We should WANT to try new things with old franchises. The fact that we DON'T is why our beloved franchises keep turn out 'shameless cash grab trash films.' And for what? Because purist fanboys, with a weird sense of fandom ownership, refuse to let the franchise grow and try new things? Fuck that shit!

Third bullshit complaint "This movie just wasn't scary": No, you're just not a child anymore (at least in some respect), and horror movies don't effect you the same way they use to. This horror concept just isn't new anymore, and you were prepared for it mentally a long fucking time ago. Also, I reject this dumb fucking concept that a horror movie needs to scare me to be good. I haven't been actively scared by a single horror movie since The Thing (1982) when I was 6, and I love horror, watch them religiously, so much so I became a fucking horror critic. Do you think it would be fair for me as a horror critic to judge EVERY fucking horror movie as 'bad' because I can't get scared anymore? Grow the fuck up!

Conclusion: The purist opinions of whiny fanboys does not impress me. I welcome new directors to try new things and expand cannon for my favorite franchises. Hell, I invite them to reboot, remake, repackage, take them in completely new directions, and flat out go Halloween 3: Season of the Witch with them.

Here are a few real problems with this movie: It was oddly rapey. Yeah, Freddy was a child murderer, but Wes Craven never needed to make Freddy rapey on screen to get his point across.

The CGI was REALLY bad, and there was absolutely no fucking reason for it. The scene when he comes out of the wall? The CGI effects on his makeup? The CGI effects in the dream land? Wes didn't need ANY of that and it looked better.

The weird twist they shoe horned into the movie? What the fuck was the point of that? More on that in the spoilers.

My only real problem with this movie? It brought absolutely nothing new to the table and nearly followed to original script completely.

Anyway... Yeah, nothing is gonna live up to the original, but that doesn't mean reboots are bad or unnecessary. That doesn't mean that every time someone new takes a swing at it, it's automatically going to suck. These whiny fanboys remind me of toddlers complaining they got the store brand fruit-loops instead of the name brand.

I'm recommending this as a 'must watch' for all Horror Heads, literally just to piss the fan boys off.

Don't like reboots? Fine. Take your copy of The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), The Blob (1988), and Dawn of the Dead (2004), and fucking burn them. They were all reboots.

~

SPOILERS!!!

I'm not sure what they were doing trying to shoe horn a twist into this movie. It was just a poor use of the material. Of course he wasn't an innocent lynching victim. What made Freddy so damn nasty, is that he was guilty to the core and got what he deserved. It's because his story was so brutal that he got turned into a dream demon. Freddy, the bastard son of 100 maniacs, was pure evil incarnate, and so awful, his brutal murder only added to his legend and gave him more power. Trying to set him up as an innocent victim at first wasn't going to fool anyone. At least not me. Of course he was actually a kiddie diddler. That's the whole fucking point!

Also, how the fuck do these people think repressed memories work? You don't just forget them, hell, they mess you right the fuck up. You never forget them, and the reason you repress them, is because anything that remotely brings them to the surface causes paralyzing PTSD. Most of these kids would be in therapy for the rest of their lives. NONE of them would forget Krueger, and hell, that's practically a good reason to turn him into some sort of boogeyman. Total missed opportunity there.

And what the fuck was with the character Quentin? Suddenly 'repressed memories' were a reasonable explanation for everything he'd been experiencing? Like that some-fucking-how explains you and your friends waking up covered in claw marks?! Jesus fucking Christ, the kid had been doing Adderall to stay awake for so damn long, he'd be speed tripping. This was not the time for rational explanation. This is the time for screaming like a fucking meth-head, and telling everyone that will listen that a dream demon is trying to murder him and his friends. Honestly, this was another missed opportunity.

Actually, there were dozens of places for new ideas which only lead to missed opportunities. The real disappointment with this movie is that they played it safe.

But overall, it was still pretty damn good, and I do recommend it.

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About the Creator

Reed Alexander

I'm a horror author and foulmouthed critic of all things horror. New reviews posted every Monday.

@ReedsHorror on TikTok, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, and Mastodon.

Check out my books on Godless: https://godless.com/products/reed-alexander

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