A Nightmare On Elm Street. A true classic and a franchise that has been close to my heart since the mid eighties. Sure the only decent movies in the series were parts 1 and 3 but in truth I enjoyed every entry in the series, yes, even Freddy's Dead. What I got from these movies was a trash popcorn horror movie that entertained me for the hour and a half I was there. That's enough of the sequels, we're here to discuss the original and it's new re-imagining of the same title. It's no secret that I was a little less than impressed. I was going to review the film on it's own merits but instead I've opted to compare the original to this new film and explain the reasons behind my dislike of the reboot. It's difficult with any remake to please everyone and I can see how people not familiar with the original series may actually like this Platinum Dunes version. It is not just a bunch of sour grapes of having changes made to my favourite franchise. I am willing to accept such changes as necessary to breath life into an old story. Trouble is the makers seem to have been more concerned in bringing the character of Freddy Krueger back to ... See Morethe big screen without into much thought as to what made the original work so well. Wes Craven gave all the characters especially the secondary characters in the original a bit of background. These secondary characters are those such as the parents of the kids. Marge and Donald Thompson (parents of Nancy) for example. In the original Marge and Donald had seperated and Marge was an alcoholic. Later in the film we learn the story of what the parents had done to Freddy back in the day and we then understand that this could be a reason why Marge became an alcoholic and due to her drinking Donald eventually could take no more and moved out. This isn't spelled out but we have enough information from Wes to presume this is the case. It gives depth to them and makes us care more about their situation. In the new movie Nancy's mother is just her mother and her father isn't mentioned from what I could tell. So we have a whole area where they cut the storyline and did not put anything in its place to replace that.

In the new movie Freddy was a gardener at the school which is now not Springwood Elementary or similar - it is Badham Preschool. Why Badham? Badham has no Springwood link. Anyway he was the gardener there and he lived in the basement. During the new film we see the basement, there is no boiler room or for that matter no boiler so why in the dreams does it show Freddy in the boiler room we all know from the previous series. There is no connection as to why he appears in a boiler room when in life he committed his crimes in what the kids call 'his secret cave'. So we lose the whole story about Freddy being a janitor who took kids to an old abandoned boiler room to carry out his crimes. Which makes sense in the original series when you seem his boiler room in the dreams.

During the new movie he spits a lot of one liners taken from the previous series. Whilst chasing Nancy along a corridor she falls into a pit of slime and tries to escape but it is like treacle so it is difficult. As she is struggling Freddy says "Hows this for a wet dream?". Now in Nightmare 4 of the original series Joey is lying on his water bed fantasising about a topless model on a poster in his bedroom and falls asleep. As he dreams of this model coming to him from inside his water bed, Freddy suddenly appears and slashes through the water bed dragging Joey into the water and says "Hows this for a wet dream?" - so you can see in Nightmare 4 it made sense as it was a kid having a sexy dream so the quote made perfect sense. Saying it whilst Nancy is struggling in a pit of slime just didn't fit. Freddy has always quipped a one liner that is related to the situation. How is that even remotely like a wet dream.

In the original they set the rule that he can only get you while you sleep but in the new movie they introduce micro naps where you can be awake and then have a brief 10 second snooze which happens when you are really sleep deprivated. They place fast and loose with this notion and even to the last scene Freddy often jumps out in places where nobody is dreaming OR as the makers will probably explain as 'oh she was micro napping' - BULLSHIT!

In the original Freddy was captured by the police but then set free on a technicality, this gives a whole backstory to what happened before he was killed and your mind fills in the mythology so you can see how these parents became so enraged. Here Freddy was never caught by police as it is explained that as soon as one of the kids reported that Freddy was abusing them to their parents the parents never called the police and just went out and killed him on the say so of the kids. They have done this as they want you to think that maybe Freddy is innocent for a little while and maybe the kids had been mistaken but they dont use it as a story at all as 5 minutes later its revealed that no, Freddy had in fact abused them.

It is not explained why Freddy has the glove in the new movie either. In fact in flashbacks and depictions of when he was alive he does not wear the glove at all and it never mentions that Freddy killed any kids - just molested them and took nude photos of them 'doing stuff'. So he's just a regular paedophile, sure horrible but not Freddy Krueger horrible. In the original he was a child killer and hence why he had the glove. In the new movie its shown at one point that a kid had scratch marks on her back made by Freddy so the worst he did with these kids was fiddle and scratch them with the glove - not actually kill them. He is only killing them now because he wants revenge. Just weak weak weak. All the time the police are non the wiser about Freddy having comitted any crimes as it was never reported.

Nancy is just a generic 29 year old teen like the rest. None of them look young enough to still be living at home yet we are supposed to believe they are still at school! Why don't they cast people who ARE 17 instead of these late twenty-somethings. Or do kids in America really leave school the year before they're 30?

All the scenes are rushed. The bathtub scene. Instead of like the original where as Freddy's glove comes out of the water slowly and were left thinking 'is he going to get her?' and we wait and wait as his arm slowly reaches toward her face instead the same thing happens but as soon as his hand comes out of the water he pulls it back quick as there is a knock at the door. The suspense is all removed. Is it that kids these days don't have the patience to watch a slowly building scene?

Many of the scenes were quick scenes where they basically throw Freddy at the screen and I mean right up close very quickly and then cut away. Sure it makes you jump but not because it's Freddy, more because you don't know what just popped up so fast. You literally get an in your face frame or two then next scene. They threw a few scenes in where Freddy is standing across the room and then SUDDENLY appears right next to the camera moving so fast you don't see him do it.

With nearly all the supporting characters having no history hinted at it makes for a very shallow viewing as your mind isn't given any little tidbits about them apart from oh that's Nancy's mother, oh thats Jesse's father. You know nothing about them and you sit there just waiting for Jackie Earle Haley to come on and pretend to be Freddy to relieve the boredom.

Finally there is cgi... lots of cgi. Parts of Freddy's face are cgi, the famous scene where Freddy comes out of the wall over a sleeping Nancy - yep cgi and overdone. The famous guyser of blood scene, recreated but in cgi, whenever anyone smashes through a window or mirror - cgi again. As if that wasn't enough they also have coloured the film like all Hollywood movies these days. Sometimes they colour blue and orange like in Transformers, here they have used a green and brown palette all the way through. Why can't they give us natural colour?

All this is needed to show you that A Nightmare On Elm Street (remake) might not have been so bad had they been honest and called it something else. Somebody somewhere came up with an idea for a horror film that bore very slight resemblence to Elm Street and they then said 'lets tack on the title and replace the central character with Freddy's likeness, we can say it's a re-imagining'. To me that's exactly what they did. They knew the Nightmare On Elm Street name sells and they made a generic horror movie and painted it with Freddy.