A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) is a remake of the classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and is a slasher film directed by Samuel Bayer, featuring Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger. 

Freddy Krueger has in his later days grown less scary and more comical, but Samuel Bayer and his crew tried to take him back to his dark side again and create a remake that was scarier that the original. This is a slasher film, which is a sub-genre of horror. Typical for the slasher genre is that we follow psychopathic killers killing their victims often with sharp cutting tools, such as scythes and chainsaws. 

The new and more frightening Freddy Krueger.

The movie is about a group of teenagers who are stalked in their dreams by a man who knows all of them. They all have pretty intense dreams, and weird things are happening. One of them gets cut in the dream by the man calling himself Freddy, and when he wakes up he is bleeding from where he was cut in the dream. They realize that they are haunted in their dreams by a psychopath killer, and that if they die in there, they will die for real. Then it’s just a matter of either staying awake forever or trying to solve this mystery.

This is the place where he play his games with the teens.

One thing that has annoyed me for the last year is that most of the horror films I’ve seen haven’t been very frightening. Some of them are not frightening at all, while others are pretty lame all the way through. This movie might seem like the last mentioned, but A Nightmare on Elm Street is actually not lame at all – a little bit improbable, yes, but a fucking great movie. I was frightened as hell by the deadly combination of Freddy Krueger, good sound and a wide, wide screen.

The creators of this movie have added a few new things to the movie, for us to detest Freddy more than we did before. I do not want to spoil anything, but his past is puts him in a totally different perspective. As already mentioned, this is a part of the whole making-Freddy-scarier-process. Giving him a motive as well.

What makes this one different from many of the other horror movies is how this movie manages to stay interesting and thrilling all the way through. Adding the new past was a smart move by the creators, as we through the entire movie wondered about what the connection was between Freddy and these teens. It was kind of obvious after a while, but I still watched with caution to get my suspicions confirmed.

Quentin isn't happy about the situation he's in.

 A Nightmare on Elm Street is a great remake of a horror classic, with a bunch of frightening scenes and an enjoyable story. It’s quite satisfying to actually get frightened again, and Jackie Earle Haley impresses as the interesting character Freddy Krueger. The more unknown actors playing the teenagers are also playing well, and together they make this movie one worth watching. In Norway the movie has age limit 18+(well, no one cares about them, though), but immature kids; beware – if you believe in what you see, you might develop insomnia after seeing this one! So I recommend this for the experienced horror movie watchers and enthusiasts only, and not to easily frightened mothers. And it’s not recommended to show it to your girlfriend unless she’s a tough one! (Not based on personal experience!)  

- LB