2010 ***1/2
I've arrived at the second-to-last movie of my Horrorthon 2010. My Classic Slasher Remake film festival was short (only four movies), but revealed something right as Nightmare started rolling: the Freddy premise is actually quite smart. What does Michael do? He chases you around the house and kills you. What does Jason Voorhees do? He chases you around the woods and kills you. What does Freddy Kreuger do? He chases you around your dreams and kills you. "Good golly!" I realized, "that is a much more intelligent idea than masks and knives." Of course, over the years the Elm Street franchise has squandered most of that intelligence in base stupidity, like Freddy in sunglasses, superhero skateboarding Freddy, or the terrifying exploding parrot.
I'm a bit divided on whether that means this remake was a good idea. I keep trying to champion the idea of remakes. "What about Dawn of the Dead or The Ring?" I keep saying. I avoid hopping on bandwagons about Hollywood being out of ideas, because I think the real problem (and not just in Hollywood) is that the people making the money are terrified every second of not making more money than the previous second. I don't join the battlecry that remakes have deleterious effects on the original films, because the originals are still right there for anyone to see. Having different versions of the same story or character is fine -- cripes, the comic book medium depends on it. There are several acceptably "real" versions of Batman, and taking a long-running franchise and letting it branch out just makes sense.
But...
But I can't deny that most remakes do tend to leave you with an empty feeling inside. And although I'm giving it three and a half stars, A Nightmare on Elm Street was one of those.
The revamped Freddy story does have some things going for it. Jackie Earl Haley plays a great Freddy, less a man than a darting, crooked homunculus, eschewing clever quips in favor of just being plain old mean. "Why are you screaming? I haven't even cut you yet."
Insomnia has always been an important part of these stories and this one uses the mathematics of sleeplessness to enable a quick pace. Our heroes race against time, because apparently after you've been awake a certain amount of time, you start dreaming without going to sleep.
And I'll just go ahead and say it: Heather Langenkamp, the original Nancy, is not a very good actress. I feel bad saying that because I recently read a very whiny article about how she's baffled and sad that she isn't more famous. Sorry Heather! Anyway, her successor is far more interesting (it's Rooney Mara, aka the American Girl with a Dragon Tattoo).
But while parts of the movie filled my metaphorical movie tummy with ice cream, other parts of the movie came in and took stuff out, ensuring that empty feeling I mentioned earlier. I didn't like that Kreuger was changed from child killer to child molestor, as it seemed a blunt, obvious "updating" kind of maneuver. Likewise it bugged me that alive Freddy was shown playing with and hugging the kids at the daycare place -- this was before it was revealed he was molesting them -- because to me he works better as a creepy, isolated janitor.
And I'm always irked by the frequent cinematic assumption that people have no memories from before they were five years old, it's ludicrous. Something bad happen to your kid? No problem! Kids have memories like fish. You don't even need one of those Men In Black brainwiping flash pens.
I was thinking I'd like to see a remake that did precisely enough and no more -- flicks that don't leave you feeling empty somehow, but that aren't showstoppers like Dawn and Ring. You know, just to get some sort of base reading. But the showstoppers probably are the base reading, because you have to do it better or different enough so that your audience doesn't just remember the first time it went down.
Last year's A Nightmare on Elm Street is worth your time, but it will also remind you woefully of dark alleys and long arms.
0 comments:
Post a Comment