Well, I did an obnoxiously long review of the original Nightmare, so let’s do a short lazy man’s review of it’s remake. This is all code for “I am not watching the 2010 Freddy ever again if I can help it.“

A little more on my less than loving response to Misses Krueger’s baby boy from my perspective first. Freddy Krueger isn’t quite as close to this obnoxious fan boys heart as the Leatherfaces and Michael Myers of the world. None of his feature performances have done a whole lot for me; the punch lines and the wacky deaths start wearing on me pretty quick and before you know it, I’m looking for my DVD copy of Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster. Sidenote: I always find it, and always turn it off within 15 minutes, my screams of disappointment drowned out only by the monstrous wail of Ebirah, the giant lobster.

I respect what the fellas done though. Freddy’s films usually contained top notch special effects work, a wonderfully fun semi-campy Robert Englund performance and a lot of potential that makes the mind race, but never quite reaches it’s apex.

Ya see, the film has probably the most abhorrent villain possible. A child molester/murderer and yet, his comedy act dominates the final 5 films. The underrated 6th film, New Nightmare got back to the monstrous basics of the original, but I was already out. Freddy was just never going to be a favorite of mine.

As a result of this, I was much less outraged by the prospect of a remake of the original Nightmare. I was excited actually, the potential of the special effects alone was enough to get my vibrant movie boner ready for penetration. Throw in Jackie Earl Hayley as Freddy and I was ready to enjoy the graphic ugly love making that was sure to follow. How’d it go? Let’s go the short and lazy route.

– I enjoy how they mixed up some of the iconic scenes of the original and in one case, pretty much did it in reverse. Remakes can work if you take the original ideas and jumble them up a bit, and add your own new material. This one does that pretty well on the whole.

– God in Heaven, they don’t do a whole Heckuva lot of CGI, but the stuff they do stick in there just looks terrible. Witness a download of Freddy doing the old pushing through the wall gag and then gouge out your mother’s eyes. Blame her. Blame someone. It’s not your fault is all.

– Why the fuck does Freddy turn around in SUPER DUPER SHIT YOUR KHAKIS FAST MOTION repeatedly during the film? This has never startled me and no matter how much you rattle my surround sound, it never will. Fuck you.

– The “teenage” cast is bad, and that’s fine. Nancy though! The girl does a good job. Pleasantly surprised. This may be just because she looks like a heroin addict and that’s all it takes to get me to fall in love with you.

– Jackie Earl Hayley barely even references Englund’s performance and that’s a good thing. Freddy has a few small gags (including a terrible “Let’s hang out” pun that almost put me into my grave) but Hayley’s mostly going all menace and it works in spades. With a better script, this could’ve been an all time great heavy performance. As it stands, it’s pretty damn good. Nothing but compliments for Jack. He does need to stop playing pedophiles/people who kills pedophiles though.

– Jackie is great, and as a result I would’ve liked to have seen the cat a little more. Freddy just doesn’t have a lot to do in this thing it seems.

– The backstory stuff usually sucks eggs in these remakes, but it works pretty well here. The hue that hangs over the film in the rest of the film is lifted and light floods in for a beautiful visual combined with a very creepy non-make up performance by Hayley. Really great, interesting stuff.

– Oh yeah, the script. Holy Honky Tonk Man, does this baby need some work. Despite being 95 minutes long, the film seems like it needs another 2 hours to get anywhere and that’s a bad thing. Just really uneven, not a particularly good pace and a lot of “Ah fuck it, lets get out of this scene.” moments. Ugh.

– My favorite moment is probably Nancy getting Johnny Depp’s death from the first one, except completely turned on it’s head. Beautiful stuff, as is the snow covered inside of the house they briefly utilize. Would’ve liked some more of that.

All in all, the thing is okay, but an okay I would probably watch again for the performances of Hayley, Nancy and some of the nice looking effects. Like all Freddy films though, it left me wanting more of what my mind was coming up with in regards to the potential and less of what the film was actually offering