The trailer for the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake is up, and it looks commendable.
I appreciate that this movie takes him back to his frightening, nightmarish roots — the ones he exhibited for about four-fifths of the first movie, and which were subsequently buried under the gimmickry and one-liners of the sequels.
I’m a little worried, though, about the implied revisionism, since it seems from the trailer (though it could be negated in the full feature) that this Freddy Krueger is an innocent, murdered without cause by vigilante justice. That’s absolutely the WRONG tack to take with him. Despite all of the pop-culture charisma that Robert Englund exuded in the role through its many installments, the original Freddy Krueger was the worst kind of human monster: He raped and killed little children. To instead make him a wronged outsider whose revenge is therefore justified in some degree is wrong wrong wrong. Yes, standard issue Hollywood revisionism which makes the good guys bad and the bad guys innocent, but still wrong.
But I may be reading too much into it. I’ll have to wait and see.
#1 by Chad on September 29, 2009 - 1:33 pm
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Well, it might be interesting if they used it to make a point about the US’s cultural hysteria over child predators (if they make it so that, say, Krueger was the victim of a very thinly veiled Nancy Grace analogue, I would be floored, and in a good way). But at the same time it doesn’t make sense considering there are images of clawed children in his victims’ dreams – and it really does diminish what Krueger is, as you say. Plus it just always bothers me when films have their supernatural threat springing from the revenge of a completely innocent party and said revenge is directed against other innocent parties.
#2 by rjschwarz on September 29, 2009 - 3:18 pm
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Staccato cuts and clashing sounds are what make up trailers these days but personally I think the style sucks. Having said that the starting bit looked interesting. I guess we’re in the new wave of horror where we get to understand the motivations of our serial killers better (see Halloween, Rob Zombie version) instead of the sick unfathomable killing machines many of us loved in the 80s.
#3 by Anrkist on September 29, 2009 - 6:17 pm
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It’s good to see Jackie Earle back. I may finally see my vision come to fruition with Bad News Bears… IN SPACE!
#4 by Thomas on September 29, 2009 - 9:28 pm
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It might all be some sort of Ring-like twist, where we think he’s innocent at first and then discover that he really is a horrible child-killer. At the same time, they’ve made a lot of movies about him featuring the murderous pedophile angle, so having him as an innocent guy who turns into an unforgivable killing-machine isn’t a terrible idea if they actually want to bring something fresh to the series. That way, even though it’s an old idea in these sorts of films, the parents are clearly wrong for having killed Krueger, while Krueger is clearly an unforgivable monster for exacting his revenge on their innocent children. Everyone gets to be horrible!
#5 by Joshua on September 30, 2009 - 3:16 am
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Maybe in this version Freddy is in fact an evil murdering pedophile, but he doesn’t see it that way? Isn’t that one of the ways it always plays out: “I didn’t mean to hurt him! I loved him!”
#6 by Nathan Shumate on September 30, 2009 - 5:48 am
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Joshua, it’s kind of hard to play the Polansky-style “Man-child love is a beautiful thing, and anyway she was asking for it!” card when you’re then slicing her up with razor blades. I think for Freddy to work, he has to be someone who LIKES TO HURT PEOPLE.
#7 by Ken Shinn on September 30, 2009 - 7:14 am
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Excellent comments.
But, on a far more prosaic level, why the hell bother anyway? The original film is less than 25 years old.
I’ve been irritated by recent remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Amityville Horror, and Hallowe’en to name but three. Is the horror film bank once again so devoid of credit that all they can do is re-sell us EXACTLY the same things?
(Not even a new supernatural/horrific killer…sheesh.)
#8 by Nathan Shumate on September 30, 2009 - 7:35 am
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Oh, I know. I’d be happy with a theatrical re-release of the original Elm Street (maybe an “extended director’s cut,” with “never-before-seen footage” or whatever). I think it would do very well.
#9 by rjschwarz on September 30, 2009 - 7:36 am
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They could make him a dual personality. The “good” Freddy thinks he’s asleep when the “Bad” Freddy does his foul deeds. The Good Freddy thinks its all just bad nightmares hes been having. That way they sort of wedge their way into the dream killing thing a bit.
#10 by Chris S. on September 30, 2009 - 7:48 am
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They lost me at “From Producer Michael Bay”.
#11 by Manny on September 30, 2009 - 9:12 pm
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They did freddy no justice and just makes him look so uber lame its not even funny
#12 by The Rev. D.D. on September 30, 2009 - 9:28 pm
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“Oh, I know. I’d be happy with a theatrical re-release of the original Elm Street (maybe an “extended director’s cut,” with “never-before-seen footage” or whatever).”
That’d be nice, especially since I suspect he’d lop off that damn kicker ending too.