The NIGHTMARES on ELM STREET and in HADDONFIELD remade!
September 30th 2009 00:08
Freddy Krueger is played by Jackie Earle Hayley, who looks more like a child-murderer than Robert Englund, and actually played a pedophile in the drama Little Children. However his voice doesn’t possess the same nightmarish tone (but that’s after years of Englund’s voice echoing along the cult fabric of our cine dreams). Relative unknown Rooney Mara plays the role of Nancy.
From the slick-looking teaser trailer there are numerous shots lifted straight from Wes Craven’s original, an 80s cult classic, and seminal in the horror cinema dreamscape. Why bother? This kind of blatant laziness really pisses me off. The vaguely interesting element, however, is what looks like more narrative based around Krueger’s atrocities which lead to his demise at the hands of grief and rage-stricken parents. This back-story was provided in pieces through the duration of the A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) movies. I don’t have a problem with this important part of Krueger’s character history as it was injected early on in the series, whereas I have a big problem with Rob Zombie providing massive back story to Michael Myers in his Halloween re-boots, when none existed in the original movies. It smacks of creative licence bullshit. But I’m a purist.
... and his name is Rob Zombie
Essentially Freddy Krueger was a psychopathic killer who was transformed into a relentless demon by the intense rage of his victims’ parents. As far as I’m concerned Michael Myers was the seemingly supernatural embodiment of the boogeyman, but he was killed at the end of the Halloween II (1981).
The biggest and most crucial problem with both these remakes is that neither of the villains is actually that scary anymore. Countless sequels have reduced these once seminal horror icons into parodies. I’m a little longer in the tooth, so perhaps any Gen-Y and younger who haven’t seen the originals (as rare as that may be) may find the movies genuinely frightening, but somehow I doubt it. The original Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and Jason Voorhees characters are firmly etched into the modern horror consciousness. No remake will ever re-invent them as vividly as they were when they first started slashing victims to pieces back in the late 70s and into the 80s.
Here’s the teaser trailer for A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010):
Here’s the trailer to Rob Zombie’s dreadful looking Halloween II (2009), which was released in America last month (not sure of a release date for Australia, but probably straight-to-DVD):
And here’s a link to the H2 trailer that shows Sheri Moon Zombie as Deborah Myers (oh, he’s got another sister??), which makes the movie appear even worse than the crap I’m sure it is!
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Totally unimpressed with both these titles, even though I am a big fan of Jackie Earle Hayley.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Sue Gabel
Rock n Flicks
CineFiend
Comment by Sue Gabel
Rock n Flicks
CineFiend
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
I'm pre-empting H2, as I haven't seen it, but I'll reserve further judgment until I do ... (but I'm not holding out hope). I appreciate there are Rob Zombie fans out there, but I think he's a hack and hamfisted as a director with no real style. His first feature House of 1000 Corpses while derivative had the most novel moments, and a modicum of style, but The Devil's Rejects is an over-rated piece of crap as far as I'm concerned, I don't care what anyone says.
The point I'm making about Freddy Krueger is that no matter who plays him in the wake of all the ludicrous sequels (and stupid re-envisionings a la Wes Craven's New Nightmare drivel) he simply won't be as genuinely frightening as he was in the original movie. He swiftly became a parody of himself. I'm open to seeing what Michael Bay's production will do with the re-boot, but frankly I'm not counting my headless chickens until they're hatched ...