In Defense Of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)'

 

I know this is a fan-poster. I just think all of the official ones are crap.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) currently holds a 15% on RottenTomatoes. 25 out of 145 critics gave it a positive review, mainly stating they only gave it a positive review for Jackie as Freddy alone. But is there more to like than just the performance of our lead? Are people really hating this movie because it's a remake and tries to do it's own thing? Well, we just have to find out.

 

The main reason people seem to hate this movie is Freddy. Not Jackie's performance, but his character story. They hate the molestation sub-plot and they say it doesn't fit for a slasher movie about a burned man with knives for fingers. Now, everyone knows Freddy was originally going to be a child molester but Wes Craven went against the idea because that was in the news when he was making the original film. So what better way to bring back Wes's idea and put it in a modernized remake for a new audience? Well, there's good and bad ideas about that statement. The average horror audience today are teenagers and college kids who cram the aisles to see the latest Paranormal Activity film or some found footage flick. Saw was also a hit with them but the general audience doesn't use their brain when watching movies like that - they just go for the gore and leave the theater. So how do I think the average teenage audience felt after watching A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)? They loved the scares, gore, and the guys from Twilight, not even thinking about how great the molestation and abuse plot was. Which is fine since I'm glad some people like this movie. A Nightmare on Elm Street was also seen by lot of fans who grew up with the original franchise, hoping the new Freddy would bring some sort of nostalgia back to them. And how do you think the average Freddy fan dressed in red and green felt? Disturbed. Absolutely. Disturbed. The trailers, TV Spots, stills, etc. made the new Freddy look more meaner and sadistic but when everyone thinks of Freddy they think of Robert making some pun in one of the later sequels. This Freddy here is a mean, horrifying, and cold killing machine who touches children and brings horrible memories back to them when they grow older, messing with their psychological state and crushing their soul when they see evidence photos of them being abused. I feel bad for the Freddy fans who felt disappointed and disturbed when they saw this new portrayal of  Freddy that was not so funny, but only because they bash the film just because their favorite horror icon had a different personality and motive to him. That's not really fair.

 

The other reason people hate this movie is because of Rooney Mara, the girl who plays Nancy. I don't have any respect for her since she publicly said she had no intention of trying to give a good performance since she hated the experience of working on the film. That screams unprofessional, but do I hate her performance?  Not at all. The Nancy in this Nightmare universe is an introvert who focuses more on art than hanging out with people. The art she draws is a very special element she brings to this character. In a flashback sequence, Nancy is shown painting and drawing pictures next to Freddy. Freddy says "I have really bad drawings so maybe you can help me with my bad drawings?" The main thing Freddy and Nancy bonded with is art, which Nancy still carries to her teen years but draws and paints more disturbing and weird pictures. Even if she doesn't remember who Freddy was early in the film, her being abused and molested carried on with her art so she expressed her depressed, disgusted, and shy feelings onto canvases. 

 

Nancy's "lifeless"  performance in this film works for her character. She was hurt, abused, lied to, and isolated. Even if Rooney didn't give a shit about the film, her portrayal of a girl who was born an outsider and turned into a depressed loner works for her character in every way. People complain about Rooney being "boring" and "stale" and "monotonous". If you were in Nancy's shoes as a molested and abused girl, I wouldn't act like a girl-next-door Heather Langenkamp either.

 

One thing I can appreciate about this film is it's use of dreams and micro naps, or the correct word "micro-sleep". This film lacks any creativity the original franchise had in the use of atmosphere and dreams since the dream world was mainly in a boiler room, in a pre-school, or a bedroom full of snow. However, the use of micro-naps was very cool in this film. It didn't overdo it and the first scene of micro-naps happened 50 minutes into the film, not making dreaming the whole point of the movie. The idea of dying when you are awake or falling asleep is very terrifying. When you are asleep, Freddy will get you. When you aren't asleep, you have a micro-nap and Freddy still has the chance to get you. 

 

 Finally, this is not something I'm defending, but something that makes this movie one of the scariest IF not the scariest entry in the franchise. Near the end of the movie one of the characters, Quentin, gets attacked and slashed by Freddy in a dream. After he cuts him, he chases Nancy and suggestively taunts her before Quentin wakes Nancy up and then Freddy gets killed in the real world. I don't believe anything after the two words "taunts her" in the sentence I just wrote. Why? Because when Nancy goes back into the real world you can see Quentin without the wounds he got in his scene with Freddy. He only gets those wounds when Freddy beats him up and stabs him which happens again in the real world. A character in the beginning of the movie got slashed in a dream and when he woke up he saw the slash mark on his hand, so why didn't the wounds appear on Quentin? It's because Quentin died in that dream. Not only is this a fan theory (which I stole from IMDB boards) but it makes logical sense. Quentin appears in the real world fight with Freddy and he has different wounds that he did not receive in his nightmare. In Quentin's Nightmare, we can assume after he got slashed he failed to wake Nancy up and died from blood loss so Nancy went into the coma that happens from micro-naps (which Quentin said earlier in a scene with Nancy) and will never be woken up. That means she will be raped, slashed, and brutalized with Freddy for god knows how long and if you don't think that's horrifying, then I don't know what to say.

In conclusion, the hate for A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) is pretty damn unfair. There are things that weaken the film like the dozens of jump-scares (which the studios or someone behind the movie wanted to add because all horror films use them nowadays), the homages to the original franchise (the homages weaken this movie from feeling like a different movie from the original 100%), and some of the bad dialogue and lack of creativity in the dream sequences. However, I will defend this movie for as long as I can since I can appreciate the work that was put into it and other things I enjoyed. A lot of cool dream stuff was cut out like Freddy morphing into people, different openings, a different ending (which is on YouTube and it's excellent), etc. I hope some of that footage will be released some day but I doubt it because everyone that worked on this film seems to hate it. Oh well.

And for anyone who wants to see the alternate ending, here it is. I think it's great and Rooney did amazing in the ending, giving a Langenkamp performance but doing it in her own way. I also loved that Freddy showed his true face, making him much more terrifying.

 

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street - My Rating: 8.5/10 (85%)

SCREAM 4 REVIEW

Scream 4 (2011): By Wes Craven.

"Ten years have passed, and Sidney Prescott, who has put herself back together thanks in part to her writing, is visited by the Ghostface Killer."

Fans adored Scream 4 when it released, and I did too. The fans who eat up the franchise were becoming desensitized to remakes by Platinum Dunes, "torture porn" like Hostel and Saw, the rebirth of the found footage genre, and foreign countries trying to shock America with buckets of blood and gore. Wes Craven wanted to bring back his trilogy to old and new fans alike and try to poke fun at the modern state of horror films and the remake craze. He also wanted to make a statement about modern technology and how a TMZ fame obsessed world would react to such brutal news. Did we get what he promised, or did we get an average popcorn slasher that was butchered limb from limb by a studio? Well, we're here to find out...

Let's talk about the main thing that brings down this movie - the humor and cheese factor. To this day, fans of the Scream series rank Scream 3 as the worst movie of the franchise because of it's Scooby-Doo humor. Now, we can all agree Scream 3's humor was sometimes OTT and silly, but if Scream 3 was Scooby-Doo then Scream 4 is a Looney Toons special. This film did not take itself seriously at all. Not once did it feel like I was watching a horror movie. Scream 1 and 2 didn't take themselves 100% seriously but they weren't filled with stupid humor and gags throughout. Are characters stupid enough to walk out of a car after a killer jumped on your hood and flicked his knife at you? Are we really supposed to believe a person's last line is "Fuck Bruce Willis?" No. And that's what pisses me off about this entry. We have idiot characters, bad one-liners, and stupid moments like defibrillators not having a "Safety Measures" button. Um, you DO know they have safety measures so no one accidentally gets their brain fried. The amount of cheese (not good cheese, stupid atrocious cheese) in this film would have to be cut with a chainsaw.

Character development is another thing that brings this movie down. Even with the deleted scenes, the characters don't really shine. David Arquette seemed like he was having fun doing this movie but with three minutes of deleted scenes of his character when he's NOT acting like a complete moron might have changed his opinion about the final cut of this film. Courtney Cox seemed miserable doing this movie and if we didn't get the barn party scene, she wouldn't have done anything in this movie just like her ex-husband. Neve Campbell as Sidney disappointed me as well. She is the reason why the Scream series is so great. However, her character was very weak here. Scream 4 didn't explain to us what happened to her between the traumatizing events of 3 to 4. Why did she write this book? Did she become a mild alcoholic like Jamie Lee in Halloween H20? Instead, all we get is an action hero portrayal from Neve with a good performance and some decent lines of dialogue. However, are we really supposed to believe she wouldn't be screwed up when she found out someone was going to kill her, her friends, and her family? We get a few tears and her screaming into the phone but nothing major. She watches someone get their brains blown out in the finale and she just stands there crying and not doing anything else. No matter the gap between 3 and 4, she WOULD have been screwed up if she came back to Woodsboro and then hearing the news about another serial killer.  The teens are nothing special either. Emma Roberts as Jill, Sidney's cousin, doesn't shine until the finale when she takes her mask off but I guess that was the point. Hayden Panettiere was pretty good though, even if her character is worshiped by a cult. She is easily the highlight of the new cast, showing that she can carry a film and is tremendous at delivering snappy dialogue and showing emotion, especially during her Drew Barrymore scene near the end. We also get Mary McDonnell as Maureen Prescott's sister who was very underused, two idiot cops, and Nico Tortorella  as Jill's "mysterious" boyfriend who only has three minutes of screen time so you aren't shocked when you find out he isn't the killer. Most of the throwaway characters like the dumb cops, the dumb blondes and brunettes, and Jill's mother are like characters in a Saw film - characters you don't care to see get ripped apart, and pretty ironic since this movie bashes Saw more than once.

 

However,  I'd be lying if I said this was a bad movie because it does get a few things right. The deleted scenes are fantastic and show a lot of emotion and character development that was lacking throughout the movie so they should have been put in the final cut. Emma Robert's performance post-reveal is also amazing, showing how far the average teenager would go to put on a fake smile and murder a few people to get on the tabloids. Scream 4's final act has a lot to say about the media, press, and a fame obsessed culture - but it can't say what it wants because it's in such a rush to get to the next bloody kill or funny line. This film also has some good moments of tension like Hayden Panettiere's call near the end of the movie which I mentioned above. This movie has some good atmosphere when effective scares are involved, but it's not really scary or polarizing. It's just unfunny with blood and guts.

So, final thoughts? Scream 4 isn't a good Scream film at all. It has tons of wasted potential, boring kills, things that should have been added and removed in the final cut, pointless characters, and some dreadful comedy. It is a fun slasher film however since it has a lot of gore, some decent performances, and a great killer. But Scream isn't just a slasher series - it pokes fun at the current trends of horror while showing how the surviving cast of the last movie has grown. Scream 4's final cut didn't feel like a Scream movie, but just a by-the-numbers popcorn flick. There is a great Scream film in here, but the bad score/kills/character development makes it hard to find.

SCREAM 4: As a Scream film? 4/10.

SCREAM 4: As a slasher? 7/10.

SCREAM 4: Overall? 55%, which is pretty sad 'cause I used to love this movie.