We all need to learn that nothing is truly sacred in Hollywood, so we might as well just embrace these remakes and hope that, every now and then, one of them will turn out ok and be able to hold itself up to the original on its own terms. A Nightmare on Elm Street comes incredibly close to standing out from the original film, but for every leap forward, it takes a few steps backwards until it's straddling the line between the two and not really committing fully to anything original.
The story is, more or less, the same with a group of teenagers experiencing horrific nightmares involving a burnt man with a glove of knives who is slicing and dicing them. In both films, it's revealed that this man was someone their parents murdered in a fit of vigilante justice after he'd been let free for molesting their children. The new film adds a twist questioning if Freddy was actually guilty or innocent.
The new Nightmare has a much bigger budget than the original film, so it's odd that the effects work isn't nearly as impressive as the original film. A bit of Freddy's makeup seems computer generated and a few of the other effects resemble a cheap 90's video game. The cast is fairly strong with Katie Cassidy, Kyle Gallner, and Thomas Dekker standing out as three of the terrified teens. Rooney Mara is the weak link among the them as Nancy. She's made the choice to play the character as moody and depressive, which makes her hard to root for and dull to watch.
As Freddy, Jackie Earle Haley can only do so much to step out from the shadow of Robert Englund, but he does a good job and brings a different, more pervy energy to the character which adds a little threat that his silly makeup job keeps threatening to take away.
