A (new) Nightmare on Elm Street (some spoily stuff going on)

Guess what I just saw? I saw a 10:30 a.m showing of NoES at Southdale. The theatre was thankfully almost empty with nary a talking asshole amongst the 10 of us seeing the movie. That didn't make the movie any more enjoyable unfortunately.

Need I recap the original series for you? Okay, if I must. Freddy Krueger is a burned-up pedophile who kills teenagers in their dreams as revenge for their parents going vigilante on his ass. To this film's credit, that story was actually told more succintly here. It was always confusing in the original series who the children of Elm Street were. Here, the kids being attacked are the actual victims of Kruegers, not descendants or siblings or whatever.

That is one of the very few compliments I can give this movie. Mostly it was just really boring. It wasn't fucking awful like the Friday the 13th remake, but it wasn't as good as the TCM remake. It's well-shot and kinda creepy, but it just seemed to amble along with eerie music playing, but nothing happening. And it seemed a little disjointed, like two different movies slapped into one.

The first movie....uh, 45 minutes is sort of a retelling of the Rob & Tina story from the first movie, except with an added boyfriend, parental duplicity & boredom. One kid "kills" himself & his girlfriend has a vision of herself as a kid at his funeral. She suspects she knew him before she actually KNEW him. She tells her stalky ex, but he vehemently doesn't believe her although a totally eavesdropping Nancy does. Later, Tina (or was her name Chris....I cared so little I really don't remember) goes all Nancy Drew, finds some stuff, tells her friends who gawk disbelievingly, then she has a nightmare...and well, that's not good for her. Creepy ex gets arrested for her murder, but not before visiting Nancy and sharing info about the burned dude in their dreams. Then he has a nightmare in jail and his cellmate is gonna have some 'splainin' to do.

Now, we're in movie 2 where Nancy and Quentin (formerly Glenn aka Johnny Depp) are trying to figure out what's going on. They do some research and we get Freddy's back story & I gotta say it is creepy. He's a gardener at a preschool the kids all attended and they just love him (probably because he's about the same size as them). Then rumors get started that he's being TOO friendly with the kids and before you can say McMartin he's getting chased down and then burned up real good.

But was he really guilty or was it a bunch of parents coaxing stories out their kids? Nancy and Quentin don't remember (due, in part, to a parental conspiracy of ridonkulous proportions. Sample dialogue: "Who remembers being 5?" Uh, ME!) and go about figuring out the truth.

I'll stop there. That part I thought was handled really well. The rest of the movie though was kinda lame. And I was not thrilled with our new Freddy at all. He was creepy in a way Freddy hasn't been (for me) since Dream Warriors, but he wasn't scary at all. The make-up really looked like shit & Jackie Earle Haley's diminutive size made him less than threatening (and yet, it added to the creep-factor in the pre-burn scenes, I thought).

Most of the acting was serviceable at best. I liked Tina & Rob for the most part, but Nancy was dreadful. Watching this actress is like watching paint dry. Also, she talks through her teeth (as did JEH as Freddy which I took to be a side effect of the burn. Not familiar enough with his work to know if he always sounds like he's wearing ill-fitting choppers) & just didn't seem to have any energy. The normally good Kyle Gallner also seemed lethargic in this. Maybe that was on purpose since they were supposed to be sleep-deprived. Mostly, it just came off as bored acting. The adults are practically a throwaway here Don't cast Clancy Brown and them give him like 3 scenes. You could have given that part to any yahoo off the street.

Ultimately, this movie just wasn't very entertaining. I can't recommend this one for theatre viewing. It just wasn't worth it.