A Nightmare On Elm Street (Remake)

A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

Freddy Kreuger has been given a facelift of sorts in this remake by director Samuel Bayer, who is known for his music video direction (and also as the director of Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit”). Here he brings a somewhat grungy look to the film but, unfortunately, it wasn't enough to save this film, which played out predictably and felt on par with a film school or high school student's attempt to make a convincing horror film. Missing was any real sense of dread, fear, unnerving, or suspense, all of that being replaced by an appreciation for Jackie Earle Haley's interpretation of Kreuger, and a sense of annoyance that I was instead noting the plot-based flaws of the film rather than truly getting involved with it. While I am a moderate fan of the original series (I remember watching the sequels mostly, not so much the original film), I did not mind some of the differences with some of the sequences (although I did miss Johnny Depp exploding out of a television screen), and I think this iteration of Kreuger is much more skeevy and unnerving, while at the same not having a clearly defined motivation (more on that later). Much of the atmosphere is created with tired cliches (including the musical cues, rainy exteriors, etc.), supported by a horrible script (although Freddy does get the best lines).

The film starts solidly enough with a teaser involving Crissy (Katie Cassidy) and her boyfriend, Dean (Kellan Lutz), as they meet up during the middle of some rainy night at a diner. Dean admits he hasn't slept in 3 days, and the reason is that he keeps having a dream involving a man in a hat (guess who it is?). Crissy for some reason finds what he's saying to be ludicrous, and she disappears for a few moments. Dean winds up falling asleep and immediately dreaming about Freddy, and the two fight briefly before Freddy overpowers him and slices his neck open with a table knife (the kind that doesn't really cut too well. Why Freddy would use a table knife while his entire right hand is a knife is not explained.) From her perspective, Crissy only sees Dean struggling with himself before jamming the knife into his neck.

The teaser worked well. Every single character in the movie is introduced (literally all the main characters witness the event. One of the faults of this film is the fact that the only characters that seem to exist are the victims. They don't have any friends outside of each other, and we aren't introduced to anyone other than them; this last part would be helpful in shaping out the inevitable sequel by having characters that were introduced in previous installments, but, alas...), the mood is set, and the throat-slitting is graphic and shocking enough (but not too much). The next scene, though, is where the film started to fall hopelessly apart.

Dean is buried in a graveyard. Naturally. At the wake are the main characters to whom we'd just been introduced, and their parents (who are all single. I have a theory for this...). And then Crissy sees a little girl with red slashes across her chest. No one else seems to notice the little girl except her. Crissy gets up to investigate, and out of the ground Freddy's clawed hand shoots out and grabs her ankle; Crissy then wakes up screaming to the confused faces of the other attendees. Crissy fell asleep at her boyfriend's funeral. She had watched her boyfriend get horrendously murdered in a fashion that could only be described as suicide. And she fell asleep at his funeral. Who the fuck does that? I can only imagine that the people staring at her in the scene were wondering the same thing, what this heartless bitch is doing at this funeral. This scene immediately took me out of the movie and for the remainder of the runtime I was more interested in the cinematic techniques employed throughout and the plot holes than about anything that was actually occurring onscreen.

And these cinematic techniques are of the type employed by first-year film students and directors being ironic, rather than the director of the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, as well as music videos for Garbage, Green Day, and the Cranberries (among others). This was an unbelievably bland, lifeless horror film that telegraphed every scare it attempted to make, and perhaps the leap from 4-5 minute-long video director to narrative feature film was one that Mr. Bayer was unable to make. Nothing in the film seemed genuine, everything was contrived, and the updated nods to the original (Freddy's hand coming out of the bathtub; Crissy's mid-air death; Freddy coming out of the wall) were pointlessly added for no purpose other than to show how much more effective they were in the original film, which utilized limited resources and budget.

I would normally not want to compare a remake with the original film upon which it was based, but instead try to judge the film on its own merits; but here, the comparisons need to be made. The original 1984 film sported a gritty, washed-out look with highly contrasting use of light and shadows. Moreso, the dream sequences themselves were decidedly surreal, possessing an almost Jungian sense of dread. Coupling that with a concept that is still among the most unique in the horror genre (a killer that manifests himself in the dreams of his victims), and you've got yourself one of the most memorable of horror films (and a classic, wholly original horror villain). What this remake failed to take into account was the fact that the limitations of the original filmmakers meant pushing themselves to create something truly terrifying, and one way to do that was to focus on the undercurrent of the story. The 1984 original, at its core, was about parents who went too far in protecting their children, and in doing so guaranteed the very danger they were hoping to avoid, a danger which manifested itself during the one time of the day where a person should feel absolutely safe. This film is saying nothing that subtle.

Jackie Earle Haley does give a lot of effort in his portrayal of Freddy, adding subtle touches to distinguish himself from Robert Englund: Haley's is a much more sadistic Freddy, lacking the overt wit and (surprising to say) charm that Englund exuded. While it is hinted at that Haley's Freddy is enjoying what he's doing (referring to his slaughtering of his victims as “playing”) it is never really shown. This Freddy does not outwardly enjoy the fact that he can manifest himself in the dreamscapes of his victims. Haley's habit of rubbing two of his bladed fingers together, as if he can't wait to get down to the slicing and dicing, is a great touch, but then the damage he inflicts is comparatively minimal (given the budget this film has, you'd think something would top the Freddy tendon-marionette-kill from Elm Street 4...or 3...I don't remember which sequel it was). Another lingering question: what the fuck does Freddy want? Does he want to just kill the kids? At first, that's what I thought, and figured that he could just get it over with in a few nights. But then, later on in the film, he tells Nancy that the reason he's “alive” is because their memories keep him alive...but they didn't even remember him until he started showing up in their dreams, and he started showing up in their dreams to torment them, but to also lead them to the cellar of the preschool where he worked and molested them so that they could...remember? Right? So...if his goal is to make them remember him, thus keeping him “alive” somehow, then why would he want to kill them? And if he wants to just up and kill them, then why waste time with all that “he wants us to go back so we can remember” bullshit? C'mon, Frddy! You live in dreams and have a bladed hand! Be interesting, for God's sake! What's your motivation! Someone! Someone in this movie, make sense! How could your friend have been said to have "died in their sleep" when they are eviscerated? And what the fuck is up with just cutting Freddy's neck and assuming that'll do the trick, Nancy? You just pulled the dude out of your sub-fucking-conscious and dragged him into the real world...you take that board cutter and you hack Freddy for, like, 8 hours until he's a bunch of tiny pieces, and then you take those pieces and burn them, and then you take the ashes, put them in 20 cardboard boxes, and sink those in 20 different lakes! That's what you do! Not, "Oh, paper cut. That'll do it. Yeah, he's dead. Let's go fuck." FUCK YOU, MOVIE!

In fact, Haley's is the only performance worth noting...or the only thing worth noting to make this Goddamned movie bearable. Mara Rooney as heroine Nancy Holbrook was (as with Kyle Gallner's Quentin Smith) unbelievably bland and boring, lacking any of the transformative arc present in the original: here, both Nancy and Quentin are first presented as fucked-up and depressed, made-up and dressed up as if they walked off a Death Cab For Cutie video. The psychological aspect of Freddy ---he drives normal, clean-cut kids into sleep-deprived maniacs--- is completely lacking, as the characters start off at that point to begin with. There's no nuance, no substance, nothing truly deeper going on rather than “There's a killer who kills people in their dreams. That's cool...right? Guys?”

For a film that boasts a budget that easily could've financed the original film several times over, this film is a cheap, empty cash grab that defuses the inherent psychological horror of Freddy Kreuger. This film is a forgettable and derivative as the washed-out color scheme of the not-very-original-looking dream-scapes. And the worst part? The final scene promises a sequel. Rent it only, and even then, just to compare to the original. And trust me...you'll sleep as soundly as I did in the theater.

I hate this movie.

Watchmen

Watchmen

Zack Snyder almost did what directors and producers such as Joel Silver, Terry Gilliam, and Paul Greengrass (amongst others) stalled: he almost made a Watchmen movie. Almost. He came close. The characters are all there (or at least 90% there), the plot is the same (except for a change in the the villain's MO, one which I actually didn't mind), and some of the themes are mentioned.
But Snyder is not one for subtlety. At all. And that is this film's largest problem: it's a film with so many ideas and themes and characters commanded by a director whose previous films are a decent zombie film remake and a bombastic, nihilistic adaptation of a graphic novel by an author who has lost sense of subtlety. To give him reign over a complex story such as Watchmen wasn't the worst crime in the world, but it wasn't the smartest move either. It's like a man with developing cataracts was asked to drive a schoolbus of open cans of paint. Sure, he'll get them to where they need to go, but in the process he'll take some detours, wrong turns, and dead ends and every individual color and shade will get mixed into a warped blur. But it's a pretty blur...or something (wow, what a bizarre metaphor I'd concocted right there).
But while I didn't hate the film, there are reservations I have (the old-age make-up, the Nixon make-up, Malin Ackerman's stiff performance, a complete lack of nuance and subtlety from some of the actors and themes), and there are some things Snyder did that added to the story.
First off, the ending HAD to change. There was no way the batshit-insane-climax from the graphic novel would translate well on screen, and the way Snyder worked aroudn that worked...although the aftermath of the villain's destruction is merely hinted at: an act of destruction in each of the world's major cities that kills millions, and what we witness are a wide shot, and a few moments of Dr. Manhattan and Laurie walking around a crater where 42nd Street should be. The scope of destruction, and the toll it takes on both the villain and the heroes, are muted significantly from the graphic novel, and, as a movie, become a spectacle without depth. The audience doesn't understand the scope of the villain's plot because the aftermath isn't shown the way it should have been. (Not only that...but the villain himself is barely featured in the film AT ALL).
Then again, the lack of violence in that scene is more than made up for within the rest of the film, but not always the way it should have been done (in my opinion). For a film attempting to deal with mature themes and situations (rape, separated parents, abusive childhood, failing to live up to your parent's ideals, etc. etc.), I thought the violence was goofy. The opening fight scene, set to Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" was well staged, and the slow-motion shot of the Comedian falling out of the window worked...but later in the iflm the violence becomes too stylized, too slick, and too blatantly bloody. Snyder is no doubt an adept action director...but Watchmen is not at all an action movie. While the graphic novel certainly had moments that could translate well on screen (Dr. Manhattan's self-imposed exile to Mars; the prison breakout; Laurie and Dan's attempted mugging), in Snyder's hands those scenes (aside from the Mars sequence, which was pitch-perfect) become spectacle, yet another superhero scene, and the violence (along with the CGI-added blood) become at once both more intense and wholly unbelievable. Had Snyder shot the action without the aid of slow-mo effects (which he used less extensively than in 300, yet still often enough to to notice and thus take me out of the movie).
And although I'm trying to differentiate between the graphic novel and the film and to view the film on its own terms, the film owes so much to the source material as to make it impossible to separate. In fact, if the graphic novel hadn't existed, a film like this might not have been considered at all: a big budget, two-and-a-half-hour superhero film with little action, psychotic characters, a convoluted plot set in an alternate 1985 and featuring no-name actors (face it: Carla Gugino, Billy Crudup and former child-star Jackie Earle Haley are the biggest names this film has)? No one would consider a film like that without it being based on a previous medium.
Snyder does pull a lot of things together nicely, however. The aforementioned opening credits were perfect, and summed up nearly five-decades' worth of backstory without slowing down the film and was itself shot beautifully; the Mars sequence (my favorite in the graphic novel and in the film) was perfect; and Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup were absolutely perfect as Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach respectively (it was the Mickey Rourke-as-Marv-in-Sin City sort of perfection).
When Snyder put aside the theatrics and actually allowed emotion (REAL emotion) to enter into the scene, the film clicks. He understood the distance Manhattan felt towards the rest of mankind, a being so beyond any of us that his detatchment is evident in his voice and every nuance of mannerism. He understood the alienation of Rorschach, coming form a broken "home" and forced to work the streets...but still just barely missed explaining why exactly he became a vigilante. The subtlties of Dan's impotence were hinted at...but never explanded upon. Half the time I felt as if Snyder had done it, he'd adapted the unadapatable. But the other half...it felt like he as winging it ("You guys want Big Figure? Here's a midget overacting." "You guys want the rape scene to be intense? Here's the whole thing with exaggerrated sound effects and oddly overacting on Jefferey Dean Morgan's part." "You guys want a prison riot? Here it is in SUPER SLOW MOTION".)
At the end of the day I felt like what small moments of greatness and many moments of decentness combined with the terrible decisions, the ill-advised decisions, and the miscasting to provide a barely decent adaptation of the most dense graphic novel (and arguably the greatest) ever written. Alan Moore was right: Watchmen can't be adapted successfully as a film. This is as close as we've gotten. This isn't so much a review of the film as it is a comparison between the film and the movie, and I think that's fine since the film is too devoted to the source material to truly transcend it and become its own thing.

I was really hoping he'd nailed it too.

Oh, and when I saw the movie there was an 8-year-old (or thereabouts) in the audience, and my favorite moment came when Rorschach hacks a rapist to death, and the kid screams, "I saw the blood hit his mask!"

And you know what's immature? People giggling like little children every time they saw Dr. Manhattan's giant blue space dick. (In fact, his nudity is one of the prime reasons why the film is a commercial failure. Go figure. Welcome to 2009)