TRAILER PARK: A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

Freddy Krueger is the boogieman of my youth. He's one of the few horror characters that totally captured my imagination as a kid growing up in the late-'80s/early-'90s. Even without seeing any of the original Nightmare On Elm Street series at the time, he absolutely freaked me out simply as a concept and visual. Friends regaled me with accounts of Freddy's movie misdemeanours that truly chilled my blood, while I remember being spooked whenever I saw Robert Englund's melted face on a poster in the window of my local video shop advertising Dream Child. I finally saw Wes Craven's original Nightmare On Elm Street as a 14-year-old... and couldn't help but giggle at the often poor special-effects, particularly the "bendy arms" in the alleyway scene and the infamously atrocious "mannequin-through-a-letterbox" final sting.

However, despite that disappointment (which in a many ways was a relief), Freddy's effect on me has been so great that, to this day, I still haven't seen Nightmare On Elm Street 4, 5 or 6. I was even a little anxious when I sat down to watch Freddy Vs Jason, if I'm honest! Hmm, I've just realized how this sounds very wussy of me, but you really don't appreciate how frightened I was of Freddy Krueger as an 8-year-old. I have a vivid memory of catching a trailer for, I think, Nightmare On Elm Street 3 late one night while in my bedroom... and being unable to sleep. There was a time when someone loaned me the novelization of Dream Warriors and I daren't even read it, only occasionally plucking up the courage to sneak a peek at the centre pages of photos, before snapping the cover shut.

Now, inevitably after 16 years, it's remake time. Wes Craven, like John Carpenter, is alive to see his early work being reimagined by a music video director making his feature film debut, naturally. Of course, there are some things that work in this new Nightmare's favour: (1) Jackie Earle Haley is a fantastic replacement for Robert Englund, no doubt; (2) on paper, I like the casting of Katie Cassidy and Thomas Dekker as a few of the "teenagers" and the presence of Clancy Brown; (3) modern filming techniques can do a far better job with the necessary dream-like visuals; and (4) I totally agree with the intention to restore Freddy as a pure monster and (mostly) lose his funny one-liners.

The second theatrical trailer was released last week (embedded above), and my response to it was mainly positive. The opening diner dream sequence is very well-executed (love the jump scare), Haley's voice is absolutely skincrawling ("why are you screaming... I haven't even cut you yet"), there are the inevitable callbacks/references to the original film, and it has a general pulsing vibe I liked. The test screenings have apparently met with mixed reactions, mostly because the film's not as hardcore as you'd expect from the franchise that became an '80s benchmark of nasty mainstream horror, but I'm keen to read a professional critique of the movie.

I may even get around to watching this remake, when I get over my Freddy phobia...

Released: 30 April 2010 (US), 7 May 2010 (UK)