A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (Blu-ray)

Release Date: October 25th, 2010
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Director: Samuel Bayer

Cast: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Clancy Brown, Connie Britton, Katie Cassidy, Kellan Lutz, Thomas Dekker

Rather than to retread the same ground as many remakes seem to do, what Platinum Dune’s re-imagining of Wes Craven’s horror classic comes up with is a killer that’s much scarier, angrier and darker than ever before.

When the youth of Springwood begin having bad dreams, it turns out they’re not just dreams. A long time ago, too far back for any of them to remember, there was a man, Fred Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley), who worked at their preschool. He played with them, drew pictures with them and made them laugh, but when they began to tell their parents that the man at school was hurting them, Krueger disappeared before he could be brought to justice. The parents of Springwood took matters into their own hands; they hunted him down and burnt him alive.

Now, Krueger is back and systematically hunting down the kids who told on him, but he’s focusing his vengeance on Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara). As the kids are picked off one by one, Nancy and her friend Quentin (Kyle Gallner) try to uncover the truth about the killer before they fall asleep again for the final time.

I’m a huge, huge fan of the original Nightmare series and I immediately fell in love with this new version. It’s different, offers a whole new take on a figure that’s become such an icon and at the same time I found it truly scary and understood what they were trying to do with the story. Very much like the first time around, I felt a lot of empathy for Nancy, but this time Nancy is a troubled girl, she doesn’t make friends easily, she has a lot of issues and deep down she has buried a lot of rage and anger over the years. The film works well because it slowly builds on unleashing all of that while at the same time obeying the rules of “The Final Girl”.

The Blu-ray edition of Nightmare is a nice treat for Halloween. It contains the Freddy Krueger Reborn featurette and has interviews with the cast Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, Kellan Lutz and Thomas Dekker talking about their roles. We get to see Jackie in the make-up process and the filmmakers Samuel Bayer, Eric Heisserer and Brad Fuller are also there to bring some insight into the re-imagining of Elm Street. The sweater and glove get their own origins story and there are also some great glimpses of scenes not included in the final cut of the movie (Freddy wearing a long dark cloak and walls collapsing around Quentin).

As far as actual deleted scenes go, there are three. I love the alternate ending where Nancy beats Freddy’s ass with a baseball bat, very Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. I found it really rather impressive that Nancy brings him out of the dream and into the real world as pre-burnt Freddy. They’re on equal terms and she turns the tables on him, forcing him to look at her and see what he’s done to her. There’s also an alternate opening sequence with Freddy dying in a hospital after the parents burnt him. This is actually featured in one of the Elm Street novels. The ward would of course always have a dark shadow and over time the hospital itself became a place of evil. But unless they were to use all of this in the film it would make no real impact I think on the story and seem out of place. Glad they left it out but disappointed they didn’t have any of the cut scenes which were in the theatrical trailer such as Dean falling through a glass roof at a party, Kris with the glove standing in the road when Quentin and Nancy are driving, the cave lit with candles along with a few others.

The other deleted scene is called “Nightmare Street” and show Nancy in what seems to be a mirco-nap moment. She walks through a nightmarish street where the buildings are in ruins and flames can be seen in the distance. It looks like Hell. We also see the demonic dogs and it’s a nod to the scene in Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge where Lisa arrives at the chemical plant for her showdown with Freddy. The Hellish surroundings did not seem to fit the style of the rest of the film.

Overall, very happy with A Nightmare On Elm Street and it’s Blu-ray release, even though I’d love more deleted scenes and a longer cut of the film.