The number of decent horror remakes can be counted on the knives of one hand.
The recent Matt Reeves incarnation of Let the Right One In was a rare success, and I can think of Breck Eisner’s The Crazies and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead as two remakes which were far better than expected.
It’s hard enough to shake the memories of the source material when there’s an iconic cinemonster centre stage, Rob Zombie’s revived Halloween movies suffered by comparison and this rethrusting of Freddy Krueger into the pop culture of the twenty-first century suffers also, begging the question: Why bother?
The 2010 remake/boot/imaging/gurgitation is a pale fire of mostly spent matches, with the welcome casting of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger given almost nothing to do while wearing the Dennis the Menace jumper, save for growl and disembowel. More interestingly it is the backstory of how Freddy came to be that hooks you and while it’s not exactly Little Children there is something in the performance of Haley as pre-disfigured Freddy that provides the only moments of engagement.
Fans of the blood splatter and crazy kills are given their moments though when you’ve seen one foundry set dream sequence you’ve seen them all, and I found it completely impossible to engage with the kids, who in the fade out of the post modern slasher movie era are simply trendy blood bags.
The Blu-ray has the obligatory special features, with the cast and crew waxing lyrical about the power of the original, and I don’t doubt their sincerity in wanting to revive a horror classic, but in amongst the homage and updating of what is an instantly recognisable horror icon there is nothing more here than a scratching of the surface.
For another take on this check out HeyUGuys’ resident evil expert Gary’s review. He didn’t like it as much as I did.
