A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) Movie Review

3.5/10

The end has come. Thank God.

Arriving at the final chapter of the A Nightmare On Elm Street franchise, I can’t help but reflect on the bumper journey that it has taken me on. And with the last film in the series, a reboot of the original, I can safely say that this rollercoaster has finally come to a very slow halt. It’s been fun Freddy, but your send-off doesn’t produce any new impressions on a mind that’s seen about everything that there is to you.

Just like any film reboot, I was quite wary going into this 2010 “reimagining” of the classic that started it all. Reboots are essentially made, not to stir up any new notions in the mythology of a successful franchise nor to create a wonderful continuation of the series, but to make as much money as possible. With this reboot, in particular, I am quite sure they intended to do just that. In fact, a quick Wikipedia search shows $115 million was made at the Box Office against a $35 million dollar budget, which confirms my suspicions that they’ve done so stupendously. Oh, how things never change.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) is less of a film as it is more of an updated re-hash of the original. For new audiences who have never been exposed to the series, this no doubt would have been a far better experience. But for fans who have seen the rest of the films like I have, it was far from great. The story is the same. The characters are virtually identical. The only difference here is that everything just looks nicer.

Which is an aspect that I’ll give this film credit for because it’s definitely one of the strongest features it has going for it. The same goes for the change to the character design for Freddy Krueger. I appreciated the adjustment made to make it reflect more what a real-life burns victim would look like. I didn’t really think it was as scary as the original, plus I thought it looked more like a ghoul at times rather than an actual person but hey, the effort was still there and I don’t mind it. Other than that, everything else they did wasn’t really that new. Especially the scares.

I enjoyed some of the more gorier updates but for the most part, everything was just so terribly unimaginative. None of the dream scenarios showed any creativity whatsoever, which is surprising given they had more than enough of a budget to do so. It seems like they stopped short of funding interesting nightmarish aspects and instead stuck to putting out simple alternative versions of what could be seen in reality. What the fuck New Line Cinema? Who the hell dropped the ball on this?

Do the nightmares really have to take place in the same setting that the person dreaming it up fell asleep in? And when we do see something different, can’t we go somewhere else more original instead of the same old fucking boiler room? Even every other sequel managed to do at least that and they weren’t that great either.

The only other positive I want to bring up is the casting choice of Rooney Mara as the lead Nancy. I love her as an actress and I’m glad they found her to play that role, even if most of her dialogue was still horrendous and just plain old garbage. She managed to add another element to Nancy as the “loneliest girl in the world” persona and at least it was actually something different to see, which I wasn’t sure this film could even do on a character level.

This film pretty much fits the role of being a shitty reboot created to generate cash, and which it did. It was a let down to how the journey concluded for me but from the last few films, I felt like I knew what was coming so I don’t feel too underwhelmed or disappointed. I’ve already forgotten most of this film, so it’s safe to say that I’ll never be watching this one again. Which means I’m going to be recommending you give this film the flick unless you really feel compelled to complete the series just like I’ve been doing. But other than that, skip it.