Freddy : Les Griffes de la nuit

People are so whiney I swear.

If this was the original nightmare it would be rated far higher. People are just mad cause it's a "remake". I thought it was a very good adaption. Freddy was menacing. The acting, story and effects were also very good.

New version about Freddy Krueger killing teens in macabre style and boasts some startling , gruesome special effects . A re-imagining of the classic Freddy Krueger, a serial-killer who wields a glove with four blades embedded in the fingers and murders people in their dreams , resulting in their real death in reality . Nowadays, some troubled teens ( Rooney Mara, Killey Gallner , Katie Cassidy, among them ) start to be haunted in their nightmares by scar-faced and dream-hunting Freddy Krueger ( Jackie Earle Haley replacing the horror icon Robert Englund ) , a kind of spectre with horrible burns and large knives. He enters their dreams at will and again kill them. The unsettling adolescents plagued by astonishing dreams help themselves to attempt to stop the nasty and demonic Freddy who kill them in macabre ways . Furthermore , there is revealed a dark secret about his past who originally burned him to death.

This is a reworking upon first film's plot by screenwriter Wesley Strick based on the characters created by Wes Craven and dealing with the imaginative premise about a kind of ghost who can enter their dreams at will and intents on taking over both his body and mind . This eerie film packs thrills , chills , creepy events and lots of blood and gore . Special and extravagant visual effects are the spotlights of the movie and the startling make-up on Freddy face , but both of them don't save the story . Young casting and special appearance by Clancy Brown and Connie Britton . Creepy and imaginatively made musical score fitting to terror movie by Steve Jablonsky . Colorful and atmospheric cinematography by Jeff Cutter . The motion picture well produced by the great director/producer Michael Bay is professionally directed by Samuel Bayer , though with no originality and nothing new to show . From original entry directed by Wes Craven , it was followed by a handful of sequels in which horrifying special effects dominate this slasher saga , as ¨Freddy's revenge¨ 1985 by Jack Sholder , ¨Dream warrior¨ 1987 by Chuck Russell , it's one of the best sequels from successful original film by Craven , as ¨Dream master¨ (1988) by Renny Harlin, and ¨The dream child¨ (1989) by Stephen Hopkins , besides a Television series ¨The Freddy's nightmares¨ and this last one ¨ A nightmare on Elm Street¨(2010) that is a simple copy with little imagination , too many flaws and giving routine treatment . Rating : Average .

We all need to learn that nothing is truly sacred in Hollywood, so we might as well just embrace these remakes and hope that, every now and then, one of them will turn out ok and be able to hold itself up to the original on its own terms. A Nightmare on Elm Street comes incredibly close to standing out from the original film, but for every leap forward, it takes a few steps backwards until it's straddling the line between the two and not really committing fully to anything original.

The story is, more or less, the same with a group of teenagers experiencing horrific nightmares involving a burnt man with a glove of knives who is slicing and dicing them. In both films, it's revealed that this man was someone their parents murdered in a fit of vigilante justice after he'd been let free for molesting their children. The new film adds a twist questioning if Freddy was actually guilty or innocent.

The new Nightmare has a much bigger budget than the original film, so it's odd that the effects work isn't nearly as impressive as the original film. A bit of Freddy's makeup seems computer generated and a few of the other effects resemble a cheap 90's video game. The cast is fairly strong with Katie Cassidy, Kyle Gallner, and Thomas Dekker standing out as three of the terrified teens. Rooney Mara is the weak link among the them as Nancy. She's made the choice to play the character as moody and depressive, which makes her hard to root for and dull to watch.

As Freddy, Jackie Earle Haley can only do so much to step out from the shadow of Robert Englund, but he does a good job and brings a different, more pervy energy to the character which adds a little threat that his silly makeup job keeps threatening to take away.

The first scene was my favorite part. Through the remainder of the movie Freddy's voice became more of an annoyance and distraction than a cause for fear (very similar to Christian Bale's Batman). I entered the movie expecting to get whisked away to the wonderful dream-world of Freddy Krueger but was instead pulled into a high school slasher film promoting a typical killer with a grudge and thirst for blood. The fact the victim was trapped inside a dream battling with Freddy wasn't quite enough to satisfy the sense of a nightmarish killer's dream world. The movie lacked the demented mental toyings a character like Freddy should possess (e.g. Pennywise). At the premier, the entire theater let out a "Boo" at the end of the movie. I recommend watching the original Freddy movies instead.

Yes, we all know that Wes Craven's original is far more superior than this. That doesn't come as a surprise to anyone. And as much as I enjoy the Elm Street series, a few of the sequels did cross the line into way-too-cheesy territory, and lost the horror charm. "Freddy's Dead" will always remain one of the absolute worst sequels of all time to me, it really is unwatchable. This movie isn't great, but it isn't a 1/10 either. I'd place it about around the same level of quality as say, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. I enjoyed it, and I liked Jackie Earl Haley's portrayal of Krueger, despite Englund forever reigning superior.