A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

  I watched this with my cousin, Christy, Tuesday night.  She had never seen the original and is not a fan of horror movies in general.  She suffers through them because her little brother and I love them and force her to share our interests.

I saw the original movie when I was about ten while at a sleepover at my friend Jill's house.  I don't remember if the movie was a tape or if it was just on cable but it wasn't new at that point (it was almost as old as we were).  It was broad daylight when we watched it.  So with those two facts in mind (1) eight-year-old movie (2) daylight, know this:  I didn't sleep for two weeks afterwards.

The original NoES scared me so badly as a kid that I had to teach myself lucid dreaming in order to combat these nightly assaults. 

I say all of that to contrast it with the remake, which is completely thrill-less.

Maybe it's because I'm older and  I've seen many more horror films.  I've seen more horror, period.  It takes a lot more to shock me now.  But I'm pretty sure it's just because all the kids in this movie sucked.  It's not like they had a monumental task ahead of them.  Look sleep deprived, scream, and die.  Hell, I can manage two out of that three on any normal day.

The only thing that saved this movie from the scrap pile is Jackie Earle Haley.  His two faces of Freddy were fantastic.  Pre-burns Freddy is hunched, high-pitched, and spineless.  Post-burns, he is gravelly, snarky, and disturbingly creepy.  Honestly, they could have cut a couple of the kids' deaths and showed me more Freddy before and after and I would have been satisfied.  That would have also saved them from some shitty CGI, particularly the final death which was so bad that Christy called it fake.

That's how you know your horror movie has failed.  Your target audience should be too terrified to notice that the effects you're showing aren't physically possible.