I cannot believe it has been 26 years since the first Nightmare on Elm St. was released. My first encounter with Freddy was when I was about 9 years old and my cousins, thought it would be funny, if they showed me A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. I really did not feel like watching it but I wanted to prove to my older cousins that I was brave enough, but little to my dismay I could not handle it. I remember staying wake that entire night. This was the first time I stayed up for 24-hours. This is what the Nightmare on Elm St. movie is suppose to do, and not make you want to go to sleep, which is what the remake did to me (for about 5 minutes or so. 

I do not mind remakes at all as long as they are done well and expand on the original, but that is few and far between. I am sorry to report that A Nightmare on Elm St. is no exception. There are shots from this film that are just carbon copies from the first movie. I did not mind that all that much but when many, and I mean a majority, of the shots are exactly the same it is a disappointing and lacks originality. But I guess there is nothing original about a remake in the first place. If I see a remake I want it to add more to the original. I do not just want a copy and paste verison of the first film. If I wanted that I would just rent the first movie and watch it at home. 

Another mistake that this film makes is the editing. There are so many cuts in this film. This is what happens when you have a music video director direct a featured length film.  Music videos contain hundreds of cuts in just a matter of minutes, and for a music video director it is hard for them to change their fast cutting ways. The amount of cuts made during this film make it feel undeveloped and sloppy. This made me unable get into the film and truly experience it.

It is disappointing to see this remake end up to be just “blah”. I did not hate the film but I did not enjoy it either. It is just another forgetable remake. However, I did “enjoy” this movie more than the Friday the 13th remake from last year. I guess that is a plus.