So Latino Review has put up a review of the script for the upcoming A Nightmare On Elm Street remake. Some interesting things coming out of the review are pretty interesting such as the tidbits of Freddy being a gardener and handyman for a preschool, his playing with the children, and the possible implication that he was falsely accused of being a child molester. Some of the things from the review that has made me roll my eyes are the fact that Nancy has been changed from the girl next door to a goth chick and her boyfriend is now a horror podcaster. Being a horror podcaster myself I don’t know where I fall on this one. It’s nice to see horror podcasting get it’s due but also being to overly aware of horror rules in horror films has become tiresome. Having someone that knows the cliches and rules constantly pointing them out can be annoying. And since Nightmare helped establish a lot of these cliches putting someone in there to point them out is not going to help this film what so ever.
Also gone from this version is the jokey Freddy most fans have come to know. The review actually says Freddy actually has very little dialouge. Probably a step in the right direction. Freddy went from scary to funny pretty quickly. Freddy vs Jason seemed to find a nice balance by making him more menacing and taking out some of his one liners. This film seems to want to bring Freddy back to his dark and scary roots. I am a fan of the idea but have to hold judgement until the final product hits the big screen. And that brings us to another big possible problem that this remake faces. How do you replace Robert Englund? He IS Freddy. He was the only continuing force throughout the Nightmare series. How do you put someone else in that role and make it work? One of the rumored names has been Jackie Earl Haley. Now I am a huge Freddy fan and have not been wanting this remake to go through but after hearing that choice for Freddy I do have to say my interest was piqued. He did a great turn in LITTLE CHILDREN and did a spot on Rorschach in WATCHMEN this year. I think he could turn in a nice, dark performance of everyone’s favorite blade-handed maniac. Am I against this remake? Yeah. Will I be there on opening night to see what they came up with? Yeah. But this script review has not helped my hopes any. So here’s to hoping they make some changes before they get in front of the camera.
Check out Latino Review’s Script Review For A Nightmare on Elm Street.