A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010 film)

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 2010 American supernatural slasher film directed by Samuel Bayer (in his feature directorial debut), written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer, and starring Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, and Kellan Lutz.Produced by Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes, it is a remake of Wes Craven's 1984 film of the same name, as well as the ninth overall installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.The film is set in a fictitious town in Ohio and centers on a group of teenagers living on one street who are stalked and murdered in their dreams by a disfigured man named Freddy Krueger.To that end, they decided to remove the one-line quipping Freddy, who had become less scary and more comical over the years, and bring back his darker nature.Dean Russell falls asleep at a diner and is attacked by Freddy Kruger, a burned man wearing a bladed gardener's glove on his right hand.In 2008, Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes production company began the process of rebooting the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with a remake of the original 1984 film.[5] Producer Brad Fuller explained that they would follow the same tactic from their Friday the 13th remake and would abandon the things that had made the series less scary—the film's antagonist, Freddy Krueger, and would not be "cracking jokes" as had become a staple of his character.[7] According to New Line production chief Toby Emmerich, Michael Bay advocated heavily for Bayer because he had "the ability to capture the kind of seductive and unsettling imagery that would make Nightmare feel like a fresh, visually arresting moviegoing experience.... What everyone involved wants to do is re-invent the character for a new generation.” In June 2009 interview, Craven, who directed the original movie and was not consulted for the remake, expressed displeasure with the new film.[10] In contrast, Robert Englund, who portrayed Freddy throughout the film series, felt it was time for A Nightmare on Elm Street to be remade.Bayer recognized that Craven attempted to put more meaning into his films and that the character of Freddy Krueger affected the lives of a generation of people.[9] Earlier versions of the script had Freddy revealed to have been falsely accused of the molestation allegations he was burned alive for thus giving a new spin to his motivation to kill the children and later the parents in a future sequal.Jay Bauman, a stand-in for Kyle Gallner during the production recalls Haley saying during the filming "I hadn't seen [the original] since it was first in theatres so I watched it in my hotel the other night- and it was just the worst movie I have ever seen!I've used for Freddy is a little rabid dog that just bites your ankle and holds on ... and I think Jackie brings that, with his own physicality, to the role, without ever having to work it a little bit.” Haley was contracted for three films which includes the remake and two sequels.[11] Haley stated that he did not intend to have Englund's original performances influence his own and that he used the frustration of having to sit in the make-up chair for three-and-a-half hours as his motivation to get into character.[27] Gallner and Mara explained that the teenagers in the remake are "a little more aware" of Freddy and their situation, whereas in the original Nancy and her friends were "more mellow" and "nonchalant" until they were finally killed.[37][38] According to Fuller and Form, Warner Bros. suggested A Nightmare on Elm Street be released in 3D because of the increased box office revenue of recent 3D films.It was the opinion of the Platinum Dunes producers that if a film was not initially conceived as 3D, then it should not be converted to 3D; Fuller and Form fought the studio to keep the remake 2D.[39] The score to A Nightmare on Elm Street was composed by Steve Jablonsky and recorded by a 60-piece string ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony.[43] An online game was released in conjunction with the film—the player attempts to keep a young girl awake using coffee, cold showers, self-mutilation, and other means, to keep her safe from Freddy.[44] A Nightmare on Elm Street was released on April 30, 2010, to 3,332 theaters and approximately 4,700 screens,[45] making it the twelfth-widest opening for an R-rated film in the United States.The Blu-ray special features include the DVD's featurette along with a deleted scene, an alternate opening and ending, and the Maniacle Movie Mode.As a result, A Nightmare on Elm Street broke the record for midnight openings for a horror film that was previously held by the Friday the 13th remake in 2009 that grossed $1 million.[60] The film sits ahead of the other Platinum Dunes remakes, which includes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ($28,094,014),[61] The Amityville Horror ($23,507,007),[62] and The Hitcher ($7,818,239).[65][66] When comparing its opening weekends to other slasher films and horror remakes, A Nightmare on Elm Street sits in fifth spots for both categories.The website's consensus reads: "Visually faithful but lacking the depth and subversive twists that made the original so memorable, the Nightmare on Elm Street remake lives up to its title in the worst possible way."[73] Xan Brooks of The Guardian gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "Debut director Samuel Bayer was not hired to dismantle the franchise but to shoot it afresh."[74] Richard Corliss of Time wrote: "I liked the new Nightmare, but I know that any new version of a revered text — a favorite old book, play or movie — invites invidious comparison."[76] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one star out of four because he "stared at A Nightmare on Elm Street with weary resignation.[79] Robert Englund, the actor who portrayed Freddy Krueger in the original series, disliked the remake and claimed it suffered from ineffective make-up effects and a lack of empathetic characters.