The Remake Well

 2013 Review

I listed the review of the film above. I gave this damn remake more than enough time and energy. I won't ever do that shit again. I'll give it to the filmmakers, they made sure Jackie Earl's Fred was a sleazebag who made your skin crawl. This isn't a Fred you want on your lunchboxes or on a shirt while talking about "Dream Warriors" in a YouTube video. I still support the idea raised that if the story decided to take the turn of Fred, as the groundskeeper, being innocent of what the kids accused him of, that could have been a far more interesting twist, separating this 2010 film from the 1984 Craven classic. I mean, with all the money they had at their disposal, the production team and story could have just went crazy. There was so much opportunity to go almost anywhere you so desire, and, instead, the option to just pull from the original iconic scenes (done so poorly and dully) and drop them in the remake was the decision they went with. It is so easy to watch this film and see so many opportunities just missed. 

While I can see certain mistakes made in the Friday the 13th remake from 2009, at least I felt that some of those involved seemed interested in providing something entertaining. In the 2010 film, I never felt like that surge of energy to produce something worthwhile was there. Oh, there is talent in the film. The lighting and photography are top notch, But those homages -- like Kris in the body bag, Nancy walking through blood upstairs (oatmeal for Nancy in Wes' version), the vision of Freddy protruding through Nancy's wall while she's in bed, the gloved hand with finger knives emerging from the bathtub between Nancy's legs, and Nancy's mom attacked at the end -- are just all kinds of nope. I just don't want to watch this ever again. In fact, I'll probably forget about anything in this in a few hours. I did like Katie Cassidy, but how pretty she is might have persuaded me to keep any attention on the fucking movie...still, she appears to be trying. That can't be said for the rest of the Abercrombie and Fitch cast...I heard someone mention that in a podcast a few months ago when discussion of this remake came up in conversation. I think that description fits. It is the Scream 90s casting process...pluck a bunch of "beautiful people" and get those kids in the theater to see this total cash-in. I read Mara was miserable during the making of the film...I just wish a decision could have been made to recast the Nancy part. Since Nancy was a pivotal character in the Craven film, it would have been best to cast her with an actress who gave a shit. I'm not really going over anything others who have balked about this fucking movie for eleven years haven't. Perhaps the results of this were meant to be: maybe it is just time to retire the brand and let Fred rest in pieces. Maybe going a different direction with Nancy dying instead of Kris, perhaps that would have been a decision that benefited the remake...get the one out who hated being in the film and keep the actress in who seemed to care.

Having Nancy in an adult version of kindergarten dress, held down by a force on a bed, while Fred draws in with an encroaching lust, not long after she and her boyfriend discovered Polaroids of her in an old tin box under the bed in the "hidden cavern"...yeah, this isn't the Freddy Krueger peering from a television set asking Spencer if he wants to trip out.