With A Nightmare on Elm Street, I got exactly what I expected, Nothing more and nothing less. I expected a classic slasher movie with the terrible acting (other than Haley as Krueger) and terrible writing. It’s just the kind of movie that doesn’t matter, you just go out and have fun with some friends. Play the “whose gonna die next” game.

The story of A Nightmare on Elm Street has its perks in by far the coolest slasher movie character. No killer beats Freddy Krueger and I actually preferred Jackie Earle Haley’s rendition more so than Robert Englund’s. He was darker, more disturbing even, while still having those still adding little sinister jokes here and there. That’s what’s fun about Freddy is that he actually talks unlike Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers or Ghostface, to name a few.

So, A Nightmare on Elm Street is just your same old slasher film, filled with all the stuff that makes movies dumb, so I will grade accordingly, but you really have to take these films for what they are and this has got to be my favorite of the recent installations to horror. Its much better than the porno that was Friday the 13th and ten times better than Rob Zombie’s awful Halloween. I’d also like to say that I actually prefer this one to its original.

They’re a lot a like, but I had more fun with this one. So sue me. My complaint though would be that it was too much like the original at times. I’ll explain what I mean. When the trailer came out, it seemed that Freddy was actually innocent of his crimes against the children and was taking revenge against these people who killed him for no reason. That would’ve been more interesting, but we find out near the climax that he actually was guilty of his crimes and rightfully killed. That was a bit disappointing, but you can never expect much from a slasher.

Grade: D+