I tend to shy away from remakes as a rule because they tend to compare poorly against their predecessors.  It appears that the majority of the fans of the first film are pretty loyal to this theme.

However, I do note something special in this particular film.  It was brought up to date with a video blog scene where the blogger falls asleep and has his face smashed into the camera…  It doesn’t add much, but it’s a clever touch!  One that Robert Englund himself might well have approved of had this technology been so widely available back then.

Robert Englund aside, I thought that the portrayal of Freddy Krueger, a paedophile serial killer, was actually pretty good.  The gore was well-imagined and frankly the premise of the film scared the hell out of me and my heart was racing throughout; even though I have watched every Nightmare on Elm Street film in the back catalogue!  Hell, I was the 15-year-old who convinced her school friend to go to the cinema to watch Nightmare III…  I don’t think said friend has ever forgiven me since!

Jackie Earle Haley, who plays Freddy, seems to have built up a repertoire in recent years for horror films.  Fans of The Secret Circle will be thrilled to see Thomas Dekker as Jesse Braun.  The dashing Dekker looks amazing in this film and fans might be interested to learn that he plays a similar to role as that of Johnny Depp in the original movie.

If you suspend reality for a moment and actually conceive of the idea that it is possible for a ghostly nightmare that haunts your sleep to kill you, then the premise is indeed truly sick!

The quad-bladed gloved one, well I hated him in the 80’s when the first film came out and I don’t like him now…  I must say a massive thank you to my husband who actually selected the film for this evening’s torture!  Not!

I don’t know why the producer felt the need to remake this particular movie.  Aside from the video blog there was nothing really new or unique to add to the original chronicles.  I enjoyed it but it was pretty much as anticipated and Samuel Bayer’s take on the film lacked the same wow factor as the original – because we’ve seen it before.

If you haven’t seen the original movies then, yeah, this is great.  If you have then you might want to give it a miss… and re-watch the Wes Craven originals instead.