I think the success of the initial Nightmare on Elm Street was due largely to the time in which it was created. The eighties were, cinematically speaking, rather casual in both outlook and acceptance. Movies like Commando were unabashedly cheesy, with equal parts comedy and action, but was typical for many of the blockbusters at that time (the synthesis of the serious and the absurd). Elm Street was no exception, though tailoured to a different genre. . .And times have changed. What worked then, won't work now, and the overall tone of this revamp seems to acknowledge that. The question remains, will that be for better or for worse?

Kreuger was a sadist and delighted in what he did. He had fun killing kids and kept the monotony at bay by drawing out his kills with the hunt and humour. At the time, being able to laugh at what you were watching was a little edgy (I was just a kid when it came out, but I saw it with my older sister who was in High School at the time and remember her talking about it with her friends afterward), but it also let you relax so when the next scare came you were even less prepared for it than usual. I'm not a big horror buff, actually I am not really a horror fan at all, but even I can appreciate how the the setup worked on several different levels. It really was perfect for its time.

I think the logic behind this is that since the remake of Halloween did rather well, then this franchise should be even easier to resuscitate. The flaw in the reasoning lies in the type of film it was and who it appealed to. Halloween was intended to be dark, vaguely realistic and disturbingly violent. So, a gritty, relatively realistic and gratuitously violent re-imaging aimed at appealing to the new expectations of contemporary crowds makes perfect sense. It takes a still viable concept and transcends it past the somewhat dated interpretation and makes it once again relevant.

This movie has alot going for it, Michael Bay is not what anyone would consider an artistic film maker or visionary director, BUT, he knows how to keep audiences engaged and polish a movie so is popularly received at its opening (though many of his movies, like Bad Boys or Aliens 2 tend to feel dated within a few years). I think having him assist with the production value of the film means that it will be better than most would expect, enough so that we might even see a couple sequels, but I think the feel and former glory of the originals remain largely untouched.
Source(s):
My restless mind


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