Directed by Samuel Bayer. Written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer. Starring Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, Connie Britton, Clancy Brown and Kellan Lutz.
Plot: a re-imagining of the Freddy Kreuger story where he’s officially a full-fledged child molester.
The movie opens with Dean (Lutz) having a bad dream and slicing his own neck wide open. (He was in it long.) Kris (Cassidy) has dreams, too. Dreams about a burnt man. Nancy (Mara) believes the dreams are all connected. Jesse (Dekker) believes it will all go away if they refuse to talk about it. Then, Kris dreams again and is killed by Freddy, as is her dog. Boo. However, is the dog really killed since it’s Kris’s dream or no?? Rules seem shady. I’m gonna say not.
Jesse was with Kris at the time and he is arrested for her murder. Nancy wants to do some research on who this man, this Fred Kreuger, may be, so she gets help from Quentin (Gallner). They find out that they all went to preschool together even though their parents are acting like they all just met in high school. When Nancy comfronts her mother, she finds out that Freddy was a janitor at the school and that he “hurt them”, but that he left town before they could do anything about it. LIAR!!
By the time Nancy and Quentin find out the truth, they’re popping pills to stay awake and at any minute now they’re gonna have to fight for their lives.
DJ thinks this level of “Dark Freddy” is ridiculous. I don’t mind the idea of dark Freddy, however, I don’t find Haley very intimidating, so it doesn’t work for me either. Also, his dialogue is a little forced. Very melodramatic. He’s too invincible as well, in and out of the dreamworld.
The thrills in this movie are cheap. All of them. We weren’t impressed with the effects. There weren’t any rules. DJ did like that they gave Nancy more of a reason for being so special to him, but the fact that she was a little weaker in this one annoyed me. She was less willing to believe and less willing to fight. I liked the cast a lot. DJ did not. I really wanted to like it. I gave it a shot. But it failed.
My score: 39. DJ’s score: 24.
“I’m your boyfriend now.”
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