Welcome to Reboots, Bitch

There are three reasons why the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise has always been superior to Friday the 13th.

1. Freddy Krueger was morally monstrous, a mean-spirited killer (and by most estimations, child molester) who targeted kids and teens simply because they were tempting and vulnerable, not, as Jason did, due to their sexual promiscuity or employment with summer camps. This was a cruel and sadistic man who took pleasure in exploiting the fears of nice enough kids who, for the most part, would rather be doing productive things (like playing Dungeons & Dragons or pumping iron) to having unchaperoned sex parties or playing strip poker.

1. With exceptions, the teens-in-peril of the series had some sort of defining characteristic that may not necessarily have made them three-dimensional Oscar contenders, but always gave the audience some kind of soft spot to stake their sympathies inside. The titular Dream Warriors of fan favorite Part 3 are stereotypes (junkie, wheelchair kid, puppet master...everybody knew a puppet master in high school, yes?), but they’re affectionately drawn stereotypes that mostly inhabit their characters with gusto that pays off...just not always in their favor. Knowing Taryn is a recovering heroin addict makes watching her get impaled by Freddy’s needle fingers all the more horrifying and sad.

1. Jack Bauer be damned, everyone must sleep. It’s inevitable. At the same time, you have no control over what films will play on the nightly screenings that are your dreams. The very idea that the one you hate more than anything will be on constant loop is terrifying (Sex and the City: The Movie? Noooooo! Then again, it could be worse...)

Now. I bring these points up in preparation for what I assume will be an instant defense of why...

hold your breath...

I liked this remake

(ducks)

Quick disclaimer: I didn’t looooove this movie or want to instantly cuddle with it, a la The Fly ’86 or Dawn of the Dead ’04 (although to be fair, the latter is more of a wham-bam-thank-you-til-next-time tangle in the sheets than serious affair). But hey. I had a good time. A few SPOILER-y reasons why:

1. Freddy is an asshole

A twisted and sexual deviant who plays with his victims’ pain until the very last second (sometimes 6 minutes after it’s over, at least for poor TV John Connor). Now as much as I love Jackie Earle Haley, I’ll concede that it wasn’t his performance that sold me on Freddy 2.0 (and trust me: it also wasn’t in any way the makeup design, which resembled a roasted marshmallow burnt over a penis). What I liked about this villain was--and I’m a little shocked by this--his backstory as a perverted and deliberate sadist. The development of who Krueger was in his lifetime and how that damaged these kids--plus the convenient explanation of why he was hidden and what buried memories brought him back--worked for me, even if it had a touch of Law & Order: SVU sprinkled in the mix.

2. Tired, so tired

Laugh at Not Johnny Depp’s Googl--er, Gigablasting of “sleep deprivation” all you want (I did), but also concede that the foreshadowing, albeit clunky and typical, actually paid off. Past films in the Nightmare series often featured dreaded microsleeps, but the remake does a surprisingly decent job of planting the knowledge--both of dozing off and, far more frightening, slipping into an actual coma--to create a more specific danger zone for the kids.

3. Imagining, Re

I’m sure many an ‘80s kid is twirling his or her scrunchie in anger over the fact that Not Johnny Depp didn’t have a date with Death Bed: The Bed That Regurgitates or how Nancy’s perfect chestnut locks never drew a gray streak. Amazingly enough, these are rarely the same .0003% of the population who celebrated Gus Van Sant’s Psycho. A Nightmare On Elm Street wasn’t the best reinterpretation of subject matter that I’ve seen, but I appreciated how it handled some of its winks and nods to Wes Craven’s original. Chris (aka Not Tina)’s bed death was mean in a different way from the slice ‘n dice horror of the original, but why not? If I wanted to see the same shot-for-shot tear-her-up murder, I’d put on my DVD. I appreciated the references, as opposed to craving redo-s.

I’m not going to dip Samuel Bayer’s A Nightmare On Elm Street in dark chocolate and savor each bite with milk. This was by no means a great film or even in the top tier of remakes, but I enjoyed a lot about this movie. Sure, the characters had little spark, the murders lacked ingenuity, and CGI was abused worse than Stephen Hawking, but there was also some new storytelling to be found in a series that had been in rather stale hibernation for some time. 

Isn’t that what a ‘reboot’ is supposed to do?

Onto more important matters:

Can we please talk about the positively bizarre trailer for Beastly, projected future entry in the Deadly Doll House’s Horrible Non-Horror! Although it might be horror. Or rom-com. Or high school dramedy. Or superhero saga. Or revenge tale. 

I. Don't. Know.

Maybe Neil Patrick Harris, who actually suppresses a vomit in the preview, can better explain. Perhaps we can trust whichever Olsen twin it is playing a hobo sorceress to point us in the right direction. Either way, this is bound to be one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my life, and I met two Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz.