It's A Nightmare On Rorschach Street

 

This is the first official trailer for the remake of the original Nightmare on Elm Street that is set to come out in April of next year (why the hell isn't this coming out around Halloween like it shoud?).  It stars the amazingly talented Jackie Earle Hayley (aka Rorschach from The Watchmen) as Freddy Krueger and is basically another of the many franchise reboots we've seen lately like Rob Zombie's craptastic Halloween films and the suprisingly excellent Friday The 13th remake.

 

I have a couple of thoughts about this trailer.  On the positive side, Jackie Earle Hayley as Freddy Krueger is awesome.  As sad as I was to hear that Robert Englund wouldn't be reprising the role of the red and green sweater wearing serial killer, I couldn't imagine a better actor to step in and replace him.  Haley is an immensely talented actor, and he's got just that right amount of creepy and crazy-looking to him to pull off the role well.  It also seems to me that they're staying pretty true to the original look of the character as well, which is nice.  The glove, the sweater and the hat are all there.  Obviously they've changed the makeup a bit.  You don't really get a good look at Freddy's face in this trailer, but from what I can see, it looks like they're going for more of a realistic "burn victim" look with the makeup.  I'm ok with that.

 

On the negative side, I'm slightly concerned with possible changes they're making to the character history of Freddy Krueger.    In the trailer we obviously see some of the townsfolk who chase him down and burn him, but is it just me or is pre-dead Freddy acting like he's innocent here?  He's hiding and crying out that he didn't do whatever they're chasing him for.  Does this mean the filmmakers are veering away from Freddy Krueger's child killer past?  If so, then the whole character of Freddy Krueger is completely changed from who he was before.  In the original films the townsfolk murdered and burned an admitted child killer who had escaped the law.  They had committed the act to avenge those he had slain, and to prevent more from being killed.  When Freddy came back, it was in an act of evil vengence against those who had killed him.  It was the act of an evil man coming back to commit more evil.

 

If that is changed, and Freddy is an innocent man murdered for crimes he didn't commit, then wouldn't his coming back be a sort of justified vengence killing to repay the townsfolk for their evil deeds?  Admittedly, it's sort of a twisted way to get vengence on those who have done you wrong, but still, it changes Freddy from a source of pure evil to a source of understandable anger.  I'm not sure if I like that, and I really hope I'm wrong about the plot changes.  Maybe that's just how it looks in the trailer, and the film has the original story intact.  I sure hope so.

 

On a random note, I find it thoroughly entertaining that one of the main characters in the film is being played by actor Thomas Dekker, whom most of us nerds know as John Connor from the sadly cancelled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show (curse you Fox TV, I shake my fist at thee).  This means that we'll get to see a quasi nerd crossover we never thought we'd ever get to see.  John Connor vs. Freddy Krueger.  That's right folks.  He's fought machines and will one day topple Skynet, but can he defeat the Dream Master?  Since he's not a chick named Nancy, I'm betting the odds of that happening are pretty slim.

 

Finally, there's no word on whether Johnny Depp will appear in a cameo role in the film, only to be immediately sucked into a bed within five seconds time.  Somehow I doubt that'll happen seeing as how his paycheck alone would be bigger than the entire film's current production budget.  Still though, that would be pretty awesome.

 

Oh well, one can dream.