This feels redundant at this point. Here we have another classic slasher remake that follows suit to all its predecessors in managing to undermine the charm and creativity of the original. It feels like I have been writing the same review for years, and it looks like I’m going to be writing it a few more times. The horror genres biggest catch twenty-two is that it is such a lucrative style of film; it’s almost guaranteed for horror movies to make some kind of profit. Even though it pays the bills of studios and filmmakers it encourages the production of shameless knock-offs and vapid remakes.

Just as in the original Nightmare on Elm Street this movie follows the lives of several teenagers living in an innocent suburban neighborhood who are haunted in their dreams by a psychotic monster. Every time one of them falls asleep they are stalked and taunted by Freddy Kruger (Jackie Earle Haley) until they are frightened enough to allow him to go in for the kill. So far it seems the same, but this new telling of the story doesn’t hit the same way the original does despite sharing several major plot points.

To the film’s credit, it makes a solid attempt to tie the characters together more than the original. Instead of having them just be neighbors whose parents got together and killed a man, they are all students from a preschool where Kruger had worked and supposedly tormented children. The problem that came out of this is the sympathy subplot for Kruger. The killer shouldn’t be painted as a victim even for only a second in this case. It just makes it seem like the movie is taking his side at some points and it doesn’t sit well.

Freddy Reborn is dedicated to explaining why the remake was made and how it lives up to the original, but after watching it I’m still not convinced. Yes the make-up is more realistic and the micro-nap idea is a creative touch, but most of the content of the film is either taken directly from the original or other films. Focus Points is exactly what it sounds like, a set of featurettes that cover smaller aspects of the film like make-up, the hat, and micro-naps to start. All of these aspects were coverd in Freddy Reborn, but this time we take a closer look in a dedicated three minutes to the subject at hand; a great way to highlight a film’s various aspects.

There’s little that can be said in this interview that hasn’t already been said about another remake. It takes a great deal from the original, while introducing new material that mostly doesn’t fit well within the rest of the movie. It is gorier, darker, and less enjoyable than the original, but has a set of almost inevitable sequels because

Jackie Earle Haley has been contracted to reprise his role. Now Nightmare on Elm Street can take its place next to Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as horror classics that have been bastardized by their own remakes.