Confession: Despite being a fan of '80s horror and a critic of Hollywood's desire to remake every movie ever made, I saw the Michael Bayed Friday the 13th on opening weekend. Hypocrite.But I will not see the Bayed A Nightmare on Elm Street when it hits theaters on April 30th. Even though I was a bigger fan of the Friday the 13th movies, I feel remaking Nightmare is the greater abomination.
Why?
No offense to Kane Hodder and the seventeen other actors to play Jason Vorhees in the franchise's eighty-nine films, but it's not like you have to be a Shakespearean actor to pull off the man behind the hockey mask. You basically just have to stomp about menacingly and swing a machete.
Stomp, stomp, stomp.
Swing, swing, swing.
The same can't be said for Freddy. Freddy has a personality. He is more than just makeup. He cracks jokes.
Freddy has always been played by Robert Englund. The new Nightmare has a different guy playing Freddy.
I've seen the trailer about 14,308 times on television this week. I hear the "1, 2, Freddy's coming for you" song. I smile. I see the familiar sweater. I smile. And then I hear his voice. It makes me cringe every time because it's not Englund's.
I hope today's youth has a good time with A Nightmare On Elm Street. I hope it gives them a good scare and they fall in love with the wit of Freddy Kreuger.
For the rest of us, we'll always have the original.
And its twenty-nine sequels.
