A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010 film)
Encyclopedia
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 2010 American slasher film
directed by Samuel Bayer
, and written by Wesley Strick
and Eric Heisserer
. The film stars Jackie Earle Haley
, Kyle Gallner
, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy
, Thomas Dekker
and Kellan Lutz
. It is a remake
of Wes Craven
's 1984 film of the same name
and the ninth Nightmare film in total, produced by Michael Bay
and Platinum Dunes
, it is designed to reboot the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise
. The film centers around a group of teenagers being stalked and murdered in their dreams by a man named Freddy Krueger
, ultimately discovering they all share a common link from their childhood that is making them targets for Freddy.
A Nightmare on Elm Street was originally going to follow the same design as Platinum Dunes' other remake, Friday the 13th
, with the writers taking what they thought were the best elements from each of the films and creating a single storyline with them. Eventually, they decided to use Craven's original storyline, and try to create a scarier film. That being, they decided to remove the one-line quipping Freddy, who had become less scary and more comical over the years, and bring him back to a darker nature; this included developing the character as a true child molester, something that Craven wanted to do originally in 1984 but changed to a child killer instead. The decision was also made to bring Freddy's physical appearance closer to that of an actual burn victim, and the use of computer-generated imagery
was used in certain sections of Haley's face to further assist in that vision. A Nightmare on Elm Street was primarily filmed in Illinois because of the positive experience the producers of Platinum Dunes had when filming other films in the same area.
Robert Englund
, who portrayed Freddy in the previous eight films, voiced his support of the remake and the casting of Haley in the role of Freddy. A Nightmare on Elm Street was officially released in North America on April 30, 2010, and later released in foreign markets on May 8, 2010. The film was met with primarily negative reviews from film critics, as well as audience members who scored the film a "C-plus". Regardless, A Nightmare on Elm Street broke the record for midnight openings for a horror film. The film has brought in over $63 million at the domestic box office, and over $115 million worldwide.
) goes to the Springwood Diner to meet with her boyfriend, Dean Russell (Kellan Lutz
), who falls asleep at the table and meets a man covered in burn scars, wearing a red and green sweater and a clawed glove on his hand. The burned man cuts Dean's throat in the dream, but in reality it appears that Dean is cutting his own throat as his friend, waitress Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara), looks on with Kris. At Dean's funeral, Kris sees a photograph of her and Dean as children, but cannot recall ever knowing Dean before high school. Kris begins to dream about the burned man herself and refuses to go to sleep for fear that she will die in her dreams. Jesse Braun (Thomas Dekker
), Kris's ex-boyfriend, shows up at her house to keep her company while she sleeps, but Kris meets the burned man in her dreams and is murdered. Covered in blood, Jesse runs to Nancy's house to try to explain what happened and he learns that Nancy has been having dreams about the same man: Freddy Krueger
(Jackie Earle Haley
).
Jesse is apprehended by the police under suspicion of murdering Kris, and is killed by Krueger when he falls asleep in his jail cell. With her friends dying, Nancy begins to question what everyone's connection is to each other, given that none of them can remember each other before their teenage years. Eventually, Nancy and her friend Quentin Smith (Kyle Gallner
) discover that all of them attended the same preschool together. Nancy's mother, Gwen (Connie Britton
), reluctantly tells Nancy and Quentin that there was a gardener at the preschool, Fred Krueger, who abused Nancy and the rest of the kids. Gwen explains that Nancy was his favorite, and came home one day telling her mom about a hidden space in Krueger's room and the things he did to her there. Gwen claims Krueger skipped town before he was arrested. Nancy does not believe her and attempts to track down the remaining kids from the school. Nancy eventually discovers that all of the other kids, Lisa Harper, Bret Tanzer, Sukari McGill, Nancy Lumb, Elizabeth Cook, Marcus Yeon, Carrie Bush, and Craig Jackson, have been killed, most of them in their sleep. Meanwhile, Quentin tries to accept that his nightmares are nothing more than repressed memories
, but he falls asleep during swim practice and witnesses what really happened to Krueger. Quentin sees everyone's parents hunt down Krueger, and then burn him alive. Quentin and Nancy confront Quentin's father, Alan Smith (Clancy Brown
), about the reality that they murdered Krueger with no evidence that he had committed any crime. Thus, Nancy and Quentin believe that Krueger wants revenge on them for lying as children. As result of their insomnia
, Nancy and Quentin begin sporadically dreaming while they are still awake. To try and stop Krueger, they decide to go to the preschool and learn what they can.
On the way, Nancy falls asleep and is attacked by Krueger, but when Quentin wakes her up they discover she has pulled a piece of Krueger's sweater out of the dreamworld and into reality. Quentin takes Nancy to the hospital for cuts on her arm; there, he steals some adrenaline
and a syringe to help them stay awake. Nancy and Quentin eventually make it to the preschool. Quentin uncovers Krueger's hidden room and the evidence that proves Krueger was in fact abusing all of the children; they realize that Krueger actually wants revenge on them for telling the truth. Nancy decides the only way to end this is to pull Krueger out of their dreams and kill him in reality. Quentin tries to stay awake long enough to pull Nancy out of her dream when she has Krueger, but he falls asleep and is attacked. Krueger then goes after Nancy, and explains that he intentionally left her for last so she would stay awake long enough that, when she finally fell asleep, she would no longer be able to wake up. While Nancy struggles with Krueger, Quentin uses the adrenaline to wake up Nancy who pulls Krueger into reality. With Krueger distracted by Quentin, Nancy uses a broken paper cutter blade to cut Krueger's gloved hand off, and then slice his throat. Afterward, Nancy torches the secret room, with Krueger's body left inside, while she and Quentin leave. Nancy and her mother return home from the hospital; Krueger suddenly appears in a mirror's reflection and kills Nancy's mother before pulling her body through the mirror while Nancy screams.
reported that Michael Bay
and his Platinum Dunes
production company would be rebooting the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with a remake
of the original 1984 film
. In an interview, producer Brad Fuller initially explained that they were following the same line they did with their Friday the 13th remake
, by abandoning the things that made the character less scary—the film's antagonist, Freddy Krueger
, would not be "cracking jokes" as had become a staple of his character in later films—and focusing more on trying to craft a "horrifying movie". Fuller expressed how everyone at the studio loved the concept of being killed if you fell asleep. The producer stated that the film would be a remake of the 1984 film, but clarified that they would be borrowing certain character deaths and dream sequence
s from the entire Nightmare series.
In February 2009, The Hollywood Reporter
announced that Samuel Bayer
was hired to direct the film. According to New Line production chief Toby Emmerich, Michael Bay advocated heavily for Bayer's hiring, as Bay, Bayer, and director David Fincher
came up as commercial directors together. It is Bay's opinion that Bayer had "the ability to capture the kind of seductive and unsettling imagery that would make Nightmare feel like a fresh, visually arresting moviegoing experience". Bayer declined Platinum Dunes' offer; twice. It was not until Bay sent the director an email "talking about the business", and explaining what kind of opportunity it would be for Bayer that he finally agreed.
In a June 9, 2009 interview, Craven expressed his displeasure in the remaking of his 1984 film, primarily because the filmmakers chose not to have him as a consultant to the film, unlike with the 2009 remake The Last House on the Left
where he "shepherd[ed] it towards production". In contrast, Robert Englund
, who portrayed Freddy throughout the film series, felt it was time for A Nightmare on Elm Street to be remade. Englund liked the idea of being able to "exploit the dreamscape" with CGI and other technologies that did not exist when Craven was making the original Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. Subsequently, Bayer believed that the film is designed to pay homage to what Craven did in 1984, but not replicate it entirely. Bayer recognized that Craven attempted to put more meaning into his films, and that the character of Freddy Krueger was one that affected the lives of a certain generation of people. For Bayer, remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street was about bringing that feeling to a new generation, with a new spin on the character and story.
Fuller and Form likened the new Nightmare film to their 2003 remake
of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
, and retracted an earlier statement when they said they did not plan to "cherry pick" the best elements of the franchise, like they did with the reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise they released in 2009. Instead, the 2010 film is more of a reimagining. The pair also explained that A Nightmare on Elm Street would have a different tone than the Friday the 13th remake. Form states, "I think a Friday the 13th movie like we made was really fun. You know, sex, drugs and rock and roll, and I think a Nightmare movie is not that."
When asked why New Line was rebooting the Nightmare on Elm Street film series, Emmerich explained, "The Nightmare films are profoundly disturbing on a deep, human level because they're about our dreams. It's why we thought that we could reach an especially broad audience with a new film, since the feeling of having your dreams being invaded was something that would translate to any country and any culture." Overall, Bayer wanted to create a darker Nightmare on Elm Street, one he felt would fit into what he describes as "a darker world". Bayer said there is subtext within the film, which is designed to get the audience to ask, "What makes a monster?" Bayer wants the audience to think about whether a monster is something that exists purely from a physical appearance—someone with a scarred face and a clawed glove on their hand—or can a monster be something that is deeper, and within the man himself without a scarred face and bladed glove.
; the film was never produced. Eric Heisserer was subsequently hired to provide a rewrite of Strick's script before the film moved into production. When Bayer came on board he received a script that reflected the combined efforts of Strick and Heisserer, and which still "needed to be tinkered with". Bayer explained that the script goes deeper into "[Freddy] as a person [and] how he became the thing he was". Bayer expressed that, unlike the Friday the 13th remake that picked the best parts from the first four films, the Nightmare remake is coming straight from the first film. At one point there was a scene in an early draft of the script where some characters were playing Guitar Hero
. Fuller explained that the scene was removed to keep the film from feeling dated. To him, if someone watched the film five years later, and Guitar Hero was not as popular as it once was, it would automatically make the film feel more dated upon viewing. At the same time, they wanted the film to feel relevant, and including things like the Internet, mobile phones, and text messaging would give the film a more timeless feel.
For the remake, Freddy was brought back to his darker roots and away from the comical character he had become in later Nightmare on Elm Street sequels. Fuller pointed out that this Freddy does have one-liners, but his comments come from a darker sense of humor and not intended to be as campy as previously seen. In addition, it was decided to follow Craven's original characterization of Freddy as a child molester. The decision to apply that characteristic was based in part on the idea that there would not be much of a story to tell if he simply killed children for no apparent reason. It would be easy for the teenage characters to figure out, whereas it is easier to hide the idea of children being molested and force the teen characters to seek out the truth of what happened. In an effort to keep the story fresh, Heisserer developed the concept of micro-naps. In the story, as the characters prolong their time without sleeping they begin to experience micro-naps, which is where a character will unknowingly start dreaming while they are still awake. The micro-naps allowed the filmmakers the chance to blur the lines between reality and the dreamworld by offering an explanation for how the characters could slip so easily into a dream.
revealed Robert Englund would not reprise the role of Freddy Krueger for the remake; Englund had performed the role for the eight previous films. On April 3, 2009 Entertainment Weekly
reported that Jackie Earle Haley
was cast to take over Englund's most well known role. Initially, the studio wanted to cast an unknown for the role of Freddy Krueger, but it was Haley's performance in Little Children
that impressed Emmerich enough to cast the actor against the original intentions. Emmerich explained, "Freddy is this incredible stew of malevolence and anger, but he also has a hint of vulnerability, and Jackie really has all of that and more. He just seemed completely right for the part." Bayer stated that he and producers Form and Fuller managed to acquire the screen test Haley gave as Rorschach for Watchmen
; after viewing it, Bayer said it "blew [his] mind", and that he knew Haley would be able to go deep and create a believable character who was a "[psychopath] with a burned face and a claw".
Haley said the first time he heard his name mentioned in conjunction with the character was from people suggesting his casting on the internet, which he appreciated, and then later learned that his agents were already in talks with Brad Fuller. Haley stated that he was apprehensive about taking on the role of a character with such a dark past—that of a child murderer—for about a "minute and a half". Knowing the Freddy Krueger in the remake would be even darker, Haley came to the realization quickly that at the end of the day he is doing a horror film, and this is just a fictional character. Haley said that once he embraced the idea of Freddy just being a "mythical boogeyman", it became "very freeing" for him as an actor.
Haley is contracted for three films, which includes the remake and two sequels. Englund stated he agreed with the casting of Haley, noting that he feels Haley's physical size works for him in this role. Explaining why they chose to take away the comical aspect of Freddy's personality, Form and Fuller stated, "We've never been attracted to a jokey antagonist because it feels less scary and less real". Even though the character is closer to how he was portrayed in the original film, Haley has stated that he does not intend to have Englund's performances influence his own. Haley stated that he used the frustration of having to sit in the make-up chair for three and a half hours as his motivation to get into character.
Rooney Mara plays the role of Nancy Holbrook; Mara is also contracted for a sequel. Bayer describes Nancy as "the loneliest girl in the world". Mara stated that her Nancy is different than the role of Nancy Thompson, performed by Heather Langenkamp, and described her character as "socially awkward and timid and really doesn't know how to connect with people". Kyle Gallner
was cast as Quentin, who forms a connection with Nancy. Gallner described his character as "a mess, more jittery and more 'out there' than Nancy is". Gallner pointed out that his character is like this because of the amount of pharmaceuticals he ingests to stay awake. Producer Brad Fuller commented that Gallner brought a sense of "humanity and relatability" to the role with his compassion and intellect. Other cast members include Katie Cassidy
, Thomas Dekker
, and Kellan Lutz
. Cassidy performed the role of Kris. According to Cassidy, Kris becomes an emotional wreck throughout the film. Cassidy described her character's ordeal: "She is literally dragged through hell, having to crawl through dark, claustrophobic tunnels. She's always crying and freaking out as her nightmares of Freddy bleed into her everyday life. Kris suspects there's something that connects her with the others; she even confronts her mother about it, but no one's talking."
Dekker portrays Jesse, Kris's ex-boyfriend. According to Dekker, "Jesse kind of knows what's going on but refuses to believe it." Dekker explained that Jesse spends so much time trying to convince himself that Freddy is not real, that by the time he does meet Freddy face-to-face, "he's just a mess.. [...] There's no bravado about it. His terror is very real." Lutz plays Dean, Kris's current boyfriend and "a well-liked, well-off high school jock". Connie Britton
and Clancy Brown
also star. Gallner and Mara explained that the teenagers in the remake are "a little more aware" of Freddy and their situation, whereas in the original Gallner and Mara characterized Nancy and her friends as "more mellow" and "nonchalant" about their situation until they were finally killed.
, creating the computer-generated images (CGI) for Two-Face
's face, were brought in to work on the minimal CGI used for Freddy's face. The CGI is used in conjunction with the special effects make-up that Haley wears. The prosthetics used to create Freddy's physical look were designed by Andrew Clement. Haley described the experience of wearing all of the prosthetics and make-up as "pretty encumbering".
When production first started, Clement and his crew would spend six hours applying Haley's make-up; eventually, the crew was able to streamline their process. According to Haley, the make-up crew would apply individual prosthetics to him, from his head all the way down his back, which were glued to his body. The appliances were then blended together to create a seamless appearance. Haley spent approximately three hours and twenty minutes in the make-up chair to apply the prosthetics, each day; on occasion, it would take almost four and a half hours when the crew needed to apply the prosthetic skull cap, which Haley did not need to worry about most days as he was able to wear the fedora hat on top of his head. Haley also had to wear contact lenses, one that was bloody and another that was cloudy, with the latter one making it difficult for the actor to see out of. Haley also had to work on developing Freddy's "voice" for the film. According to Haley, the process of coming up with the perfect voice for Freddy is "this organic process of embodying the character", and not about just "sitting around the table and going, 'Let me try this voice and this voice'". Haley and Bayer admitted that some of the voice would be digitally enhanced in the end to give it a "supernatural quality" and get it away from the voice Haley used as Rorschach
in Watchmen
.
began on May 5, 2009 and officially wrapped
on July 10, 2009. Platinum Dunes chose to film in Illinois
because of pleasurable filming experiences in the state when the company produced The Amityville Horror and The Unborn. Platinum Dunes also received a thirty percent tax break for filming in the state. For a representation of human version of Krueger, the producers were looking for locations that were "old and decaying". They settled on the Ryerson Steel warehouse on the West Side of Chicago. The warehouse became the central location for the scenes involving the townspeople burning Krueger alive.
New Line contracted with two high schools in Illinois
, Elk Grove High School and John Hersey High School
, to use their location for scenes in the remake. According to Principal Nancy Holman, of Elk Grove High, the studio contacted schools across the nation looking for one that had a swimming pool. Although filming took place at both schools, neither was identified by name. The studio also cast 200 extras for various school scenes, including one in the pool, but required that all auditioning students be at least 16-years old. School board President Lenore Gonzales Bragaw was initially apprehensive about the deal, as she disliked the idea of the studio filming "scenes of violence" at the schools; Bragaw agreed to the filming after being assured that no one would be killed during the swimming scenes.
On May 22, 2009, the Nightmare on Elm Street film crew went on location to the city of Gary, Indiana
to film scenes at a Methodist church. The studio negotiated with the city for months before finally settling on a deal. According to Ben Clement, the executive director of the Gary Office of Film and Television, the studio was looking for "an architectural style that would fit the storyline of the film". The film crew returned to Gary in June to film a dream sequence that takes place on Elm Street in one of the local streets, and in December some new scenes were shot in a diner, with new characters.
According to Fuller and Form, Warner Bros. suggested A Nightmare on Elm Street be released in 3-D, with the recent surge in 3-D films showing increased box office revenue. In the opinion of the Platinum Dunes producers, if a film is not initially conceived as 3-D then it should not be converted to 3-D. In other words, given that the original Nightmare on Elm Street was not a 3-D film, Fuller and Form fought with the studio to keep the remake from being converted to 3-D. The producers note that at the end of the day, Warner Bros. and Platinum Dunes came to the agreement that presenting the film in 3-D would not be presenting "the best version of the movie".
, who recorded the film's music with a 60-piece string ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony
at the Sony Scoring Stage. On April 6, 2010, it was announced that Jablonsky's musical score will be released on CD.
by 318 theaters. A Nightmare on Elm Street was released on DVD
and Blu-ray
on October 5, 2010. The DVD's only feature is a featurette, "Freddy Krueger Reborn". The Blu-ray special features include the DVD's featurette along with a deleted scene
, an alternate opening and ending, and the "Maniacle Movie Mode".
remake in 2009 that grossed $1 million. Ultimately, the film finished its opening with $32,902,299, placing first for the weekend ahead of How to Train Your Dragon
(6th week in release), Date Night
, (4th week in release) The Back-up Plan
(2nd week in release), and Furry Vengeance
; the latter film was also in its opening weekend. A Nightmare on Elm Street dropped 72 percent in its second weekend, earning only $9,119,389; but only dropped to second place for the weekend, just behind Iron Man 2
. The film dropped an additional 54 percent in its third week, bringing in only $1.5 million, though it remained in the Top 10 rankings for the weekend, placing sixth overall. The film remained in the top ten for the fourth weekend in a row, grossing approximately $2,285,000 and finishing eighth for the week. In its fifth weekend, the 2010 remake fell out of the box office top ten, finishing eleventh with an estimated $910,000.
As of July 6, 2010, A Nightmare on Elm Street has earned $63,071,122 at the domestic box office. The film was officially released overseas on May 8, 2010. In its opening weekend, it took in approximately $6.5 million throughout ten foreign territories. It also secured first place for the weekend at the Russian box office, with $3 million. Since its opening, the film has taken in approximately $52,332,285 in the overseas box office, giving it a worldwide total gross of $115,407,296.
The 2010 remake's opening weekend puts it ahead of the entire box office gross for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
($29,999,213), A Nightmare on Elm Street ($25,504,513), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
($22,168,359), and Wes Craven's New Nightmare
($18,090,181). When adjusting the opening weekend for the 1984 original for the 2010 inflation, the remake out grossed Wes Craven's film $32,902,299 to $2,736,653. When breaking the grosses down by per theater capital, the 1984 film averaged $16,585 per cinema compared to the remake's $9,874. Comparing the film to other Platinum Dunes remakes, A Nightmare on Elm Street is second in opening weekend gross, only behind Friday the 13th with $40,570,365. The film sits ahead of the other Platinum Dunes remakes, which includes 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
($28,094,014), 2005's The Amityville Horror
($23,507,007), and 2007's The Hitcher
($7,818,239). A Nightmare on Elm Street currently sits as the sixth highest opening for an April weekend.
The remake is currently the eighth all-time highest grossing slasher film in unadjusted dollars. It is also ninth all-time among horror remakes, dating back to 1982, in unadjusted dollars. When comparing its opening weekends to other slasher films and horror remakes, A Nightmare on Elm Street sits in fifth spots for both categories. The 2010 remake currently sits as the second highest grossing Nightmare on Elm Street film in the franchise in North America, just behind Freddy vs. Jason
($82,622,655), in unadjusted dollars.
, A Nightmare on Elm Street holds a 13% overall approval rating from critics, with an average
score of 3.6 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an approval rating of 13%. By comparison, Metacritic
, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 35, based on 25 reviews. CinemaScore
polls reported that the average grade cinemagoers gave the film was a "C-plus" on an A+ to F scale, with exit polls showing that audiences were evenly divided between males and females, with 40 percent between 18–24 years of age and 20 percent under 18.
Owen Gleiberman
of Entertainment Weekly
gave it a "B–" and concluded that, "I did jump a few times, and I liked Haley's dour malevolence, but overall, the new Nightmare on Elm Street is a by-the-numbers bad dream that plays a little too much like a corporately ordered rerun. One, two, Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, we've been there before". Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter
criticized the acting calling it "lethargically lifeless" and criticized Haley's portrayal of Krueger, saying, "Even with his electronically deepened voice and a pointless amount of backstory, there's just no replacing Englund". Roger Ebert
of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 1 star out of 4, writing in his review, "I stared at A Nightmare on Elm Street with weary resignation. The movie consists of a series of teenagers who are introduced, haunted by nightmares and then slashed to death by Freddy. So what? Are we supposed to be scared? Is the sudden clanging chord supposed to evoke a fearful Pavlovian response?".
On January 5, 2011, the film won the People's Choice Award for "Best Horror Film".
(NECA) released two new Freddy Krueger action figures; one pre-burned Freddy with Jackie Earle Haley's likeness, and one based on the new burn design from the Nightmare on Elm Street remake. In addition, NECA also released a replica of Freddy's clawed glove. In conjunction with the film, an online game was released where the user attempted to keep a young girl awake—through the use of coffee, cold showers, self mutilation, and other various means—so as to keep her safe from Freddy.
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
directed by Samuel Bayer
Samuel Bayer
Samuel David Bayer is an American commercial, music video and film director, and cinematographer.-Early life:Bayer was born in Syracuse, New York...
, and written by Wesley Strick
Wesley Strick
Wesley Strick is an American screenwriter who has written such films as the comic-horror hit Arachnophobia, the Martin Scorsese remake of Cape Fear and the videogame adaptation Doom.-Life and career:...
and Eric Heisserer
Eric Heisserer
- Career :Heisserer's professional screenwriting career was launched with the sale of The Dionaea House to Warner Bros. in 2005, based on an online epistolary story of the same name that he wrote in October 2004. He then developed an original television pilot for Paramount Pictures and CBS, and...
. The film stars Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
, Kyle Gallner
Kyle Gallner
Kyle Gallner is an American actor. He is possibly best known for his portrayal of Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas in the Teen neo-noir television series Veronica Mars, and for guest-starring in teen sci-fi drama Smallville as superhero Bart Allen, an adaptation of the character of The Flash and...
, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy
Katie Cassidy
Katherine Evelyn Anita "Katie" Cassidy is an American actress who has performed in The CW TV series Melrose Place, Supernatural, Harper's Island, and Gossip Girl, and on the films When a Stranger Calls, Black Christmas, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Taken, Monte Carlo, and has roles in the upcoming...
, Thomas Dekker
Thomas Dekker (actor)
Thomas Alexander Dekker is an American film and television actor and a musician. He is also a singer and has written and produced two albums. He is best known for his roles as John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Nick Szalinski on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, and Zach...
and Kellan Lutz
Kellan Lutz
Kellan Christopher Lutz is an American fashion model, and film and television actor, who is best known for playing Emmett Cullen in the Twilight series.-Early life:...
. It is a remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
of Wes Craven
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, perhaps best known as the director of many horror films, particularly slasher films, including the famed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, featuring the iconic Freddy Krueger character, the...
's 1984 film of the same name
A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American slasher film directed and written by Wes Craven, and the first film of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film features Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund, and Johnny Depp in his feature film...
and the ninth Nightmare film in total, produced by Michael Bay
Michael Bay
Michael Benjamin Bay is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing high-budget action films characterized by their fast edits, stylistic visuals and substantial practical special effects...
and Platinum Dunes
Platinum Dunes
Platinum Dunes is a production company created in 2001 by filmmakers Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form. The company specializes in horror films, particularly remakes.Their website is part of Bloody Disgusting's site....
, it is designed to reboot the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise
A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise)
A Nightmare on Elm Street is an American horror franchise that consists of nine slasher films, a television show, novels, and comic books. The franchise began with the film series created by Wes Craven. The franchise is based on the fictional character Freddy Krueger, introduced in A Nightmare on...
. The film centers around a group of teenagers being stalked and murdered in their dreams by a man named Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger
Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger is a fictional, horrifying character from the Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films. He first appears in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street as a disfigured dream stalker who uses a glove armed with razors to kill his victims in their dreams,...
, ultimately discovering they all share a common link from their childhood that is making them targets for Freddy.
A Nightmare on Elm Street was originally going to follow the same design as Platinum Dunes' other remake, Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th (2009 film)
Friday the 13th is a 2009 American slasher film directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a reboot of the Friday the 13th film series, which began in 1980 and the twelfth Friday the 13th film in total...
, with the writers taking what they thought were the best elements from each of the films and creating a single storyline with them. Eventually, they decided to use Craven's original storyline, and try to create a scarier film. That being, they decided to remove the one-line quipping Freddy, who had become less scary and more comical over the years, and bring him back to a darker nature; this included developing the character as a true child molester, something that Craven wanted to do originally in 1984 but changed to a child killer instead. The decision was also made to bring Freddy's physical appearance closer to that of an actual burn victim, and the use of computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
was used in certain sections of Haley's face to further assist in that vision. A Nightmare on Elm Street was primarily filmed in Illinois because of the positive experience the producers of Platinum Dunes had when filming other films in the same area.
Robert Englund
Robert Englund
Robert Barton Englund is an American actor, voice-actor and director, best known for playing the fictional serial killer Freddy Krueger, in the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. He received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in...
, who portrayed Freddy in the previous eight films, voiced his support of the remake and the casting of Haley in the role of Freddy. A Nightmare on Elm Street was officially released in North America on April 30, 2010, and later released in foreign markets on May 8, 2010. The film was met with primarily negative reviews from film critics, as well as audience members who scored the film a "C-plus". Regardless, A Nightmare on Elm Street broke the record for midnight openings for a horror film. The film has brought in over $63 million at the domestic box office, and over $115 million worldwide.
Plot
Kris Fowles (Katie CassidyKatie Cassidy
Katherine Evelyn Anita "Katie" Cassidy is an American actress who has performed in The CW TV series Melrose Place, Supernatural, Harper's Island, and Gossip Girl, and on the films When a Stranger Calls, Black Christmas, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Taken, Monte Carlo, and has roles in the upcoming...
) goes to the Springwood Diner to meet with her boyfriend, Dean Russell (Kellan Lutz
Kellan Lutz
Kellan Christopher Lutz is an American fashion model, and film and television actor, who is best known for playing Emmett Cullen in the Twilight series.-Early life:...
), who falls asleep at the table and meets a man covered in burn scars, wearing a red and green sweater and a clawed glove on his hand. The burned man cuts Dean's throat in the dream, but in reality it appears that Dean is cutting his own throat as his friend, waitress Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara), looks on with Kris. At Dean's funeral, Kris sees a photograph of her and Dean as children, but cannot recall ever knowing Dean before high school. Kris begins to dream about the burned man herself and refuses to go to sleep for fear that she will die in her dreams. Jesse Braun (Thomas Dekker
Thomas Dekker (actor)
Thomas Alexander Dekker is an American film and television actor and a musician. He is also a singer and has written and produced two albums. He is best known for his roles as John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Nick Szalinski on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, and Zach...
), Kris's ex-boyfriend, shows up at her house to keep her company while she sleeps, but Kris meets the burned man in her dreams and is murdered. Covered in blood, Jesse runs to Nancy's house to try to explain what happened and he learns that Nancy has been having dreams about the same man: Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger
Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger is a fictional, horrifying character from the Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films. He first appears in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street as a disfigured dream stalker who uses a glove armed with razors to kill his victims in their dreams,...
(Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
).
Jesse is apprehended by the police under suspicion of murdering Kris, and is killed by Krueger when he falls asleep in his jail cell. With her friends dying, Nancy begins to question what everyone's connection is to each other, given that none of them can remember each other before their teenage years. Eventually, Nancy and her friend Quentin Smith (Kyle Gallner
Kyle Gallner
Kyle Gallner is an American actor. He is possibly best known for his portrayal of Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas in the Teen neo-noir television series Veronica Mars, and for guest-starring in teen sci-fi drama Smallville as superhero Bart Allen, an adaptation of the character of The Flash and...
) discover that all of them attended the same preschool together. Nancy's mother, Gwen (Connie Britton
Connie Britton
Connie Britton is an American actress. She is best known for the roles of Nikki Faber on Spin City and on Friday Night Lights as Tami Taylor. Her most notable films are Friday Night Lights and A Nightmare on Elm Street...
), reluctantly tells Nancy and Quentin that there was a gardener at the preschool, Fred Krueger, who abused Nancy and the rest of the kids. Gwen explains that Nancy was his favorite, and came home one day telling her mom about a hidden space in Krueger's room and the things he did to her there. Gwen claims Krueger skipped town before he was arrested. Nancy does not believe her and attempts to track down the remaining kids from the school. Nancy eventually discovers that all of the other kids, Lisa Harper, Bret Tanzer, Sukari McGill, Nancy Lumb, Elizabeth Cook, Marcus Yeon, Carrie Bush, and Craig Jackson, have been killed, most of them in their sleep. Meanwhile, Quentin tries to accept that his nightmares are nothing more than repressed memories
Repressed memory
Repressed memory is a hypothetical concept used to describe a significant memory, usually of a traumatic nature, that has become unavailable for recall; also called motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one's life...
, but he falls asleep during swim practice and witnesses what really happened to Krueger. Quentin sees everyone's parents hunt down Krueger, and then burn him alive. Quentin and Nancy confront Quentin's father, Alan Smith (Clancy Brown
Clancy Brown
Clarence J. "Clancy" Brown III is an American actor and voice actor. He is known for his roles in live action as The Kurgan in the cult classic film Highlander, Byron Hadley in the award-winning The Shawshank Redemption, Brother Justin Crowe in HBO's critically acclaimed Carnivàle, and Career...
), about the reality that they murdered Krueger with no evidence that he had committed any crime. Thus, Nancy and Quentin believe that Krueger wants revenge on them for lying as children. As result of their insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
, Nancy and Quentin begin sporadically dreaming while they are still awake. To try and stop Krueger, they decide to go to the preschool and learn what they can.
On the way, Nancy falls asleep and is attacked by Krueger, but when Quentin wakes her up they discover she has pulled a piece of Krueger's sweater out of the dreamworld and into reality. Quentin takes Nancy to the hospital for cuts on her arm; there, he steals some adrenaline
Epinephrine
Epinephrine is a hormone and a neurotransmitter. It increases heart rate, constricts blood vessels, dilates air passages and participates in the fight-or-flight response of the sympathetic nervous system. In chemical terms, adrenaline is one of a group of monoamines called the catecholamines...
and a syringe to help them stay awake. Nancy and Quentin eventually make it to the preschool. Quentin uncovers Krueger's hidden room and the evidence that proves Krueger was in fact abusing all of the children; they realize that Krueger actually wants revenge on them for telling the truth. Nancy decides the only way to end this is to pull Krueger out of their dreams and kill him in reality. Quentin tries to stay awake long enough to pull Nancy out of her dream when she has Krueger, but he falls asleep and is attacked. Krueger then goes after Nancy, and explains that he intentionally left her for last so she would stay awake long enough that, when she finally fell asleep, she would no longer be able to wake up. While Nancy struggles with Krueger, Quentin uses the adrenaline to wake up Nancy who pulls Krueger into reality. With Krueger distracted by Quentin, Nancy uses a broken paper cutter blade to cut Krueger's gloved hand off, and then slice his throat. Afterward, Nancy torches the secret room, with Krueger's body left inside, while she and Quentin leave. Nancy and her mother return home from the hospital; Krueger suddenly appears in a mirror's reflection and kills Nancy's mother before pulling her body through the mirror while Nancy screams.
Development
On January 29, 2008, VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
reported that Michael Bay
Michael Bay
Michael Benjamin Bay is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing high-budget action films characterized by their fast edits, stylistic visuals and substantial practical special effects...
and his Platinum Dunes
Platinum Dunes
Platinum Dunes is a production company created in 2001 by filmmakers Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form. The company specializes in horror films, particularly remakes.Their website is part of Bloody Disgusting's site....
production company would be rebooting the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with a remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
of the original 1984 film
A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American slasher film directed and written by Wes Craven, and the first film of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film features Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund, and Johnny Depp in his feature film...
. In an interview, producer Brad Fuller initially explained that they were following the same line they did with their Friday the 13th remake
Friday the 13th (2009 film)
Friday the 13th is a 2009 American slasher film directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a reboot of the Friday the 13th film series, which began in 1980 and the twelfth Friday the 13th film in total...
, by abandoning the things that made the character less scary—the film's antagonist, Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger
Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger is a fictional, horrifying character from the Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films. He first appears in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street as a disfigured dream stalker who uses a glove armed with razors to kill his victims in their dreams,...
, would not be "cracking jokes" as had become a staple of his character in later films—and focusing more on trying to craft a "horrifying movie". Fuller expressed how everyone at the studio loved the concept of being killed if you fell asleep. The producer stated that the film would be a remake of the 1984 film, but clarified that they would be borrowing certain character deaths and dream sequence
Dream sequence
A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
s from the entire Nightmare series.
In February 2009, The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
announced that Samuel Bayer
Samuel Bayer
Samuel David Bayer is an American commercial, music video and film director, and cinematographer.-Early life:Bayer was born in Syracuse, New York...
was hired to direct the film. According to New Line production chief Toby Emmerich, Michael Bay advocated heavily for Bayer's hiring, as Bay, Bayer, and director David Fincher
David Fincher
David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
came up as commercial directors together. It is Bay's opinion that Bayer had "the ability to capture the kind of seductive and unsettling imagery that would make Nightmare feel like a fresh, visually arresting moviegoing experience". Bayer declined Platinum Dunes' offer; twice. It was not until Bay sent the director an email "talking about the business", and explaining what kind of opportunity it would be for Bayer that he finally agreed.
| "It's definitely not a standard slasher film. This is a movie that you can mention to people and their jaws drop [...] because of that franchise, that character, had a profound effect on their childhood. [...] I hear things like, 'Freddy scared the hell out of me.' [...] What everyone involved wants to do is re-invent the character for a new generation." |
| — Samuel Bayer on remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street. |
In a June 9, 2009 interview, Craven expressed his displeasure in the remaking of his 1984 film, primarily because the filmmakers chose not to have him as a consultant to the film, unlike with the 2009 remake The Last House on the Left
The Last House on the Left (2009 film)
The Last House on the Left is a 2009 American film directed by Dennis Iliadis and written by Carl Ellsworth and Adam Alleca. It is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name, and stars Monica Potter, Tony Goldwyn, Garret Dillahunt, and Sara Paxton...
where he "shepherd[ed] it towards production". In contrast, Robert Englund
Robert Englund
Robert Barton Englund is an American actor, voice-actor and director, best known for playing the fictional serial killer Freddy Krueger, in the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. He received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in...
, who portrayed Freddy throughout the film series, felt it was time for A Nightmare on Elm Street to be remade. Englund liked the idea of being able to "exploit the dreamscape" with CGI and other technologies that did not exist when Craven was making the original Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. Subsequently, Bayer believed that the film is designed to pay homage to what Craven did in 1984, but not replicate it entirely. Bayer recognized that Craven attempted to put more meaning into his films, and that the character of Freddy Krueger was one that affected the lives of a certain generation of people. For Bayer, remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street was about bringing that feeling to a new generation, with a new spin on the character and story.
Fuller and Form likened the new Nightmare film to their 2003 remake
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 film)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a 2003 remake of the 1974 horror film of the same name. The 2003 film was directed by Marcus Nispel and produced by Michael Bay...
of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American independent horror film directed and produced by Tobe Hooper, who cowrote it with Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the...
, and retracted an earlier statement when they said they did not plan to "cherry pick" the best elements of the franchise, like they did with the reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise they released in 2009. Instead, the 2010 film is more of a reimagining. The pair also explained that A Nightmare on Elm Street would have a different tone than the Friday the 13th remake. Form states, "I think a Friday the 13th movie like we made was really fun. You know, sex, drugs and rock and roll, and I think a Nightmare movie is not that."
When asked why New Line was rebooting the Nightmare on Elm Street film series, Emmerich explained, "The Nightmare films are profoundly disturbing on a deep, human level because they're about our dreams. It's why we thought that we could reach an especially broad audience with a new film, since the feeling of having your dreams being invaded was something that would translate to any country and any culture." Overall, Bayer wanted to create a darker Nightmare on Elm Street, one he felt would fit into what he describes as "a darker world". Bayer said there is subtext within the film, which is designed to get the audience to ask, "What makes a monster?" Bayer wants the audience to think about whether a monster is something that exists purely from a physical appearance—someone with a scarred face and a clawed glove on their hand—or can a monster be something that is deeper, and within the man himself without a scarred face and bladed glove.
Writing
Wesley Strick was initially hired to pen a script for a new Nightmare on Elm Street, after he impressed Emmerich with a prequel script he wrote for the 1995 film SevenSeven (film)
Seven is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements, directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was distributed by New Line Cinema and stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R...
; the film was never produced. Eric Heisserer was subsequently hired to provide a rewrite of Strick's script before the film moved into production. When Bayer came on board he received a script that reflected the combined efforts of Strick and Heisserer, and which still "needed to be tinkered with". Bayer explained that the script goes deeper into "[Freddy] as a person [and] how he became the thing he was". Bayer expressed that, unlike the Friday the 13th remake that picked the best parts from the first four films, the Nightmare remake is coming straight from the first film. At one point there was a scene in an early draft of the script where some characters were playing Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first entry in the Guitar Hero series. Guitar Hero was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, April 7, 2006 in Europe and June 15, 2006 in...
. Fuller explained that the scene was removed to keep the film from feeling dated. To him, if someone watched the film five years later, and Guitar Hero was not as popular as it once was, it would automatically make the film feel more dated upon viewing. At the same time, they wanted the film to feel relevant, and including things like the Internet, mobile phones, and text messaging would give the film a more timeless feel.
For the remake, Freddy was brought back to his darker roots and away from the comical character he had become in later Nightmare on Elm Street sequels. Fuller pointed out that this Freddy does have one-liners, but his comments come from a darker sense of humor and not intended to be as campy as previously seen. In addition, it was decided to follow Craven's original characterization of Freddy as a child molester. The decision to apply that characteristic was based in part on the idea that there would not be much of a story to tell if he simply killed children for no apparent reason. It would be easy for the teenage characters to figure out, whereas it is easier to hide the idea of children being molested and force the teen characters to seek out the truth of what happened. In an effort to keep the story fresh, Heisserer developed the concept of micro-naps. In the story, as the characters prolong their time without sleeping they begin to experience micro-naps, which is where a character will unknowingly start dreaming while they are still awake. The micro-naps allowed the filmmakers the chance to blur the lines between reality and the dreamworld by offering an explanation for how the characters could slip so easily into a dream.
Casting
In February 2009, The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
revealed Robert Englund would not reprise the role of Freddy Krueger for the remake; Englund had performed the role for the eight previous films. On April 3, 2009 Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
reported that Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
was cast to take over Englund's most well known role. Initially, the studio wanted to cast an unknown for the role of Freddy Krueger, but it was Haley's performance in Little Children
Little Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
that impressed Emmerich enough to cast the actor against the original intentions. Emmerich explained, "Freddy is this incredible stew of malevolence and anger, but he also has a hint of vulnerability, and Jackie really has all of that and more. He just seemed completely right for the part." Bayer stated that he and producers Form and Fuller managed to acquire the screen test Haley gave as Rorschach for Watchmen
Watchmen (film)
Watchmen is a 2009 superhero film directed by Zack Snyder and starring Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson. It is an adaptation of the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons...
; after viewing it, Bayer said it "blew [his] mind", and that he knew Haley would be able to go deep and create a believable character who was a "[psychopath] with a burned face and a claw".
Haley said the first time he heard his name mentioned in conjunction with the character was from people suggesting his casting on the internet, which he appreciated, and then later learned that his agents were already in talks with Brad Fuller. Haley stated that he was apprehensive about taking on the role of a character with such a dark past—that of a child murderer—for about a "minute and a half". Knowing the Freddy Krueger in the remake would be even darker, Haley came to the realization quickly that at the end of the day he is doing a horror film, and this is just a fictional character. Haley said that once he embraced the idea of Freddy just being a "mythical boogeyman", it became "very freeing" for him as an actor.
| "Jackie is not big, and I think that Jackie's size is gonna really work [...] One of the metaphors [...] I've used for Freddy is a little rabid dog that just bites your ankle and holds on. [...] And I think Jackie brings that, with his own physicality, to the role, without ever having to work it a little bit." |
| — Robert Englund on Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger. |
Haley is contracted for three films, which includes the remake and two sequels. Englund stated he agreed with the casting of Haley, noting that he feels Haley's physical size works for him in this role. Explaining why they chose to take away the comical aspect of Freddy's personality, Form and Fuller stated, "We've never been attracted to a jokey antagonist because it feels less scary and less real". Even though the character is closer to how he was portrayed in the original film, Haley has stated that he does not intend to have Englund's performances influence his own. Haley stated that he used the frustration of having to sit in the make-up chair for three and a half hours as his motivation to get into character.
Rooney Mara plays the role of Nancy Holbrook; Mara is also contracted for a sequel. Bayer describes Nancy as "the loneliest girl in the world". Mara stated that her Nancy is different than the role of Nancy Thompson, performed by Heather Langenkamp, and described her character as "socially awkward and timid and really doesn't know how to connect with people". Kyle Gallner
Kyle Gallner
Kyle Gallner is an American actor. He is possibly best known for his portrayal of Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas in the Teen neo-noir television series Veronica Mars, and for guest-starring in teen sci-fi drama Smallville as superhero Bart Allen, an adaptation of the character of The Flash and...
was cast as Quentin, who forms a connection with Nancy. Gallner described his character as "a mess, more jittery and more 'out there' than Nancy is". Gallner pointed out that his character is like this because of the amount of pharmaceuticals he ingests to stay awake. Producer Brad Fuller commented that Gallner brought a sense of "humanity and relatability" to the role with his compassion and intellect. Other cast members include Katie Cassidy
Katie Cassidy
Katherine Evelyn Anita "Katie" Cassidy is an American actress who has performed in The CW TV series Melrose Place, Supernatural, Harper's Island, and Gossip Girl, and on the films When a Stranger Calls, Black Christmas, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Taken, Monte Carlo, and has roles in the upcoming...
, Thomas Dekker
Thomas Dekker (actor)
Thomas Alexander Dekker is an American film and television actor and a musician. He is also a singer and has written and produced two albums. He is best known for his roles as John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Nick Szalinski on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, and Zach...
, and Kellan Lutz
Kellan Lutz
Kellan Christopher Lutz is an American fashion model, and film and television actor, who is best known for playing Emmett Cullen in the Twilight series.-Early life:...
. Cassidy performed the role of Kris. According to Cassidy, Kris becomes an emotional wreck throughout the film. Cassidy described her character's ordeal: "She is literally dragged through hell, having to crawl through dark, claustrophobic tunnels. She's always crying and freaking out as her nightmares of Freddy bleed into her everyday life. Kris suspects there's something that connects her with the others; she even confronts her mother about it, but no one's talking."
Dekker portrays Jesse, Kris's ex-boyfriend. According to Dekker, "Jesse kind of knows what's going on but refuses to believe it." Dekker explained that Jesse spends so much time trying to convince himself that Freddy is not real, that by the time he does meet Freddy face-to-face, "he's just a mess.. [...] There's no bravado about it. His terror is very real." Lutz plays Dean, Kris's current boyfriend and "a well-liked, well-off high school jock". Connie Britton
Connie Britton
Connie Britton is an American actress. She is best known for the roles of Nikki Faber on Spin City and on Friday Night Lights as Tami Taylor. Her most notable films are Friday Night Lights and A Nightmare on Elm Street...
and Clancy Brown
Clancy Brown
Clarence J. "Clancy" Brown III is an American actor and voice actor. He is known for his roles in live action as The Kurgan in the cult classic film Highlander, Byron Hadley in the award-winning The Shawshank Redemption, Brother Justin Crowe in HBO's critically acclaimed Carnivàle, and Career...
also star. Gallner and Mara explained that the teenagers in the remake are "a little more aware" of Freddy and their situation, whereas in the original Gallner and Mara characterized Nancy and her friends as "more mellow" and "nonchalant" about their situation until they were finally killed.
Krueger's design
Discussing his physical appearance, Form and Fuller explained that Freddy would be more similar to a real burn victim. Form later clarified that there was a fine line they did not want to cross when it came to making Freddy look like a true burn victim. According to the producer, the crew had many reference photos of actual victims, which detailed how white the skin would appear after healing. Form did not want the audience to turn away in disgust every time Freddy was on the screen, so they opted to hold back on some of the realism. Fuller expressed how horrific the images were, and how difficult they were to look at. The special effects crew that worked on The Dark KnightThe Dark Knight (film)
The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...
, creating the computer-generated images (CGI) for Two-Face
Two-Face
Two-Face is a fictional comic book supervillain who appears in comic books published by DC Comics. and is an enemy of Batman. The character first appeared in Detective Comics #66 , and was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger....
's face, were brought in to work on the minimal CGI used for Freddy's face. The CGI is used in conjunction with the special effects make-up that Haley wears. The prosthetics used to create Freddy's physical look were designed by Andrew Clement. Haley described the experience of wearing all of the prosthetics and make-up as "pretty encumbering".
When production first started, Clement and his crew would spend six hours applying Haley's make-up; eventually, the crew was able to streamline their process. According to Haley, the make-up crew would apply individual prosthetics to him, from his head all the way down his back, which were glued to his body. The appliances were then blended together to create a seamless appearance. Haley spent approximately three hours and twenty minutes in the make-up chair to apply the prosthetics, each day; on occasion, it would take almost four and a half hours when the crew needed to apply the prosthetic skull cap, which Haley did not need to worry about most days as he was able to wear the fedora hat on top of his head. Haley also had to wear contact lenses, one that was bloody and another that was cloudy, with the latter one making it difficult for the actor to see out of. Haley also had to work on developing Freddy's "voice" for the film. According to Haley, the process of coming up with the perfect voice for Freddy is "this organic process of embodying the character", and not about just "sitting around the table and going, 'Let me try this voice and this voice'". Haley and Bayer admitted that some of the voice would be digitally enhanced in the end to give it a "supernatural quality" and get it away from the voice Haley used as Rorschach
Rorschach (comics)
Rorschach is a fictional comic book character and antihero that was featured in the acclaimed 1986 DC Comics miniseries Watchmen...
in Watchmen
Watchmen (film)
Watchmen is a 2009 superhero film directed by Zack Snyder and starring Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson. It is an adaptation of the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons...
.
Filming
With a budget of $35 million, principal photographyPrincipal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
began on May 5, 2009 and officially wrapped
Wrap (filmmaking)
Wrap is a phrase used by the director in the early days of the film industry to signal the end of filming. Nowadays, the call is more commonly "that's a wrap!"...
on July 10, 2009. Platinum Dunes chose to film in Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
because of pleasurable filming experiences in the state when the company produced The Amityville Horror and The Unborn. Platinum Dunes also received a thirty percent tax break for filming in the state. For a representation of human version of Krueger, the producers were looking for locations that were "old and decaying". They settled on the Ryerson Steel warehouse on the West Side of Chicago. The warehouse became the central location for the scenes involving the townspeople burning Krueger alive.
New Line contracted with two high schools in Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, Elk Grove High School and John Hersey High School
John Hersey High School
John Hersey High School, , is a four-year public high school located in Arlington Heights, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois in the United States, it has its students from Arlington Heights and also takes some students from Prospect Heights, Mount Prospect and a small part of Des...
, to use their location for scenes in the remake. According to Principal Nancy Holman, of Elk Grove High, the studio contacted schools across the nation looking for one that had a swimming pool. Although filming took place at both schools, neither was identified by name. The studio also cast 200 extras for various school scenes, including one in the pool, but required that all auditioning students be at least 16-years old. School board President Lenore Gonzales Bragaw was initially apprehensive about the deal, as she disliked the idea of the studio filming "scenes of violence" at the schools; Bragaw agreed to the filming after being assured that no one would be killed during the swimming scenes.
On May 22, 2009, the Nightmare on Elm Street film crew went on location to the city of Gary, Indiana
Gary, Indiana
Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city is in the southeastern portion of the Chicago metropolitan area and is 25 miles from downtown Chicago. The population is 80,294 at the 2010 census, making it the seventh-largest city in the state. It borders Lake Michigan and is known...
to film scenes at a Methodist church. The studio negotiated with the city for months before finally settling on a deal. According to Ben Clement, the executive director of the Gary Office of Film and Television, the studio was looking for "an architectural style that would fit the storyline of the film". The film crew returned to Gary in June to film a dream sequence that takes place on Elm Street in one of the local streets, and in December some new scenes were shot in a diner, with new characters.
According to Fuller and Form, Warner Bros. suggested A Nightmare on Elm Street be released in 3-D, with the recent surge in 3-D films showing increased box office revenue. In the opinion of the Platinum Dunes producers, if a film is not initially conceived as 3-D then it should not be converted to 3-D. In other words, given that the original Nightmare on Elm Street was not a 3-D film, Fuller and Form fought with the studio to keep the remake from being converted to 3-D. The producers note that at the end of the day, Warner Bros. and Platinum Dunes came to the agreement that presenting the film in 3-D would not be presenting "the best version of the movie".
Music
The score to A Nightmare on Elm Street was composed by Steve JablonskySteve Jablonsky
Steven Jablonsky is an American music composer for film, television and video games. He has been the music director for all the Michael Bay movies produced and directed since The Island...
, who recorded the film's music with a 60-piece string ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony
Hollywood Studio Symphony
The Hollywood Studio Symphony is the credited name of the symphony orchestra behind many major soundtracks, including The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Sucker Punch, Jurassic Park 3, Last Samurai, Pirates of the Caribbean, We Are Marshall, Spider-Man 2, Lost and The...
at the Sony Scoring Stage. On April 6, 2010, it was announced that Jablonsky's musical score will be released on CD.
Release
A Nightmare on Elm Street was released on April 30, 2010 to 3,332 theaters and approximately 4700 screens, making it the twelfth largest opening for an R-rated film in the United States. Comparatively, the original Nightmare on Elm Street was only released to 165 theaters on its opening, November 9, 1984; its widest release by the end of its box office run was 380 theaters. The 2010 remake holds the record for widest Nightmare on Elm Street release, beating out Freddy vs. JasonFreddy vs. Jason
Freddy vs. Jason is a 2003 American slasher film directed by Ronny Yu. The film is a crossover between the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises...
by 318 theaters. A Nightmare on Elm Street was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on October 5, 2010. The DVD's only feature is a featurette, "Freddy Krueger Reborn". The Blu-ray special features include the DVD's featurette along with a deleted scene
Deleted scene
In Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
, an alternate opening and ending, and the "Maniacle Movie Mode".
Box office
Early estimates put Nightmare on Elm Streets opening day gross at approximately $15 million, with a projected opening weekend of $35 million. Included in the $15 million is the $1.6 million the film made from midnight showings on Thursday night from 1,000 theaters. As a result, Nightmare on Elm Street broke the record for midnight openings for a horror film, which was previously held by the Friday the 13thFriday the 13th (2009 film)
Friday the 13th is a 2009 American slasher film directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a reboot of the Friday the 13th film series, which began in 1980 and the twelfth Friday the 13th film in total...
remake in 2009 that grossed $1 million. Ultimately, the film finished its opening with $32,902,299, placing first for the weekend ahead of How to Train Your Dragon
How to Train Your Dragon (film)
How to Train Your Dragon is a 2010 3D computer-animated action fantasy film by DreamWorks Animation loosely based on the 2003 book of the same name. The film stars the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig, and Christopher...
(6th week in release), Date Night
Date Night
Date Night is a 2010 action comedy film directed by Shawn Levy and starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey. It was released in the United States on April 9, 2010...
, (4th week in release) The Back-up Plan
The Back-Up Plan
The Back-up Plan is a 2010 romantic comedy film, starring Jennifer Lopez and Alex O'Loughlin. It was released theatrically in the U.S. on April 23, 2010, and later in other regions...
(2nd week in release), and Furry Vengeance
Furry Vengeance
Furry Vengeance is a 2010 American comedy film directed by Roger Kumble. It stars Brendan Fraser, Matt Prokop, and Brooke Shields.-Plot:It all started when a prairie dog screams after Riggs' car passes by it and throwing a cigar, not minding about the environment...
; the latter film was also in its opening weekend. A Nightmare on Elm Street dropped 72 percent in its second weekend, earning only $9,119,389; but only dropped to second place for the weekend, just behind Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 is a 2010 American superhero film featuring the Marvel Comics character Iron Man, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is the sequel to 2008's Iron Man, the second film in a planned trilogy and is a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Directed by Jon...
. The film dropped an additional 54 percent in its third week, bringing in only $1.5 million, though it remained in the Top 10 rankings for the weekend, placing sixth overall. The film remained in the top ten for the fourth weekend in a row, grossing approximately $2,285,000 and finishing eighth for the week. In its fifth weekend, the 2010 remake fell out of the box office top ten, finishing eleventh with an estimated $910,000.
As of July 6, 2010, A Nightmare on Elm Street has earned $63,071,122 at the domestic box office. The film was officially released overseas on May 8, 2010. In its opening weekend, it took in approximately $6.5 million throughout ten foreign territories. It also secured first place for the weekend at the Russian box office, with $3 million. Since its opening, the film has taken in approximately $52,332,285 in the overseas box office, giving it a worldwide total gross of $115,407,296.
The 2010 remake's opening weekend puts it ahead of the entire box office gross for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge is a 1985 American slasher film and the second film in the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. The film was directed by Jack Sholder and stars Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Rusler and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. Despite the film's title,...
($29,999,213), A Nightmare on Elm Street ($25,504,513), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is a 1989 American slasher film and the fifth film in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. It was directed by Stephen Hopkins. The film's general tone is much more gothic and dark than the films before, and used a blue filter lighting technique in most of...
($22,168,359), and Wes Craven's New Nightmare
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a 1994 horror metafilm written and directed by Wes Craven. Although it is the seventh installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, it is not part of the series continuity, instead portraying Freddy Krueger as a fictional movie villain who invades the real world...
($18,090,181). When adjusting the opening weekend for the 1984 original for the 2010 inflation, the remake out grossed Wes Craven's film $32,902,299 to $2,736,653. When breaking the grosses down by per theater capital, the 1984 film averaged $16,585 per cinema compared to the remake's $9,874. Comparing the film to other Platinum Dunes remakes, A Nightmare on Elm Street is second in opening weekend gross, only behind Friday the 13th with $40,570,365. The film sits ahead of the other Platinum Dunes remakes, which includes 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 film)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a 2003 remake of the 1974 horror film of the same name. The 2003 film was directed by Marcus Nispel and produced by Michael Bay...
($28,094,014), 2005's The Amityville Horror
The Amityville Horror (2005 film)
The Amityville Horror is a 2005 horror film directed by Andrew Douglas. It is a remake of the 1979 film of the same name which itself was based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Jay Anson, which documents the alleged experiences of the Lutz family after they moved into a house in Long Island...
($23,507,007), and 2007's The Hitcher
The Hitcher (2007 film)
The Hitcher is a 2007 horror film starring Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, and Zachary Knighton. It is a remake of the 1986 film of the same name starring Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and C. Thomas Howell. The Hitcher was directed by Dave Meyers and produced by Michael Bay’s production company...
($7,818,239). A Nightmare on Elm Street currently sits as the sixth highest opening for an April weekend.
The remake is currently the eighth all-time highest grossing slasher film in unadjusted dollars. It is also ninth all-time among horror remakes, dating back to 1982, in unadjusted dollars. When comparing its opening weekends to other slasher films and horror remakes, A Nightmare on Elm Street sits in fifth spots for both categories. The 2010 remake currently sits as the second highest grossing Nightmare on Elm Street film in the franchise in North America, just behind Freddy vs. Jason
Freddy vs. Jason
Freddy vs. Jason is a 2003 American slasher film directed by Ronny Yu. The film is a crossover between the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises...
($82,622,655), in unadjusted dollars.
Critical reception
Based on 154 reviews collected by Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, A Nightmare on Elm Street holds a 13% overall approval rating from critics, with an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 3.6 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an approval rating of 13%. By comparison, Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 35, based on 25 reviews. CinemaScore
CinemaScore
CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data.-Background:...
polls reported that the average grade cinemagoers gave the film was a "C-plus" on an A+ to F scale, with exit polls showing that audiences were evenly divided between males and females, with 40 percent between 18–24 years of age and 20 percent under 18.
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave it a "B–" and concluded that, "I did jump a few times, and I liked Haley's dour malevolence, but overall, the new Nightmare on Elm Street is a by-the-numbers bad dream that plays a little too much like a corporately ordered rerun. One, two, Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, we've been there before". Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
criticized the acting calling it "lethargically lifeless" and criticized Haley's portrayal of Krueger, saying, "Even with his electronically deepened voice and a pointless amount of backstory, there's just no replacing Englund". Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 1 star out of 4, writing in his review, "I stared at A Nightmare on Elm Street with weary resignation. The movie consists of a series of teenagers who are introduced, haunted by nightmares and then slashed to death by Freddy. So what? Are we supposed to be scared? Is the sudden clanging chord supposed to evoke a fearful Pavlovian response?".
On January 5, 2011, the film won the People's Choice Award for "Best Horror Film".
Merchandise
In March 2010, the National Entertainment Collectibles AssociationNational Entertainment Collectibles Association
The National Entertainment Collectibles Association or NECA is an American manufacturer of collectibles typically licensed from films, video-games, sports, music, and television based in New Jersey...
(NECA) released two new Freddy Krueger action figures; one pre-burned Freddy with Jackie Earle Haley's likeness, and one based on the new burn design from the Nightmare on Elm Street remake. In addition, NECA also released a replica of Freddy's clawed glove. In conjunction with the film, an online game was released where the user attempted to keep a young girl awake—through the use of coffee, cold showers, self mutilation, and other various means—so as to keep her safe from Freddy.
External links
- A Nightmare on Elm Street at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...