Nightmare better than expected

Before I begin, let me start by saying, this blog is not just going to be about sports. If it were, you’d have no reason to listen to my show from 3-5 p.m. CDT on sportsradiokc.com (I’m not above a shameless plug in my own column).

No, I write about other things that go on in my life. And last night, my life consisted of a nightmare. Well, not my nightmare, but A Nightmare on Elm Street, the remake.

Despite having Jackie Earle Haley – an actor I tremendously respect, despite how much he looks like Skip Bayless – I was trying to keep my expectations low for this remake. I mean, the “Nightmare” series was a large part of my early-to-late teenage years, which may explain a lot about why I’m the way I am.

See, I always saw “Nightmare” as groundbreaking. While slightly formulaic in the “undead killer you truly can’t kill, no matter how often you think you have,” it was also quite different. See, Freddy Krueger had a personality. He was sarcastic. He taunted you THEN he killed you. He made sure you knew how screwed you were before he killed you. It was awesome.

As a 13-year-old kid watching those films, I loved it. I won’t lie. I found myself rooting for Freddy over rooting for the poor kids he inevitably killed. I even watched the short-lived “Nightmare on Elm Street: The Series” late at night. I loved Freddy Krueger.

So it was with great trepidation that I went to the movies Saturday to go watch the “new” version. Halloween had been redone, as had Friday the 13th. Hell, even “The Hills have Eyes” and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” had been redone, all to varying degrees of success.

The world is different than it was in the late 80s when Freddy came to power. The mentality is different. Hell, horror movies are different. This is the era of “Saw” and the like. Things have changed since “Scream” came out. But despite all of this, I decided to go anyway. My wife had never seen a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, so out we went.

The story was slightly different. Rather than a child murderer, Fred Krueger was a gardener at a preschool who takes a special “interest” in the children at the school – particularly Nancy, who he considers his favorite.

However, none of those students remember. The parents have blocked the memories of the children and took justice into their own hands, accidentally burning Krueger to death while coming after him in a vigilante mob.

The preschool is closed, the children are scattered, only to come back together later on in life, never knowing they knew each other in early childhood.

All the kids from the preschool start having the same dreams about a man in a fedora, sweater and knives for fingers chasing them around a preschool. These dreams eventually end in them dying, yadda yadda yadda. You know the drill.

Haley does a good job in trying to live up to the epic performance of Robert Englund, who truly WAS Freddy Krueger in a way that is impossible to live up to. Haley’s Krueger is darker – probably closer to what was originally imagined by Wes Craven. But some of the dialogue and the humor seems a bit forced.

Overall, not as good as the original, but not horrible either. There weren’t quite as many “jump” moments – at least not as many as I was expecting. And it is pretty easy to tell when people are dreaming, even though we’re supposed to think they’re awake.

The door has been left open for a sequel. We’ll see what happens with that.