Platinum Dunes - A Nightmare On Elm Street

I frequent a Nightmare On Elm Street forum... I'm not proud of it. Forums are the depths of the world of fandom full of semi literate people who are SO obsessed with ONE THING. They blindly fly off the handle at the slightest mention of anything that dares poke at the delicate frame of mind they exist in.

Case in point: Platinum Dunes.

Platinum Dunes is a film production company spearheaded by Michael Bay. It's sole purpose is to remake 80's horror movies for a modern day audience. Now as we know I am not a complainer in the world of remakes - they exist and I have absolutely NO WAY of influencing the Hollywood game - yet in the wilderness exist a pocket of people so deluded they believe whining can actually do something.

It can't. It never will.

In 2010 Platinum Dunes will release A Nightmare On Elm Street. The film is practically in the can and the trailer goes live tonight. It is unstoppable. Yet, here on http://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com/forum/index.php you will find a bunch of people who still live in denial.

Forum topics exist on such subjects as "They have to use the ORIGINAL HOUSE" and "They have to use the ORIGINAL MUSIC" - note: they don't.

One smart reply stated:

"It better be the original house and it better be decorated EXACTLY as it was in the first one. The script should be the EXACT same one they used too. In fact get all the original actors to reprise their roles and use the same music too. In fact they should use the old footage that was filmed in 83 or 84 and re-edit it EXACTLY how it was. Then they should release it and call it Nightmare On Elm Street"

They then continued later with an interesting point:

"Isn't it better they do their own thing. This isn't a sequel - it's a remake and therefore aside from storyline and select characters nothing should be the same. It's okay to say "Platinum Dunes are hacks and don't do anything creative" but then complain when they DO creative things like NOT use the same house, music, filming locations etc. It boggles the mind. Why should PD have to cater to a crowd that instantly dismisses everything they do yet will blow their money on it when it hits theatres? If I were them I would be sat in a big office surrounded by bags of money laughing my ass off."

Which is my EXACT point on remakes. Unless you are going to alter the story and do something new then WHY the hell would they repeat the same things? I for one DO NOT want to put down a hard earned £6 at the box office to watch something I can sit at home and get for FREE!

When PD announced it's remake of Friday the 13th I was quite jazzed. I own all the F13 movies and can safely say the only good one is part 6. The final part of the original franchise was set in space and many people stated the same thing - this franchise is now dead because after taking the character to space, in the future no less, there is nowhere to go. Any continuance would be set in the future with the uber Jason killer and as such be redundant.

The ONLY possible option left? Reboot.

Now look at Nightmare On Elm Street as a franchise. The first part is good. Very good. Bordering on genius in terms of character, story etc. The second one (I recently rewatched) was a sharp, smart sequel that gave audiences more of the first. It was dark and twisted and has so many insanely obvious metaphors for young homosexuality it has to be seen to be believed. The third was once a favourite. In the days when I just watched movies I loved every aspect of it.

The freshness and extension of the dream mythos was the perfect route for the franchise and Freddy started his one liners that turned him into a truly remarkable beast - a killer who made fun of you while he killed you. Now, as a surly failed screenwriter, I pick films apart and Elm Street 3 is fodder for the beast. It started the "Bastard son of 100 maniacs" angle - like Rob Zombie's Halloween it started giving us MORE info on why Freddy was who he was. I find in MANY cases the simple facts are the more powerful - Freddy was a child (molester*) who was burned to death by a hate mob - perfect! Also the one liners... Freddy was HUGE when I was a kid and like most kids I loved him. Wether this was due to my own insecurities and being a bullied kid I dunno but he was that guy nobody could mess with. Except he was a CHILD (MOLESTER*)!!! We NEVER should have been given the option to relate, feel or side with Freddy ever.

Elm Street 4 was the bridge between the last kids from Elm Street and the new kids in town. At this point the acting quality dropped sharper than Freddy's wit and the "kid's" became more and more stereotypical. It also introduced something else which annoyed me - when we first see a kid we are immediately introduced to an element about them which will become their death. So if a character is noted as being afraid of bugs then, lo and behold, Freddy makes them a bug - a character who is bulemic? Well they will be fed to death! So obvious and so lame. Part 4 tried and failed to be anything more than entertaining and an unwatched DVD in my boxset.

This goes for 5 too. Dream Child could've been more but there is a tonal shift with the rest of the series. It tries to be gothic and comes off as cheap... very cheap... and did I mention dull? It also has THE worst character in the series - Yvonne. She cannot act and she is written as such a bitch (unintentionally of course, I think we are supposed to like her or something) that I grind my teeth at the sight of her. Also Mark... Mark is a dickhead who I would punch if I ever met him.

Maybe this was intentional as part of the making Freddy likable and the hero of the series? I have never understood why the protagonists in horror ARE so fundementaly unlikable and it seems to be getting worse. I watched The Hills Run Red last night and out of the 3 main characters only one (the Guy) was passable. His girlfriend was cheating on him with his best friend in the first 10 minutes - then I'm supposed to care about them!

Freddy's Dead was the end. The only thing they could do was bang on a shitty 3D ending. It didn't work and is apparently the lowest taking Elm Street movie. They killed him. He was dead and gone forever...

I DO NOT and WILL NOT include Wes Craven's New Nightmare in this list. It is a work of genius and shouldn't be thrown in with the others.

The character of Freddy ran out of steam once the pulled him from the shadows and shone light in his (eventually non gory) burnt face. There is nowhere to take the character anymore.

Except... Reboot?

*Molester in brackets as I had always believed Freddy to be a molester of kids. Wes Craven apparently rewrote molester to murderer in the wake of recent molestor news. Fair enough.