A Nightmare on Elm Street

Does anyone really need an introduction to the plot of this one? Writers Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer and director Samuel Bayer apparently thought that after eight movies and two TV series since 1984, there was something left to say about Freddy Kreuger and his fingernail knives. If that was the case, they didn’t find it; there are minor tweaks to the plot, such as making Freddy (Jackie Earle Haley) a child molester rather than a serial killer (this time the killings don’t start till the nightmares do), but otherwise the new movie is just as mediocre and half-baked as the first one was. Wes Craven may not have bothered to come up with a story for his original idea, but at least he started from scratch and earned his profits fair and square. These guys just wanted to cash in on somebody else’s work.