The New New Nightmare.

Okay. So I got to see the new Nightmare on Elm Street (or as some people are calling it, Nightmare '10) the night it was released. 11:59pm that Thursday, I was in the seats, ready for a new saga to begin.

Now going into it, I knew a couple of things. One, this wasn't going to be the Freddy Kreuger that we all knew in the 80s. This Freddy was darker, and dare I say, maybe even INNOCENT of what he was being accused. Two, that this was a reimagining. Like Halloween before it, it was going to be completely different. It wasn't a sequel.

That said, I knew that Freddy wasn't going to be the same Freddy. Nancy wasn't Nancy, and well, Glenn Lantz wouldn't get eaten by his bed. So I settled into that thought, and maybe that was a good thing.

Because I liked it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It was dark, it made me jump. The deaths (for the most part) were pretty damn gory (the first one actually SHOCKED me). The kids were pretty smart, and I liked seeing into Freddy's past. I liked how they didn't just say "oh we convicted him, he got off, so we torched him". No. This felt pretty real.

Now granted, maybe if the names were changed, this could have been another horror movie, maybe one that more people would have enjoyed. But then they'd be on their blogs talking about how that movie was just a rip off of Nightmare on Elm Street. I mean, sure, new!Freddy's makeup wasn't the same as our old Freddy, but honestly? I wasn't a big fan of the original Freddy's makeup. It looked weird, and didn't bring to mind a burned man.

It brought to mind pizza. (Don't believe me? Check out Freddy in Space's Freddy or Cheese Pizza post)

The new Freddy's makeup looked like he was burned. Maybe around the mouth it was a little strange, but it was more realistic. If the original Nightmare makeup had been on this one, and we hadn't yet seen a Freddy Kreuger, we would have cried foul. We would have said "that looks so crappy! it's so fake!".

My only big problem was that Nancy (why did they need to name her Nancy? It wasn't like the Halloween reimagining where all the characters were the same. Nancy and Freddy were the only ones with similar names, and this Nancy's name was Holbrook), while a good actress, didn't enunciate. She mumbled, and I'm sure a lot of people had no clue what she was saying.

Oh and also, her art sucked. She looked like she worked 'so hard' on it.. and it was stick figures. I could call myself an artist too, if that's the case.

But otherwise, I really did enjoy the movie. I left Robert Englund's Freddy outside the door, and Jackie's Freddy didn't hinder anything. He didn't make me yell about the new Freddy in town, but I don't regret going to see the movie.

And I may go see it again, just to be sure.