ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - April 30th
"A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET"
released in 2010
released in 2010
Freddy Kruger is back to haunt the children of the parents who murdered him, by stalking and killing them in their dreams, in Samuel Bayer's remake of the cult-80's slasher film, A Nightmare on Elm Street!
Don't miss out on future blogs, trailers, and clips IHdb has coming up
by Following IHdb's Facebook page above
by Following IHdb's Facebook page above
Kris Fowles (Katie Cassidy) goes to the Springwood Diner to meet with her ex-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, a fedora 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 her 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).
Above: The line between dreams and reality merge as Nancy begins to experience "micro-naps" due to her insomnia.
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 that she came home one day telling her mother 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 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 murdering 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). However, as a result of their insomnia, Nancy and Quentin begin sporadically dreaming while they are still awake. To try to stop Krueger, they decide to go to the preschool and learn what they can; when, 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. With time running out, Nancy and Quentin make a last desperate plan to lure Freddy into the real world to destroy him once and for all, before they meet the fate of their friends!
TRIVIA: Jackie Earle Haley would often improvise his lines on the set, feeling this might help unease his other cast members if they didn't know what line he was going to say.
Top and Above: Burned alive by the vengeful townspeople of Springwood, Freddy Kruger (Jackie Earle Haley) returns to haunt their children's nightmares!
On January 29, 2008, Variety 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. The remake 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 instead, and try to create a scarier film; deciding 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). Wesley Strick was initially hired to pen a script for a new Nightmare on Elm Street, after he impressed New Line Cinema president of production Toby Emmerich with a prequel script he wrote for the 1995 film Seven - which was never produced. In all, around 15 different drafts of the script were written, with the final film is a hybrid of four of them. Eric Heisserer was subsequently hired to provide a rewrite of Strick's script before the film moved into production, and brought in the concept of the micro-naps, allowing 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.
According to Emmerich, producer Michael Bay advocated heavily for director Samuel Bayer's hiring, as Bay, Bayer, and director David Fincher came up as commercial directors together. It was 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, however, took a certain amount of convincing to accept the job, after turning down the movie twice (as well as turning down the chance to direct several other Platinum Dunes films, including The Amityville Horror (2005) and Friday the 13th (2009)). 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. Bayer explained his approach to the remake in a 2010 interview, ""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."
According to Emmerich, producer Michael Bay advocated heavily for director Samuel Bayer's hiring, as Bay, Bayer, and director David Fincher came up as commercial directors together. It was 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, however, took a certain amount of convincing to accept the job, after turning down the movie twice (as well as turning down the chance to direct several other Platinum Dunes films, including The Amityville Horror (2005) and Friday the 13th (2009)). 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. Bayer explained his approach to the remake in a 2010 interview, ""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."
Freddy Krueger: Why are you screaming?
[pause]
Freddy Krueger: I haven't even cut you yet!
[laughs]
Top and Above: Nancy (Rooney Mara) and Quentin (Kyle Gallner) begin to encounter Freddy in their dreams.
In February 2009, The Hollywood Reporter revealed Robert Englund would not reprise the role of Freddy Krueger for the remake, but on April 3, 2009 Entertainment Weekly reported that Jackie Earle Haley was cast to take over Englund's most well-known role. Bayer stated that he and producers Andrew Form and Brad 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". Filmmakers soon cast Rooney Mara as Freddy's nemesis Nancy Holbrook. In preparation for the role, Mara stated that her Nancy would be 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" (like Haley, Mara also signed on for a sequel, although there is no indication as yet that a sequel will be produced any time soon).
Kyle Gallner was cast as Quentin, who forms a connection with Nancy, and 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, while 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." Connie Britton and Clancy Brown also star as Nancy and Quentin's respective parents, Gwen Holbrook and Alan Smith. Original Nightmare on Elm Street stars Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon were offered a cameo in the remake, but they were unable to fit it in their schedules.
Kyle Gallner was cast as Quentin, who forms a connection with Nancy, and 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, while 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." Connie Britton and Clancy Brown also star as Nancy and Quentin's respective parents, Gwen Holbrook and Alan Smith. Original Nightmare on Elm Street stars Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon were offered a cameo in the remake, but they were unable to fit it in their schedules.
[Jesse is strung up in the boiler room]
Freddy Krueger: [to Jesse] Did you know that after the heart stops beating, the brain can function for well over seven minutes?
[pause]
Freddy Krueger: We got six more minutes to play.
[Freddy laughs while Jesse begins to scream]
Top and Above: Nancy's friend Kris (Katie Cassidy) and her ex-boyfriend Jesse (Thomas Dekker) also encounter Freddy in their nightmares!
With principal photography beginning on May 5, 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). The filmmakers were also able to convince two different area high schools - Elk Grove High School and John Hersey High School - to serve as locations for scenes in the film, but only after assuring the School board that none of the characters would be killed during a big pool scene involving 200 extras played by actual local high school students. Interestingly though, the Elm Street home was filmed on an actual Elm Street in Barrington, Illiniois.
Discussing his physical appearance, Form and Fuller explained that Freddy would be more similar to a real burn victim (similar to what Wes Craven originally wanted back in 1984), and, according to the producers, the crew had many reference photos of actual victims, which detailed how white the skin would appear after healing. Form, however, noted how horrific some of the images were and 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. To achieve this, make up designer Andrew Clement incorporated green appliances as part of the Freddy makeup, so it could be digitally altered in post production via green screen technology especially for portions of his face — like his cheek — that appear open. For this, the special effects crew that worked on The Dark Knight, who created the computer-generated images for Two-Face's face, were brought in to work on the effects. Haley also had to wear contact lenses as part of his make-up; one was bloody and the other one was cloudy, the latter making it really difficult for the actor to see properly. Unfortunately, Haley scratched his corneas with the contact lenses during filming, delaying production for a short time (he also had the whites of his eyes turn blood red for two weeks because of this). Haley's voice was then digitally altered in post production in an effort to give his voice a "supernatural quality". 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, reducing the time needed to a little over three hours.
The Freddy gloves were the most protected props on the set, as previous films had issues with the gloves being stolen. Most notorious was a glove was stolen from one of the films and appeared in Evil Dead II (1987) hanging in a shed.
Discussing his physical appearance, Form and Fuller explained that Freddy would be more similar to a real burn victim (similar to what Wes Craven originally wanted back in 1984), and, according to the producers, the crew had many reference photos of actual victims, which detailed how white the skin would appear after healing. Form, however, noted how horrific some of the images were and 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. To achieve this, make up designer Andrew Clement incorporated green appliances as part of the Freddy makeup, so it could be digitally altered in post production via green screen technology especially for portions of his face — like his cheek — that appear open. For this, the special effects crew that worked on The Dark Knight, who created the computer-generated images for Two-Face's face, were brought in to work on the effects. Haley also had to wear contact lenses as part of his make-up; one was bloody and the other one was cloudy, the latter making it really difficult for the actor to see properly. Unfortunately, Haley scratched his corneas with the contact lenses during filming, delaying production for a short time (he also had the whites of his eyes turn blood red for two weeks because of this). Haley's voice was then digitally altered in post production in an effort to give his voice a "supernatural quality". 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, reducing the time needed to a little over three hours.
TRIVIA: Wes Craven was reportedly not approached about this remake (he has however publicly spoken against it). However, Robert Englund gave his personal blessing to Jackie Earle Haley to replace him as Freddy, saying "the torch has been well passed".
Top: Director Samuel Bayer;
Above: Bayer on set with actress Rooney Mara
According to Fuller and Form, Warner Bros. suggested A Nightmare on Elm Street be converted and released in 3-D, with the recent surge in 3-D films showing increased box office revenue. But it was the opinion of the Platinum Dunes producers that 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".
A Nightmare on Elm Street was released on April 30, 2010 to 3,332 theaters and approximately 4700 screens, making it the twelfth widest opening for an R-rated film in the US. Although early estimates put the opening day gross at approximately $15 million (with a projected opening weekend of $35 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). Eventually grossing $63,071,122 at the domestic box office, A Nightmare On Elm Street is the second highest-grossing film among the recent slasher remakes, like When a Stranger Calls (2006), Black Christmas (2006), Halloween (2007), Prom Night (2008), and My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009) but behind Friday The 13th with $65 million.
The remake was panned by critics, however, with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gaving 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?". 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", while 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".
A Nightmare on Elm Street was released on April 30, 2010 to 3,332 theaters and approximately 4700 screens, making it the twelfth widest opening for an R-rated film in the US. Although early estimates put the opening day gross at approximately $15 million (with a projected opening weekend of $35 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). Eventually grossing $63,071,122 at the domestic box office, A Nightmare On Elm Street is the second highest-grossing film among the recent slasher remakes, like When a Stranger Calls (2006), Black Christmas (2006), Halloween (2007), Prom Night (2008), and My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009) but behind Friday The 13th with $65 million.
The remake was panned by critics, however, with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gaving 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?". 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", while 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".
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 15%
______________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment