April 27, 2010 (Hollywood)
April 30, 2010 (United States)
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 2010 American supernatural slasher film directed by Samuel Bayer (in his feature directorial debut), written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer, and starring Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, and Kellan Lutz. Produced by Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes, it is a remake of Wes Craven's 1984 film of the same name, as well as the ninth overall installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film is set in a fictitious town in Ohio and centers on a group of teenagers living on one street who are stalked and murdered in their dreams by a disfigured man named Freddy Krueger. The teenagers discover that they all share a common link from their childhood that makes them targets for Krueger.
A Nightmare on Elm Street was originally to follow the same design as Platinum Dunes' other remake, Friday the 13th, where the writers took the best elements from each of the films in the original series and created a single storyline with them. Eventually, they decided to use Craven's original storyline but tried to create a scarier film. To that end, they decided to remove the one-line quipping Freddy, who had become less scary and more comical over the years, and bring back his darker nature. The writers developed the character to be a child molester, something that Craven wanted to do originally in 1984 but changed to a child killer instead. Freddy's physical appearance was changed with the use of computer-generated imagery to be closer to that of a burn victim.
Because of the positive experiences Platinum Dunes' producers had in the area, A Nightmare on Elm Street was filmed primarily in Illinois. Craven expressed his displeasure when he was not consulted on the project. Robert Englund, who portrayed Freddy in the previous eight films, voiced his support of the remake and the casting of Haley in the role of Freddy.
A Nightmare on Elm Street had its world premiere at Hollywood on April 27, 2010, and was theatrically released in North America on April 30, 2010, by Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema. Despite negative reviews, the film grossed over $63 million at the domestic box office and $117.7 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in the franchise.
Storyline[]
Dean Russell falls asleep at a diner and is attacked by a burned man wearing a bladed gardener's glove on his right hand. In the dream, the burned man cuts Dean’s throat; in reality, Dean cuts his own throat as his friends Kris Fowles and Nancy Holbrook look on in horror.
At Dean's funeral, Kris sees a photograph of herself and Dean as children but cannot recall knowing Dean before high school. She begins to have nightmares about the burned man and refuses to go to sleep for fear that she will die like Dean. Accompanied by her ex-boyfriend Jesse Braun, Kris falls asleep and is brutally murdered by the burned man. Covered in Kris's blood, Jesse runs to Nancy's house and learns that Nancy has been having nightmares about the same man — Freddy Krueger.
Jesse is arrested under suspicion of murdering Kris and is killed by Krueger in his jail cell. As her friends die, Nancy questions everyone's connection to each other, given that none of them can remember each other before their teenage years. Nancy and her friend Quentin Smith discover that they attended the same preschool. Nancy's mother Gwen reluctantly tells them about Krueger, the preschool's groundskeeper, who was accused of molesting the children, including Nancy, who was his favorite. Gwen alerted the other parents, including Quentin's father Alan, but Krueger escaped. Believing there is more to the story, Nancy attempts to track down the remaining kids from the school but discovers that all of them have been killed; only she and Quentin are left. Meanwhile, Quentin falls asleep and sees a flashback of the parents, led by Alan, hunting Krueger down and burning him alive.
As a result of their insomnia, Nancy and Quentin experience sporadic microsleeps and become hypnagogic, causing them to hallucinate. To try to stop Krueger, they go to the preschool. On the way, Nancy is attacked by Krueger, during which she pulls a piece of his sweater out of her dream into reality. Quentin takes Nancy to the hospital, where he steals adrenaline to help them stay awake. At the preschool, the two find proof of Krueger's crimes, including crude photos. Krueger, now a ghost, wants revenge on the kids for disclosing his abuse. Nancy decides to pull Krueger out of the dream world, like she did with his sweater, and kill him. Quentin and Nancy both fall asleep and are attacked.
As Krueger goes after Nancy, her cries awaken Quentin, who uses the adrenaline to wake her. Nancy pulls Krueger with her into reality. She manages to slit his neck before torching the room with his body inside. Police, however, are unable to find Krueger's remains. After Nancy and her mother return home, Krueger appears in the mirror's reflection and kills her mother, pulling her body through the mirror as Nancy screams.
Also See[]
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
- Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
- Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
- Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
Movie Trailer[]
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) (Trailers)