A Nightmare on Elm Street
0 Waffles!

Freddy Krueger is back to haunt your dreams the way I am still haunted by the time I went to that vegetarian restaurant by accident. Yes, you will be just as unsatisfied as I was (broccoli must be accompanied by NY Strip or it isn't worth it).

Nancy (Rooney Mara), Quentin (Kyle Gallner), Kris (Katie Cassidy) and Jesse (Thomas Dekker) are a group of high school kids who don't realize how much they have in common (aside from all of them living on Elm Street). Each one has started to have strange dreams starring a psychopathic dude with a fedora, striped sweater and a glove with knives attached to the fingers, Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley).

Sadly, Freddy is no Edward Scissorhands. Instead of slicing the shrubbery and delivering the hottest hairdos on the planet, he is chasing these young kids to exact revenge, and wants to kill each one while they are asleep in dreamland, so they will die in real life, too.

Why does Freddy want revenge?

Can the kids stay awake and alive?

A Nightmare on Elm Street lacks imagination, story, good acting and a reason for being. This version, or reboot of the franchise, or re-imagination (or whatever lame spin the Hollywood executives want to use to cover up the fact they are greedy and want to cash in like Goldman Sachs), doesn't do anything to justify the time and effort.

Director Samuel Bayer and the team have produced a flaccid film that doesn't appeal to the slasher fan, the horror fan or the fan of good and interesting films. The audience goes from attack scene to attack scene for the first third of the movie without any real attempt by the characters to figure out why they are being chased by this freakazoid with the burned face and knives (You think intellectual curiosity would kick in).

Then, as if forced by a conscience or some outside influence, writers Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer half-heartedly start to explore the why and background of Freddy Krueger, but it's nothing new. They have a chance to make Freddy into a 21st Century villain, but never do anything to make him new, interesting or daring.

Worst of all, A Nightmare on Elm Street has some shocks, but never thrills and amazes. The dream sequences are bland and unimaginative, especially compared to the original! Why not have Freddy create some nightmare that plays on each victim's deepest fear? Why not do more to create some nightmare from a past event in their lives?

Even hard core slasher fans will be yawning at action that doesn't take us to a new level of fright and gruesomeness. Freddy should make them afraid to fall asleep during the movie, but droopy eyes will be prevalent as each audience member tries to fight off the drowsiness that is inevitable.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a waste of a classic character and a great actor (Haley can do so much more than spit out one-liner after one-liner).

A Nightmare on Elm Street is rated R for strong bloody horror violence, disturbing images, terror and language.