A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy Vs. Freddy



When I was a kid A Nightmare on Elm Street would always scare me, but i just couldn't stop watching it. I would have terrible nightmares of Freddy Krueger coming after me and my friends and having to try to survive. I'd often wake up in sweat and tears and scared of closing my eyes again. I still watch them with excitement, thankfully though the fear and nightmares no longer accompany the movie viewing.

When I saw they were remaking the movie I was very skeptical. My skepticism was completely justified after seeing it. I understand that in order to put your own mark on a movie you have to change it a little so it is updated and has a unique spin. However I feel those that chose to remake A Nightmare on Elm Street did a horrible job and totally offended the movie franchise with their new storyline.

In the original story of A Nightmare on Elm Street Freddy Krueger liked killing children, that's all. He simply killed children. In number 6, Freddy's Dead, they kind of explain why. He killed children, the parents of those children pressed charges and he ended up getting away with it. So the parents did what any protective parent in the movies do, they hunted him down and burned him alive. To get his revenge he started killing their children again but in their dreams now. However, this time he waited until they were in high school to get his revenge (that never made much sense to me, but I let it slide because the movie would be truly horrifying if all those slashings and slicing-and-dicings scenes actually had children in them).

The new version ((WARNING-Spoiler if you haven't seen it)) turned Freddy into a child-molester who got caught and was getting revenge on the children who told on him. This is a totally unacceptable storyline. It takes away the phsychotic nature of the original Freddy Krueger. He had knives on his fingers!! How was he suppose to be able to molest anyone? It just doesn't work.

The new version aslo implies he preferred to molest and kill little girls. I'm assuming this is because of all the scenes that had the little girls in white dresses singing the Freddy Krueger song throughout all the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. However the combined victims in all the orginal movies adds up to at least 25 male victims and 9 female victims. The assumptions of preferring little girls is invalid. Plus if he enjoyed killing girls so much I doubt it would be girls who always defeated him in every movie.

This is my idea regarding the little girls in white dresses in the original movies. What is the most common image of an angel? Typically a beautiful blonde female in a white robe/dress. Now translate that into an angel for children: a little blonde girl in a white dress. Those girls were guardian angels, appearing only to the ones who would end up defeating Krueger in the end. That's why there were always little girls in the movies. It was a warning to the hero that something bad was going to happen soon and to warn them about Freddy Krueger. The little girls weren't his victims.

Remakes on principle are inferior then the originals because they are trying to be a copy of something that was already made. And any changes to the story are going to effect how it is recieved by the audience.