Freddy - Les griffes de la nuit

I didn’t think it would be so bad. I’m not among those that automatically take a hostile stand against every remake and therefore my opinion is by no means a protest against the “rape” of an old horror classic. Even though the original Nightmare is one of my most favourite horror films ever, I still gave the remake a chance, hoping it would turn out to be decent. It wasn’t. I haven’t seen something so sterile for a long time (I’m speaking about movies with a bigger budget and not low-budget stuff), every attempt to scare and build an atmosphere ends in fiasco. Try to imagine how many times the characters say what they say, how many times a scene is shot the way is shot only because they count on the viewer knowing what film this is the remake of. That’s not the way you do it. (27/09/2010)

Everything is wrong... Almost. Except for the lovely Rooney Mara. I was initially very happy about the casting of Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy Krueger, but I had no idea that the boilermaker in the striped sweater could have been played by absolutely anyone (except perhaps Jiří Krytinář), because he looks like Imhotep crossed with Voldemort, i.e., like a mask under which everything is lost. But along with that, the black humor, the eerie atmosphere and the fear of anyone or anything was lost in Nightmare. To be honest, I was actually quite taken with Jablonsky's music, which I'll probably listen to on its own, but that's about all the film had to offer me. (15/04/2013)

Un bel exemple de la façon dont les producteurs d’Hollywood imaginent un remake moderne d’un succès cinématographique des années 80. Il suffit de faire appel à un régisseur de vidéoclips (qui n’a jamais filmé de long-métrage), de puiser au hasard dans les idées de la série originale, de dénicher quelques canons de beauté pour jouer les personnages, de balancer des jump scare ici et là (parce que tout film d’horreur moderne se doit d’en avoir), d’ajouter des visuels faussement précieux, d’enrober le tout dans des effets numériques modernes « à couper le souffle », et on obtient directement un film taillé pour le public d’aujourd’hui. Quant au fait que le film n’ait pas d’âme, qu’il soit insipide et creux, que toute la substance soit diluée en une émulation des plus fades, ça n’a aucune importance : il y aura toujours bien un jeune public blasé qui n’a pas goûté à l’original pour s’en satisfaire. (19/09/2020)