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Viewer Score

54
Viewer score based on 528 votes.

Critic Score

35
Critics' score based on 25 reviews.
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Your Reviews

What is there to be said about Nightmare that hasn't been said yet? For people fresh to the fold, it's a decent enough movie, with its scary moments... and plenty of teen blood on the walls to entertain well enough. For returning members of Freddy's long-running series of nightmares, it's atrocious. Without Englund, Freddy feels awkward and poorly imitated by the man who gave us Rorshak from Watchmen. They could have tried better, yes, on Freddy's overall look, as the makeup vaguely resembles an oversized rat at the best of times and for heaven's sake, did they have to try taking it ALL the way back to the days when all he did was use the glove? Part of the appeal of Freddy Kruegar was the originality in his delivery and the manic way he seemed to ENJOY warping reality to humiliate and play with his victims before delivering the coop de grace. Further, what made him entertaining was that he was a child MURDERER. Spoiler alert: they made Freddy into a raving pervert for this movie and nothing more. To sum it all up, the bad points are that Freddy himself just sucked. Now, the GOOD stuff. The idea of a 72 hour limit was interesting, and the thought that there is literally NO escape from dreams was terrifying in its own right. You knew Freddy had you no matter what you did in this movie, and that gave it a new edge to an old razor glove. Could they have done better? Yeah, definately. Could they have done worse? Oh yeah they could. I give this movie a three out of five for making it halfway to the mark, but ultimately falling short of what we love about our resident master of nightmares, but at the same time giving us something fresh. Put Englund (or at least someone with his energy) back in the makeup and let's try this again, hollywood. Tanks for reading, fellow movielovers! Full Review

May 30,2011
nghtmarz2

It wasn't extremely bad, I think it was watchable. But there was nothing different about this movie.

March 22,2011
alsouhoney

yuck! it was terrible! where is robert enland. this freddy sucked. he looked retarded!

December 22,2010
deltarn76

BEAST

December 20,2010
RyananJua

its alright

November 02,2010
MackyScooby
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Critic Reviews

It's not every day that one of our rogues' gallery of iconic psycho killers gets to be played by a creepy and fascinating actor -- in this case, Jackie Earle Haley taking on the role of Freddy Krueger.Full Review

Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

It's moderately entertaining and instantly forgettable. Poor Freddy. I can't help thinking he deserves better.Full Review

A.O. Scott
The New York Times

So any "Nightmare" movie has a built-in handicap going in, but the better ones find ways to compensate, by casting appealing young actors (they're always young), by having imaginative dream sequences and - most important of all - by keeping the dreams short. By that standard, this new "Nightmare" is a fairly decent effort.Full Review

Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle

This "Nightmare" is mostly stale goods. You'd think Bayer's music video background would jibe well with the playful surreality of Craven's premise. But when not paying homage -- the claw in the bathtub, the morphing wall -- Bayer surprisingly traffics in factory-level horror atmospherics and loud, saw-it-coming shocks.Full Review

Robert Abele
Los Angeles Times

The energy is missing in the remake because the techniques, which are replicated in a straightforward fashion, are stale.Full Review

James Berardinelli
ReelViews
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