To put it bluntly, this is a much better trailer than the initial teaser released in October. Granted, the picture still feels remarkably like a shot-for-shot remake, but the footage looks stylish and occasionally jolting (and the acting certainly looks superior). For the first time, we get a genuine sense of how Jackie Earle Haley walks and talks as Fred Kruger. Having said that, I do wish this had been more of a generalized reboot and less of a strict remake. I do love the one original idea teased in the first trailer, that Fred Kruger may have been an innocent man wrongly accused of molesting the children of Elm Street (perhaps caught up in the wave of 80s child sex crime-witch-hunts). But, visually, every-time I see a major shot from the original film, it just reminds me of what worked so well the first time around. I understand the trap: Make a reboot and it's just another Nightmare on Elm Street sequel (ala Friday the 13th), use the same characters but radically alter the mythology and you get Rob Zombie's Halloween. Of course, that's what you deal with when you insist on remaking incredibly popular horror franchises, as opposed to little-known cult oddities and/or bad films that could be improved. None the less, I sincerely hope this turns out closer in quality to Dawn of the Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning as opposed to Friday the 13th or The Hitcher. As always, we'll see...
Scott Mendelson
