For many of us, director Samuel Bayer’s new Nightmare On Elm Street, released May 2010, might just also be the first of the series we’ve ever seen. For the fans who have waited anxiously to see if their beloved Freddy had finally been slaughtered by a bad storyline and crap visual effects, never fear because it is actually really good, if I do say so myself.

The story is still set in Springwood. And a whole lot of young people are still dying mysteriously in their sleep. Well, not so mysteriously. Enter everybody’s worst nightmare Freddy Krueger – a man with knives for fingers and the power to viciously murder you while you dream. We all need to sleep sometimes so you can see how no one is safe once he’s unleashed, and boy does he go hard when he is. Toying with his victims before they are killed, the kids know they are in some bad dodo and it’s up to the classic select few to make it to the end and stop Freddy. But can Freddy really be stopped?



Nightmare on Elm Street originally played out like many other teen-horror movies made, with a huge storyline about the characters and Freddy only really playing a “token” role. But this year’s release was right up there with the likes of Hostel and the horrific Saw series for realistic gruesomeness. You actually see a bit more of the Freddy character (which by the way is played to perfection by a new guy by the name of Jackie Earle Haley) and it helps to tie together the vague points of the earlier releases. It means for virgin Nightmare viewers, there was a comprehensive storyline and didn’t leave you feeling like you should have watched one of the 1980’s releases.

Whoever came up with the twists and turns the movie contains, ought to be commended. Normally I have very little difficulty predicting the next move in a movie, but this one left you barely a step ahead. And only because you could see things the actors couldn’t. When they figured something out, you figured it out at close on the same time. I wasn’t sure who would survive or not, it was refreshing to sit and watch a movie without talking throughout because of predictable storylines.

Those steely finger-blades of pain have ruined more than one person’s sleep on-screen and off after watching them slice and dice. And stab and jab. You won’t be disappointed if that’s what you came for, there’s plenty of it. The cast includes actors Kyle Gallner and Thomas Dekker, actresses Rooney Mara and Katie Cassidy, plus a number of other ‘bodies’ to fill the screen and body count.  

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