The question on everyone’s minds (studio producers and film directors alike) is not whether Freddy Krueger can be resurrected (that is a given), rather, it is whether or not the Freddy franchise can. A Nightmare (literally) on Elm Street is poorly titled as there are numerous night terrors experienced by a multitude of characters.

     The character Freddy is rather didactic and the film is instructive in countless ways. When a young blond girl passes out during a lecture about Pericles and ancient Greek mythology, Freddy taunts her and offers sage advice "you should never fall asleep in class". How true! Would it were I could have gone all Freddy Krueger on my students when they yawned during my brilliant and exhilarating lectures. Freddy Versus Jason offered much better lines such as "oh goody, dark meat," and "got your nose!". Sufficed to say, other than Freddy’s taunts the dialogue is developing nation poor. Clearly this is intended to attract the 16-24 crowd and judging by the audience’s reaction the writers succeeded in just that.

     Given this is a reintroduction of the Freddy character for a new generation I found the lack of innovation surprising. There is very little that is new about our riddling murderer and not enough that is old. His killing slashes are deadly in a person’s dreams and in their real life. He died in an abandoned warehouse accused by unruly parents of abusing their preschool aged children. Without any proof they chased and cornered Freddy in a sadistic looking building. Despite his various pleas of innocence and requests for mercy one of the mainstay’s fathers threw an impromptu Molotov cocktail into the edifice and burned him alive. Not coincidentally Freddy had been wearing an orange and navy horizontally striped sweater at the time. When dreaming, victims learn this is the building that becomes Freddy’s workshop, or base of homicidal relations. It turns out the unruly mob killed an innocent man accused by exaggerative five year olds. Apparently, Freddy loved working for the school and thrived on playing games such as jump rope and hide and seek with the kids during their recess period. This is the reason why these images are included in each victim’s dreams. Freddy’s targets are the children of his accusers. The million dollar question is why any teacher would allow a groundskeeper to chaperone their toddlers? This is never explained but so very little is in these types of films. Explicating too much would cause the flimsy premises to implode.

     The characters are killed in a similar fashion as they would be in a Final Destination film. Their only hope for survival is to remain awake despite the micro-naps they involuntarily experience after 70-72 hours of sleep deprivation. In the case of a young actor who looks like Robert Pattinson being rectally examined by a proctologist, uppers and Red Bull are abused to achieve the goal. Sufficed to say, their only hope and means of survival is to confront Freddy and appeal to his conscience. Good plan! Neither the teenagers on the run nor Freddy really connect with the audience in any compelling way. The culmination of their failures is a few menial laughs and very little genuine suspense.

     Referring back to my initial query, "can the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise be resuscitated?" I would like to suggest that it can. Anything can frankly. If this is novel to a new generation than it will succeed. Halloween could have been a colossal success if not for Rob Zombie’s drug induced idiocy. Meanwhile, Jason is still alive and well with the recent re-launch of Friday the 13th. Personally I am not looking forward to another Freddy fueled installment as this seemed to hit the reset button and offered only a hint of déjà-vous. Perhaps if A Nightmare on Elm Street were as good as its predecessors I would feel differently. A mental midget’s dialogue, poor storytelling and a seriously depressing lack of innovation have convinced me I am done with Freddy forever. This will still apply ten years from now when Elm Street 2020 comes out and debuts itself as something brand new. All I can say is thank goodness horror season is on the horizon. As for being scared, I am more frightened of the movie studio’s response to my review than I am of Freddy. He is funnier than the people he purportedly kills and that is laughable.