Pulp Freddy

Growing up in the 80’s, there was no other horror figure anyone talked about more than Freddy Kruger. Every Halloween plastic knives on a ratty brown glove and cheap, burnt flesh masks were all the rage. When I was finally introduced to Freddy on VHS, there was something unforgettable about him, something special.

Unforgettable is a word I don’t find myself using when referring to recent horror films. Have you been paying attention to horror films lately? They suck. They are totally forgettable. Final Destination 4? Saw V? The Collector? Come on. The best horror movie that anyone watched in the past year was Paranormal Activity, and while it was good, it has come and gone. (In reality, the best horror movie from last year was The House of The Devil, but I’m sure few of you have heard of it, let alone seen it)

The new nightmare is a stylized update of the 1984 classic, and you know what, it couldn’t hold Wes Craven’s jockstrap. They set out to make the update “darker” than the original, which they accomplished. But darker doesn’t mean the same thing as scary.

So, what’s up with horror?

The original might look old, cheesy, perhaps even fake to young eyes. Then how is it that  current horror movies look considerably more fake to my eyes then the horror movies of the 70’s and 80’s? I’m sure not the first to say it, but more importantly, I hope I’m not the last...

...CGI is killing the horror movie.

Where is the mystery in CGI anymore? A prime example of poor use of CGI is a scene that appears in both the 1984 and the 2010 A Nightmare on Elm St. Asleep in her bed, Nancy is woken up as Freddy seems to liquefy the wall above her bed trying to break through. She wakes up, knocks on the wall, and goes back to sleep. The 1984 version was a special effect. A little bit of “movie magic” if you will. How’d they do that? It looked so real... It was real.  

In the new version they use CGI for the same exact scene. Blah, how boring. We know how you did it, and more importantly, we know it's fake. In Wes Craven’s original, he used special effects, make-up, and lighting, cuts, close-up's, and the audiences' fears to create a modern masterpiece. His story was fresh and original (remember those two things?). He made a real horror movie. The update just gives us an exercise in computer animation, and who need’s that?

I miss the good old days of horror movies. Movies that stayed with you even days after you watched them. Movies that disturbed you because they looked so real. Movies that made you wonder if they were real. Movie’s where exploding body parts were, in fact, a tangible thing that exploded in front of the camera rather then codes that existed on a hard drive somewhere. The problem is people making horror movies these days lack an understanding of where fear comes from. Their answer to everything is “we’ll fix it in post”.

There is no greater computer than our minds, where fear originates. 


A Nightmare on Elm Street, (2010) is a mediocre horror movie at best, put it up against something like The Collector,  it takes the cake. But for now, the bar was set 20, 30 years ago, the classics still reign supreme.

My Vote: I think Freddy is finally dead. No more new nightmares, just reoccurring one’s. Thanks CGI.