‘Elm Street’ remake won’t keep you up at night

“A Nightmare on Elm Street”

Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Katie… “A Nightmare on Elm Street”

Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy

Director: Samuel Bayer

New Line Cinema

Grade: C+

Well, Freddy’s coming for you once again, and though he has a fresh coat of latex burns, he isn’t anything you haven’t seen.

“A Nightmare on Elm Street” is yet another horror movie remake that takes the tried and true genre concept of a famed villain killing pretty teenagers and giving it a fresh coat of paint and some MTV-generation editing.

While the film does a decent job at providing an hour and a half’s worth of cheap thrills and visceral entertainment, it will leave only the faintest mark on your memory — much like a dream or a nightmare.

Unlike slasher flicks such as “Friday the 13th,” “Halloween” or “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” the original “A Nightmare on Elm Street” provided the interesting dream element that allowed for more creativity with the kill sequences.

The device of Freddy only existing in the teenager’s dreams meant he was a more elusive, more omniscient being. Plus, the notion of not letting oneself fall asleep for fear of being maimed by Freddy’s knife fingers was just cool.

So perhaps more than any other horror remake, the new “Nightmare” translates especially well to a generation that often runs on Red Bull and Adderall.

The story remains pretty much in tact from the original. A group of teenagers begins to have dreams that include growling murderer Freddy Krueger. When the teenagers literally begin to die in their dreams (and reality), they realize that they probably shouldn’t fall asleep.

Easier said than done, however. The film becomes a race against exhaustion and micronaps.

Many of the iconic images from the original pop up in the remake, too. The knife-covered hand emerging from the water while a girl is taking a bath? Check. Freddy’s twisted visage coming out of a wall? Still here, though the CGI cheapens the effect.

Perhaps the greatest thing that the remake has done is include the film’s memorable twist of character focus.

Without giving too much away, the character whom the audience assumes will be the lone survivor by the end, according to the rules of horror films, dies halfway through the film, shifting the focus to another character for the remainder of the movie. It’s a nifty concept that keeps viewers on their toes, if not necessarily grasping their armrests.

The most important change in the new “Nightmare” is the new actor portraying Freddy.

Robert Englund made the villain a terrifying, one-liner spewing boogeyman in the original, and I’m pleased to say that Jackie Earle Haley does an admirable job trying to fill those shoes. He comes off a bit more seriously than the script seems to call for, but with the added twist that the new Freddy was a child molester instead of a child murderer, it’s appropriate.

The rest of the cast is pretty and good at looking morose, scared and sleep deprived, but they are totally forgettable. The same goes with the scary set pieces — expect plenty of “Gotcha!” jump-out moments, but the film never inspires anything that comes close to actual fear.

Ultimately, “Nightmare” will not keep you up at night. It might get the “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you” jingle stuck in your head for a few days, which is scary enough on its own, but the only thing haunting your dreams will be the possibility of an endless onslaught of sequels.

Scary stuff, indeed.