A Better Look At The New Freddy

Anyone who reads AWASOS regularly - or even semi-regularly - knows I'm not really a big fan of Hollywood's recent obsession with remakes. The reasons are pretty obvious: there's been precious few of them that are even half-way decent let alone good, and most are cinematic abortions and pale imitations. I have a lot of doubts about the upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street remake - chiefly because the original pretty much nailed it and doesn't need remaking - but from

the trailer the movie seems to be a pretty faithful re-telling and I'm intrigued to see Jackie Earle Hayley's take on Freddy Krueger. The iconic villain has previously only been played by one man, Robert Englund (right) and Hayley's an interesting choice to replace him. Hayley was the only thing I liked in the bloated Watchmen (other then excellent opening scene) and he's also played villains (Little Children) and psycho's (Shutter Island) very convincingly so the new Elm Street, despite my nagging suspicion of it's inherent suckiness, is on my radar as a flick I want to check out anyway.

However, when the trailer came out, I was left quite underwhelmed by the voice of Freddy Krueger (though it's been suggested that they were tweaking it for final release) and the burn makeup look more like Jim Carrey as The Grinch then it did like the burned scar-faced makeup that Robert Englund sported in the original series. Still looks a little Grinch-like to me.