So what did we think of the movie? Nightmare gets a solid 1 1/2 stars out of four. I like to think a movie is going to be good, start with four stars and work my way backwards. It was totally campy, you didn’t care which characters died or if they were killed at all, which I guess is ok for a horror movie remake. These are also the things that depleted two stars from the movie. Make us give a crap. What the other stars are for:

1/2 star less because, I don’t know if anyone noticed, but Jackie Earle Haley is a really tiny man. As men go, he seems perfect to play a meek, weird child molester (a la Little Children, which he recieved an Oscar nomination for), but not a finger-knived murderer in your dreams. They also covered his already Krueger-like face with so much makeup that Freddy talks funny in the movie, like he’s wearing a mouth guard or something. It was ridiculous.

1 remaining star because Nightmare didn’t do what so many other horror flicks piss me off by doing–the jump scare. Quiet scene, teenage girl tip-toeing around her huge house on hardwood floors in the dark, wondering if someone will jump out from behind a doorway…and it’s usually a cat accompanied by frightening piano keys. But guess what? In Nightmare, someone DID jump out from behind the doorway and it was Freddy Mutherfriggin Krueger and before you know it, your a$$ is getting sliced from here to Fargo. Totally scary and gratifying at that moment.