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Hollywood’s greatest horror icons all underwent the remake treatment. Which one turned out the best?

When I think Hollywood horror icons, my mind immediately races to Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. Of course there’s also Leatherface, Pinhead, the Children of the Corn kiddies… yet all of ‘em pale in comparison, I think, to the industry’s more renowned slasher heavyweights.

Halloween, actually, is widely credited as the first slasher flick – inspired, in many ways, by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. And its villain, Michael Myers, has long been my favorite. That’s because around this time about a decade ago AMC ran a marathon of Halloween and many of its sequels, and from then on I was freakin’ hooked.

Almost 30 years after the release of the original Halloween, Rob Zombie had the bright idea to re-imagine John Carpenter’s original movie by writing, directing and producing a version of his own. Made for $15 million, the update was a surprise success, grossing more than $58 million in the States alone.

Friday the 13th (2009) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) followed, and did great business, too. Friday the 13th, actually, broke the record for biggest opening weekend ever for a horror movie when it achieved $40.5 million in three days. (Sex and the City is not technically a horror movie, so its three-day $56.8 million doesn’t figure into this).

After watching A Nightmare on Elm Street just a few weeks ago, I’ve seen all three remakes and felt it appropriate to compare them to give you an idea of which of ‘em are worth seeing, and which should probably be avoided all together.

Just in time for Halloween – whoops! – here are my thoughts on each, from “seriously, don’t waste your time and effort” to “dude, you haven’t seen this yet?”

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Of the three, A Nightmare on Elm Street is the horror franchise I have the least familiarity with, yet that doesn’t really factor into my reasoning for why I disliked the remake so much. Why, then, didn’t I care for it? Because it’s awful, that’s why!

I think horror movies run the risk of being exposed as the cash grabs that they are more so than other film genres. Documentaries would be the industry’s most well intentioned genre – with political dramas, animated family fare and the like falling somewhere in between.

So, to label A Nightmare on Elm Street a “cash grab” is ridiculous. It’s redundant, really. New Line didn’t make another Nightmare on Elm Street movie because its filmmakers wanted to explore the roots of the franchise or intellectually challenge themselves to make something of value. The filmmakers worked on A Nightmare on Elm Street because it paid well. (The franchise’s grandfather, Wes Craven, wasn’t even consulted).

Anyway, all of it was on obvious display as I was watching the movie. For one, the script is a disaster and a half. Lines like “I’m so afraid. All I want to do is go to sleep, but if I do he’s going to kill me like Dean” are peppered throughout the piece, making supposed dramatic scenes rather hilarious. A Nightmare on Elm Street, actually, was the lone title of the three that I laughed at. The other two – Friday the 13th and Halloween – just didn’t seem so silly to me.

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