Nightmare on ELM Street

Film: Nightmare on ELM Street
Cast: Quentin Smith, Nancy Holbrook, Jackie Earle Haley
Genre: Horror
Direction: Samuel Bayer
Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes
Critic's Rating: 3 stars

Story: A group of highschoolers in Springwood are having nightmares about a clawed killer stalking them in their dreams. What's more strange is that their injuries turn out to be real and they end up facing a bloody death while asleep. All this, while their friends, Nancy and Quentin watch helplessly. Can the traumatised teens actually put a stop to the killer's nasty plans?

Movie Review: Freddy Kreuger's back. After a startling debut in 1984, Hollywood's favourite teen slasher, returns after umpteen sequels which have seen him going about his favourite bloodsport -- tearing apart teens -- with varying states of glee. And during these 26 years, the teen guzzler has reportedly consumed 137 vulnerable young things already, all of them living at the high profile houses in Elm street. Some appetite, huh!

Well, now that he's back after a prolonged hiatus, one would have thought he would have kept pace with the changing millennium and all that. But nah! Freddie's still sporting vintage violence, as he goes around town, swishing his blade-like fingers and disembowelling pretty young things in their bed, baths and backyards. And as he chases them to their final encounter, he growls and grunts sweet nothings which are barely audible over the screams. If that's not reason enough to give you the chills, there's Kreuger's crumbling-cookie face to make your insides churn.

So, Freddie Kreuger ko gussa kyon aata hai? Is he actually a simple school gardener who was falsely accused of a crime he never committed and charred to death by a gang of vicious parents? Or is he the quintessential bad guy who can't have enough of crime and violence, not even after his death. Now that's left for two scared young things -- Rooney (Nancy Holbrooke) and Kyle (Quentin Smith) -- to discover, as they desperately try to evade sleep and death, in that order. But hey, there's little our Freddie hunters can do, when the killer has the ability to jump out from nowhere, even if it happens to be the bath tub, the wall paper, the mirror....Watch out for the climax. Sure to make you jump.

The new version of the classic horror film may not be a revisionist tale and have anything new to offer. Nevertheless, it does have some old fashioned scares that still work and a vintage villain (Jackie Earle Haley) whose sword-scissor hands and snarling visage is both fun and fearful.

Beat the blazing summer heat with some creepy chills. Bring on the Nightmare.