Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I just had my first day of festival-ing in Santa Barbara and came back to the computer to see a few big geek tidbits had hit the trades.

Both could be bad news.

Hopefully this one won't be bad news, but at this point in time I just can not get excited about a remake of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. After the balls-up that was HALLOWEEN and the kind of okay CHAINSAW remake I'm a little nervous about this one.

I grew up addicted to '80s horror. There is a divide in my generation; two types of children. You were either a Freddy kid or a Jason kid. I was both, but I leaned toward Freddy. I was a little fat Freddy Krueger 3 years in a row... wishing my lame Freddy glove knives wouldn't bend and look cooler.

I'm not too pissed off at a Friday the 13th remake going on... I'm not happy about it, but Friday the 13th was always about the exploitation... the good kills, the young naked girls, the dark humor. NIGHTMARE was about atmosphere. The sequels have tainted the original, but go back and rewatch A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Turn out the lights, turn up the sound and I guarantee you'll get creeped out again.

That movie is fucking scary.

New Line is making a deal with Platinum Dunes (the folks behind THE HITCHER, TEXAS CHAINSAW and the in-development FRIDAY THE 13TH remake) to remake A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. No writer is attached (and there won't be until after the strike) and no director is attached.

I will have a zero-tolerance for modern horror gimmicks (what Vern would call "avid farts") or cheap scares with this one. I don't care how shitty FREDDY'S DEAD was, if you're going to remake this movie you're playing with one of the best examples of horror in the last 30 years.

Much like with the FRIDAY remake, I don't understand why it's so hard to make a sequel or a relaunch that takes place within this established universe. Maybe that's the idea with the remake, I don't know, but I'm not really happy about this.

Are they going to recast Freddy? I can't imagine a Freddy without Robert Englund (although my buddy Kraken has been telling me for a year that whenever they decide to remake NIGHTMARE they should cast Ben Foster as Freddy and he's surprisingly fitting when you look at him with that in mind), so hopefully they don't do something as stupid as making a Freddy movie without Freddy Krueger.

And hopefully they don't treat the teenagers like retarded CLUELESS rejects (hello HALLOWEEN remake). And who can they get to be as badass as John Saxon?

I don't know. The original was so inventive, the remake is going to have to be just as inventive, but not a copy. It'll take a really interesting screenwriter and director for me to shake this bad feeling. You?