Take that big fat studio exec cock out of your mouth, and take a long look in the mirror.

"Urm... Come to... Urm... Come to... Urm... Freddy. Come to Freddy. Urm hurm."

That said, if you're GOING TO make crappy teen horror movies at least make NEW crappy teen horror movies.

Nowadays when they market to teens, it's the teen moron demographic not the non-retards who are targeted.

Also, N.P.H. for the role of Freddy...he'd be pretty damn good in my opinion.

http://tinyurl.com/6mhygp

The old films still hold up--all that's changed is fashion and the level of precision in cinematography. The only special effects advance is CG, which is mostly useless in slasher movies.

I don't see how this won't come across as just karaoke. Freddy's a much too recent and too-well-realized icon to just be "rebooted".

And it's a vicious cycle. We can say "boycott these films, don't support it!" But just the number of people in this country who casually, uncritically go out to see new movies each week is enough to keep it going. Since so many of these awful remakes are being made, most people have little choice when going to see movies regularly but to see this junk.

The studios are the only ones who can break this cycle, but what could possibly cause people to pass up easy money? And using cheap talent on both sides of the camera makes it an even better deal.

They don't care about purists, don't care about canon, don't care about originality. They're in the business for money, and this is a ready supply of it. They will keep going relentlessly until there's nothing left to cannibalize. And by then, there will be the 90s to remake.

It's depressing--remakes of well-done modern movies are insulting wastes of time. But what can be done?

They're being remade as safe investments, and you don't play it safe by taking a weird, obtuse new direction, by deepening things. You get your money back by pretty much just doing what they did the first time, because that's what worked the first time.

If all these junk remakes were genuine cases of talented people getting together and asking, "how can we take this to a whole new artistic level?", it'd be different. But it's not.

That's why Robert Englund works. He's a genre star. He'll never be the leading man in the next Spielberg movie, but he'll never want for recognition at the conventions. Because of that, he'll always be easy to sign. Pick a name and the series is just f***ed. They'll be rotating Freddy actors like it was Batman.

At the very least, choose a TV actor. Pick somebody that is great on the small screen, but may just never make it big on the silver screen. For my money, that'd be Smallville's Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor). This guy's got the build, the facial structure, the stage presence, and the basic acting chops to pull off Freddy. He can pull off scary and intimidating as well as he can funny and bizarre. More importantly, he'll never be a big movie star and the paychecks will always be reasonable.

As far as the director goes, who knows? You just might be surprised. Renny Harlin's career was more or less launched by the NOES franchise with #4 - the last credible entry in the series & the one that tied up the story of Dream Warriors from #3. His resume before that? Super ultra mega meh. After? "Die Hard 2" A lot of clunkers after, but c'mon. Freakin' "Die Hard 2." =) This choice of directors may just surprise us.

I don't think that the experimental nature of the dreams necessarily killed the franchise. I don't even think that it was the humor. Sure. The dreams were over the top to the point of excess. Enough to kill the series? Not sure. Of course Freddy got too funny, to he point of self-parody at times. Enough to kill the series? Not sure.

What killed the series? Budget. NOES 1 cost $1.8M to make in 1984. That's $3.6M or so by 2009 standards. Y'know what? You can't afford fancy mind altering dream sequences with that $1.8M. You can't afford big actors. You've got to pick no names. You've got to rely on story to provide the scares. You've got to rely on the cover of night to hide your mistakes or cutbacks.

In short, you've got to make more with less. A lower budget will force you to stay on track and avoid all of that excess. Stupid campy humor in a horror movie wastes film. Film costs money. Big & wacky cartoon-like nightmare death traps aren't an option. The solution? Lots of blood. Lots of guts. Lots of scares that prey on the fears you can't avoid.

The real test here will be a writer that knows how to write. Craven isn't a spectacular writer, but he knew that the teens being hacked weren't disposable characters. They were people, even when they were lame or dorky. At least you could relate to them or knew somebody like them. So, when they got hacked you missed them. You even got pissed at Freddy instead of rooting for him. That's the strength in Craven's NOES and Scream work.

What the reboot needs here is somebody who knows how to make us love the characters so that we'll hate Freddy for killing them. Just like we hated him for whacking Nancy. The bastard. =)

The one thing this series needs to do in order to "get it right" is to NOT let us get to know Freddy as a person. Don't humanize him. Let him be that soulless & evil SOB who kidnapped and killed/raped (?) kids. Let him be that guy that got torched by the angry parents. Let him be an even more soulless and evil SOB who comes back in their kids dreams. Whatever they do... DON'T GET INTO FREDDY'S PAST. If we care about him, we won't care as much about his victims. We might even feel sorry for him, being a victim of circumstances - raped mom & abusive foster dad.

This reboot could "get it right" in the same way that 1,3,4, & 7 did. It could also massively fail in the same way that 2, 5, & 6 did. It could also straddle the border between respectful and downright parody that FvJ did.

One false step and BOOM!!!

The problem with making Freddy crack wise is when they do shit like have him play with a Nintendo Power Glove, give up a stoner stare, and say stuff like, "Whoah. Great graphics." Now, that's not funny. That's just stupid.

Anything Freddy says, serious or jokingly, should be just as terrifying and horrific as anything he does. It may not be a joke to those of use with actual souls, but hey... humor is humor.

Actually, I think that the funniest scene in any top tier horror flick has got to be watching Jason beating to death one camper in a sleeping bag with another in a sleeping bag. Sick, twisted, and hilarious.

If Freddy's funny it should be in such a way that you laugh mainly at stuff or situations that society says that you're not really supposed to. "I can't believe he said that." "I can't believe he did that." "Jeez. He's so sick to find that funny. Twisted bastard. I love him."

Horror movie funny should never be the same as regular movie funny. Not even the same as black comedy funny. Totally different sorta funny. Almost taboo even.

- It's funny because it doesn't have to do anything more than just BE.

- It's funny because you know that it's just a prelude to his next murder.

- It's funny because thinking about Michael's logic actually makes it even funnier. He's dressed up as a ghost... with glasses.... while wearing another mask under. Very absurd. I still laugh whenever I see it, even though that chick gets strangled 30 seconds later. LOL