1 out of 5

Directed by: Rachel Talalay

Tragic.  I have no problem with re-spinning the Freddy formula, but it’s apparently hard to do it right.  Since Craven kicked off the mix of creepy / kooky, we’ve had a couple attempts at something more ‘serious’ – parts 2 and 5, both equally lame in their own ways – and now 6, which wants to pretty much ditch all the horror in favor of going straight campy stupid with it.  Freddy’s a good match for that, but director Rachel Talalay’s sensibilities at this point – which we’ll say were still heavily under the influence of having worked with John Waters on a couple films – can’t manage to suffuse the film with any particular energy, the shittily edited-together sequences just coming across as a rattling off of ideas.  You can see a sprinkle of how this could’ve worked in the opening sequence – after an odd “all the teenagers are dead” proclamation, delivered via classic sci-fi computer screen graphics, we go to our (now) traditional dream setting, with the unnamed Shon Greenblatt first assaulted on a plane ride (his seat ripped right out of the plane) and then, ‘waking up’ in a bed, things go all Pee-Wee’s Playhouse as the house goes flying from the Earth.  Eventually Shon does a great tumble down a hill, gets hit by a bus, then is thrown clear of what we see is Springfield, Freddy appearing in his wake and smiling about the whole business.  This whole bit works, and works really well.  It’s insane, Talalay does a lot of handheld work that keeps things in your face, and Shon mostly doesn’t talk.

The kid is picked up by a shelter, with Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane) convinced that taking Shon back to Springfield might cure a bout of amnesia, and dream specialist Yaphet Kotto (character name: doc.  yup.) – whom I love ever since Bone, mind you – blah blahs about the power of dreams just so we know he’ll be helpful later on.  Some other crazy kids sneak along for the trip to Springfield where, indeed, there appear to be no teenagers (and where there are Roseanne / Tom Arnold / Johnny Depp cameos…), and then no one can leave the town, because let’s suddenly add in that Freddy is imbued with some mystical live forever powers and will kill pretty much anyone now.  Frustratingly, there are some rich ideas here that simply aren’t embraced.  Exploring the town could’ve been used for much more than the one Roseanne gag, and the ‘reveal’ of how Shon and Maggie are tied into events would’ve been novel in the hands of a better marriage of script and direction.  But the complete lack of horror (the deaths are just goofy, not grossly or scarily goofy) and the slap-dash way sequences are (not) stitched together ruins any chance of allowing those ideas credence.  Not to mention that our main two actors are horrible and the rest of the cast seems like they’re being cued by someone reading them lines, and thus the timing is off all over the map.  Only Englund really boasts any confidence on screen, but with his character reduced to a simpleton with poor makeup, all his puns and grinning really can’t even muster a smile.

Some visual zip, but zero interest from how the overall package is delivered and for completely missing the horror-comedy target (or… any target?) for which it seemed the flick was aiming.