When I was a kid, I used to love horror movies. Whenever my dad would take my sister and me to the video store the horror section was always the place I immediately went to. My criteria for picking out a movie back then was to choose the video with the most frightening-looking cover. I watched a lot of movies with zombies and the undead back then. One of those movie posters that stuck out to me was for A Nightmare on Elmstreet 3: Dream Warriors. I loved that movie poster, and despite having very vivid nightmares because of the movie series, I kept coming back for more. I even played a game called Freddy Krueger with my friends when we were little. Because of all my fond memories with the Nightmare series, I felt I had to watch the new remake to see what, if anything, the new movie would bring to the classic series. Unfortunately, the film was produced by Michael Bay, and everything went downhill from there. Overall, the film was a disappointment. Some of the visual effects were nice, but the entire experience was nothing more than a by-the-numbers slasher pic. Additionally, I thought the unnecessary plot point of having there be some question of Freddy's potential innocence was a mixed bag. It falsely creates sympathy for Freddy, and detracts from him being a true monster. In the original, Freddy was an unapologetic embodiment of evil. He was conceived through an act of violence, the bastard child of a 100 maniacs, and he remained psychotic throughout his entire life. The only aspects of his character that even makes him likable is the wit with which he kills his victims, and his classic one-liners that he delivers when he is pursuing them. The idea of making it seem like Freddy Krueger was an innocent man when he was alive takes away from seeing him as evil incarnate. What's worse for a horror flick, this one had very few scary thrills. Most of the kills happen far too quickly and with little imagination at that. If anything, the filmmakers could have added some new twist to the way that Freddy kills. The last point that I will make is that the final showdown with Freddy is one of the stupidest I've ever seen. In the first Nightmare, the main protagonist, Nancy is supremely clever and battles Freddy with a number of booby traps. I won't give anything away here, but the final battle in the new one was very anti-climatic. The one potential highlight was in the choice of who plays Freddy. I love Robert Englund and his characterization. To me no one will ever replace him, but I did think that picking Jackie Earle Haley was an inspired choice. However, sadly, he doesn't add anything to the role here. His portrayal is one-dimensional and the script doesn't give him much to do. When he toys with his victims, there's very little menace to his actions. In the end, I'm glad I saw the remake as bad as I thought it was, but it will never replace the original.