New Releases: April 30

1. A Nightmare On Elm Street (Warner Brothers/New Line, 3,332 Theaters, 95 Minutes, Rated R): The original Nightmare on Elm Street was a step above the typical teen slasher films of the 1980s. It had a great back story–a child killer is burned alive by the neighborhood parents only to come back and kill their kids in their dreams. It had themes–vengeance, revenge, Children paying for the crimes of their parents. And it had a lot of psychological twists and gruesome, yet imaginative deaths.

The original is considered a classic of its genre. So much so, that a remake seems superfluous. But they are remaking every horror movie of note from the last 30 plus years, and they would have to get around to this one eventually. So why not now.

This version has one major improvement over the original–the guy playing Freddy. Robert Englund was awesome as the creepy and campy clawed killer, but how many Oscar nominations did he have? One less than the current Freddy, Jackie Earle Haley, who is enjoying another chance to employ his Rorschach voice in his current role.

2. Furry Vengeance (Summit Entertainment, 2,997 Theaters, 92 Minutes, Rated PG): If Brendan Fraser’s career was in Nightmare on Elm Street, stay with me here, I know it sounds weird, but stay with me, if his career was being hunted by Freddy, when it came time for the big kill scene, this film would unspool.

Seriously, this films has a 0% fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes.  Granted, only 21 reviews are in, because the studio refused to screen it for critics (BAD SIGN!!!! BAD SIGN!!!), but no one have it a thumbs up. Lets see if it gets any positive reviews before the weekend is up.

Gawd, this film looks positively awful. Fraser plays a real estate who finds himself up against a cadre of woodland creatures when he wants to develop their habitat. Nut shots, peeing in the mouth and skunk sprays ensue. But I’d wager not much hilarity.

This film supposedly passed through Steve Ccarell and Jeremy Piven’s hands before it landed at Fraser’s. Those men should send a nice gift basket to their agents. And Fraser should fire his.