Poster Review – A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

The new poster for the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is pretty much just the teaser poster with words, and that wasn’t a particularly striking image in the first place. The image relies heavily on the iconography of its main character, Freddy Krueger (played now by Oscar nominee, Jackie Earle Haley, no stranger to playing tormented loons).

The problem here is that’s there’s nothing to indicate that this is a flashy remake and not a sequel. You wouldn’t know that it was a different actor playing him (not that Haley’s crispy mug would be much of a selling point).

I do like that they’re trying to return the character to the grotesque mystique of the original, where you could catch only shadowy glances of his hideousness. The tip of one sparkling blade is a nice touch, as are the vague traces of green and red on the sweater.

But the tagline, “Welcome to your new nightmare” is trying to say “This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Freddy,” while showing us something that looks an awful lot like it is.  Similarly, the poster tries to look new while showing us something we’ve seen before. Worse, the tagline directly copies the title of the seventh Freddy movie, New Nightmare.  “Welcome to your new nightmare” kind of makes me want to watch that movie again instead.

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