Coincidentally, just as Roman Polanski faces extradition for his 30-year-old statutory rape case, we get our first teaser for the pedophilia-centric A Nightmare on Elm Street remake. At least, I heard there was supposed to be a teaser. All I could find was a pretty full-length trailer that gives everything away.

First we see a snippet of Freddy Krueger’s origin, in which Jackie Earle Haley unveils the iconic sweater as if he’s Clark Kent ripping open his button-down shirt to reveal his Superman costume, while being burned alive by an angry mob of parents. Then we see a whole bunch of familiar imagery, including the razor glove in the tub, the girl floating above her bed and the creepy jump roping girls, all of which implies this remake is going to be fairly redundant. Yet we finish with something that separates this redo from the original: our first clear glimpse of the new Freddy, looking more realistically like a burn victim. And we hear his voice, which is far less memorable or frightening than the one Robert Englund introduced to us 25 years ago.

So the things I want to be the same aren’t and the things I want to be fresh are not. The only way I might see this is if the rumors are true about Freddy’s guilt being put into question. That would certainly give him greater reason for revenge.

Check out the other film blogs’ responses to the trailer after the jump:

• Sean at Film Junk is not a fan of this first trailer:
  

  The thing that bugged me the most, though, is the whole “little kid singing a cute song in a creepy way” trick which has been used in practically every horror movie trailer for the past 5 years. This movie shouldn’t need to resort to that crap… come on! Make me feel like Freddy’s return to the big screen is an event. I’m also not sure how I feel about seeing every detail of Freddy’s back story in the film, but I guess that’s what will set this apart from the original.

• Craig Kennedy at Living in Cinema is turned off by the redundancy:
  

  My indifference to this remake of the classic ’80s horror flick A Nightmare on Elm Street is absolute and the trailer does nothing to convince me otherwise. By lifting whole scenes from the original (including the glove emerging from the bathtub between the heroine’s legs – which Craven himself lifted from a similar scene with a snake in 1981’s Deadly Blessing), the filmmakers (including executive producer Michael Bay) aren’t even pretending to be offering you anything new.

• Mali Elfman at ScreenCrave also complains about the shots directly copied from the original:
  

  This is a good trailer, but the problem is, is that all the best parts are from the original, and if that’s the case, then why not just re-release the original in theaters again? The use of the original song that haunted my generation for decades to come is amazing, but it belongs with it’s maker back in the 80’s.

• Scott Mendelson at The Huffington Post also thinks the replication is a problem:
  

  Well, that’s a little underwhelming. What’s most apparent is that, aside from a few flourishes (the opening scene of Fred Krueger being burned to death, a pool-party scene that may or may not be cribbed from Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge), this is looking like something resembling a beat-for-beat remake. Frankly, if that’s the route they go, it feels like a missed opportunity.

• Quint at Ain’t It Cool News is similarly disappointed with the familiarity:
  

  Stylistically, I’m very happy, however I still find myself wishing they’d just reboot the material and not have Nancy, Tina and all the rest. Every time I see something new I think “That’s pretty cool… yeah, Kruger running from the parents… ohh, creepy kids with slash marks on their clothes…” and then I see the iconography from the first film and it takes me right out of the moment. Hey! There’s where Tina dies! Hey, there’s the glove in the bathtub moment! You know what I mean.

• Bob at MovieBob comments on the redundant imagery, too:
  

  The apparent fidelity to the original film(s) is genuinely shocking: Not only do a bevy of the first installments most iconic scenes seem to have been preserved; but the composition, color-palette and even the lighting looks the same. The shot of the pool-party looks like a direct screengrab from “Freddy’s Revenge.” Hell, is that the same factory, even? Color me intrigued, since PD’s previous 80s-horror revamps were both top-to-bottom overhauls.

• Meredith Woerner at io9 doesn’t think a grittier, more realistic-looking Freddy will work as well:
  

  This is the first time we’re seeing Jackie Early Haley as the scorched child-molester Freddy Krueger. This nightmarish character was always a bad, bad man but now he’s really something…and we’re not sure how it’s going to play. Not only will you have to get used to this new gravelly voice, but look at him…..This kind of look kind of ruins the monster we love to hate idea.

• Tony Lang at JoBlo.com thinks the new Freddy is too familiar in a bad way:
  

  On the plus side, there’s has an appearance by Clancy Brown and that is ALWAYS good, although he probably won’t have that big a role. BUT a few things have me cringing, among others the fact that somebody seems to have forgotten a hot potato in Jackie Earl Haley’s mouth. Oh, and we get a glimpse at Freddy’s face - kinda looks a little like the new Michael Myers…

• Lane Brown at Vulture isn’t quite as critical of the new Freddy look:
  

  Also, as you’ll see in the last shot of this new trailer, advances in dermatological plastic surgery these past 25 years haven’t done much for victims of angry-mob-ignited warehouse fires, as Freddy’s face looks different but still totally gross.

• Casey at BloodyGoodHorror.com’s The Mondokey Hole is completely into Haley’s Freddy:
  

  For myself, this looks positive! While I’m still not wild about the idea of a “Nightmare” remake, I can get onboard with a darker take on the story sans the wisecracks and one-liners! Haley appears to be spot on in the part and I like that they’ve fleshed out the origin a bit as well. The biggest change here is the new make up on burn victim Freddy, aiming to make him look more like a real burn victim. While we do not get a long shot at it, I think what we do see works!

• Ryan Adams at Awards Daily is also more positive:
  

  Three words explain why this trailer is worth a look: Jackie Earl Haley. These kinds of movies stopped being scary to me ages ago, and it’s not because I outgrew them. This looks pretty dang creepy and stylish.

• Jackson Bishop at Collider is another fan of the new Krueger:
  

  As a guy who isn’t too thrilled with the number of remakes, reboots, and re-imaginings coming out of Hollywood over the last several years, I have to say that this looks absolutely excellent. It seems atmospheric, disturbing, and geek god Jackie Earl Haley looks to rock us all right out of our socks as the man in the fedora, all respect to Robert Englund, of course. The small glimpse we get of Freddy here seems pitch perfect, and seems like this flick will do something for Freddy that hasn’t been done in over a decade…actually make him scary.

• Kyle Buchanan at Movieline addresses the origin story as seen in the trailer:
  

  Still, it’s interesting to see Freddy’s fiery backstory realized onscreen to such a fetishistic degree; as shot by musicvideo director Samuel Bayer, it appears to play like some mad cross between the warehouse fire that created Two-Face in The Dark Knight and the slow-mo Americana porn that Armageddon’s montages were made of. We created a monster in the shadow of the American dream, and now the sins of the father are visited on our sexy, sexy children.

• Elisabeth Rappe at Horror Squad notes there’s enough back story shown here to know we’re supposed to be sympathetic:
  

  While it’s only a teaser, it manages to pack Freddy Krueger’s origin story into a few horrifying frames. You actually feel bad for the (alleged?) child molester, something that’s due entirely to Jackie Earle Haley. I’m beginning to think he can make you feel sympathetic for just about anyone. [...] the film looks like a fairly standard and bigger budgeted remake, and more promising than most purely because of Mr. Haley. I think he’s going to knock this one out of the park, and scare the sleep out of us.

• Vince Mancini at FilmDrunk adds to that reasoning that Freddy isn’t necessarily the bad guy this time:
  

  So if you were thinking that this is going to be badass because Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen’s Rorschach) is playing Freddy, also keep in mind that the idea behind it was that Nightmare on Elm Street could be improved by making it more serious. Which is a great idea. I’ve always said this would be better if the plot hinged on whether the guy that kills people in their dreams was a molester. Also, I think if you’re rich enough to go to a pre-school that has a full-time white gardener, you deserve to get molested every now and then just so you don’t get a big head.

Now check out the trailer, courtesy of MySpace:

A Nightmare on Elm Street in HD