Michael Bay

Fittingly, Platinum Dunes' remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street popped online via MySpace Trailer Park during the witching hour, and just in time for Halloween. 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.

This teaser also offers us the first look at Freddy's new make-up. This has been a rather well-kept secret in these spoiler-happy days, and even at ComicCon they were being quite tight-lipped about what he was going to look like, except that it would be "more extreme" than before. You don't get a very good look at Freddy in this teaser, but I've screen-capped the close-up and ran it through Photoshop. If you don't like it, don't criticize the filmmakers too much, as I've de-shadowed and sharpened quite a bit. (I've included an unedited photo in the gallery below for those more curious.) That said, I'm not sure I'm a fan of it because it looks a little too CGI. (I'm not sure if it is. I'm speaking entirely from ignorance. Our William Goss will soon tell us, he was there!) But it's one look and it's still early in post-production, so I'm not going to judge too harshly. Otherwise, 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.

The trailer is below the jump, and the new Nightmare hits theaters on the very unscary date of April 30, 2010.