There’s no dishonor in trying to improve upon Wes Craven’s classic A Nightmare on Elm Street; cloning it is another matter. It’s a form of ablation—using Freddy Krueger’s claws as surgical tools. The innards from the 1984 original have been removed, and placed, intact, in the gloomy frames that are meant to signify the present. The content is from Craven, all right; but the style of the transaction resembles Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I wouldn’t be surprised if the filmmakers—Michael Bay is one of the producers—were pod people: milling blandly about among us, beaming impersonally as they usurp our culture and institutions. Not that I’d call Craven’s film a very “cultured” work, but the campfire-story premise about a boogeyman who slaughters teenagers in their sleep is such fertile nightmare fuel that it practically is an institution; it screams out for an imaginative director to bottle those fears and make a bed-wetting cocktail. It’s a shame that the businessmen who produced this remake grabbed the ball only to drop it. They’re too milquetoast even for the tawdry prankishness of Sorority Row; their biggest turnaround from the original is a halfhearted red herring that seems there merely to goad NAMBLA.

The 20-somethings playing teenagers—particularly the sullen-faced Kyle Gallner—don’t come off too badly, and I can see why they’d want to be in this film, despite the hackneyed roles: It worked out for Johnny Depp. But even if the movie is watchable, its limp conception is sad; the commercial-minded remakers are more craven than Wes. If anyone wants to argue on behalf of its artistic aspirations, all I can say is, Dream on.