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So 20 minutes into the New Nightmare on Elm St. remake, my friends and I walked out and got our money back.  You know you can do that at most theaters, right?   I reserve this action for films that are simply unworthy of my time and money and I wish more people would follow suit.  This sends a message loud and clear – “Yes, your fancy marketing campaign worked and lured me in to the theater.   Yes, I was willing to lay down my dough in good faith that you were going to entertain me.  And yes, you clearly failed to keep up your end of the bargain and I was forced to flee because life is too short to waste on such mind-numbingly boring nothingness.”

Contrary to what films like this would have you believe, it’s really  not all that difficult to make an entertaining film.  A good film – yes, that’s tough, but merely an entertaining one?  Not so hard at all.  Here’s a hint – start with an entertaining script.  Also, don’t be some moneybags robot producer who is out of touch with the movie-going public.  Perhaps the folks green-lighting all this trash should go hit some film festivals and get to know what an actual free-thinking audience is like.  Clearly, many have no idea.  We want to be entertained.  We want to like your movie.  We’re not really all that difficult to please.  But geez, Man – toss us a bone already, will ya?

What did I find so offensive about the new Nightmare movie, you ask?  First off, I love the original.  It’s a truly unique film with heart, camp and intelligence (plus truly inspired, creative deaths – a must for a good slasher.)  It’s unique with a creepy, yet charismatic killer, the FX are great and the characters engaging.  Visually it’s so wonderfully imaginative.  Craven brings you into the effed-up world and keeps you there for the duration.  There’s even some interesting social commentary.

The remake on the other hand is this sanitized generic, terribly whiny and dreadfully mundane melo-drama with no discernible plot or character development  apparent in the first 20 minutes.  It starts out following a high schooler who looks older than I do and we couldn’t care about her less if we tried.  I was actually starting to hope it would become a torture porn just so I could see her  brutally tormented out of pure spite for wasting my time.  There’s no suspense – not only because there are no engaging characters, but because the filmmakers clearly don’t understand how horror works.  If there are no stakes, there’s nothing to lose.  Some generic, robot impersonating Freddy is not menacing.  Even the requisite “scary sound design” suddenly blaring as Freddy leaped out from the shadows didn’t elicit a response from the audience.

We finally walked out when they tried to recreate the scene where Freddy’s face makes an impression through the bedroom wall, then our heroine(?) is ridden up the wall to the ceiling and eviscerated as her boyfriend watches.  If I hadn’t seen the original, I wouldn’t even have understood what was happening, the story (or lack thereof) was so incoherent.  Even the fx were sanitized.  Boring.  Yuck.

But I’ve wasted enough time on this sacrilegious brainsore, back to the topic at hand – how does one avoid these mistakes and actually make an entertaining film?

In all honesty, I have learned more about effective filmmaking from watching good, bad and otherwise films with a variety of festival audiences who have not been set up by some marketing campaign.  Instead, they are film-lovers who go in frequently knowing very little about the film they are about to see.  If people are texting, getting up to leave, sitting in bored silence, fidgeting, snoring during your movie – well, maybe your movie isn’t as fun as it might be.  Watching a movie with an audience really lets you know the movie you’ve made – you get a sense of pacing, whether your attempts at humor, scares, sentiment and/or profundity are actually working.

I usually know before our movies are even released how people are likely to respond – what will make them laugh, groan, sigh and so forth.  I know this because I have been out there for the past 5 years, with 7 of our own films, and watching literally thousands of other people’s with audiences around the world.  Sure, there are always a few surprises and not all people will react the same to every film, but overall, it’s not too difficult to figure out what is funny, what is scary, what is heart-warming and so forth.  We’re all people, after all and as my hero Maude (Of Harold and Maude) wisely points out – “They’re my species.”

So, please.  Join my campaign to put an end to this misuse of power (and time and money) by people who have ample money to make reasonable films.  The next time you are tricked into spending money on a horrible movie that isn’t going anywhere within the first 20 minutes, please go back to the box office and demand your money back.  If we all did this, maybe they’d finally realize we’re mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore!