The premise is a familiar one if you’re familiar with the original series. A group of teenagers is haunted by a disfigured man with knives for fingers. In their dreams, he attacks and tries to kill them. Unlike other serial killers, Mr. Krueger attacks people in their dreams but if he kills a person in their dreams they are dead in the real world as well.

According to the remake’s website, the new “Nightmare” is a “contemporary re-imagining of the seminal horror classic.” I have not seen the original in several years, but from what I remember this film heavily borrows from its predecessor, but this one’s not likely be remembered as fondly.

In the new “Nightmare,” the action starts quickly as teenagers start getting attacked by Krueger after they fall asleep. These teenagers have no idea who this mysterious figure is and no one in the town seems willing to tell them. Slowly, these young characters start to delve into the past to find out who this man is and why he has come after them so viciously. At the same time, other teens are being killed one by one.

Unfortunately, there is very little character development or growth. Viewers will likely not care who gets attacked next or what happens next because there is nothing really interesting about any of the characters. For most of the movie, they do not even know who’s attacking them so they’re unaware of the logic behind the murders. The movie just drifts from scene to scene without any real purpose, other than to show teens falling asleep and getting violently attacked.

The trailer, which was released several months ago, seemed pretty promising. It showed a man being chased by a crowd of townspeople into an abandoned building. In a dramatic sequence, the townspeople light the building on fire and the man is seen inside the building ripping off his coat revealing a distinct Freddy Krueger sweater as he cries out in pain. Unfortunately, that is one of the few background sequences shown. Instead of dwelling on what made Freddy Krueger Freddy Krueger, the story focuses more on the typical serial killer stuff.

If you think about the story’s concept, it’s a solid one. A disfigured man attacks, not in the dead of night, but in nightmares. How can people defeat a man who only attacks you in your sleep? How long can you stay awake before your body shuts down? It sounds like an interesting concept—a man who attacks people in their dreams.

Unfortunately, this movie is just a nightmare.

Most of the films on the list fall into my ambiguity zone – I couldn’t care less one way or another. Yet some fall into the “there’s absolutely no way I’d waste $10.50 plus the cost of snacks on this one” category.

Here they are, in order of their release. You may or may not agree with my assessments,  so have at it in the comments section:

Valentine’s Day (in theaters now): Another vanity project that crams in as many big names that would say “Yes.” Directed by Garry Marshall, the “all star cast” includes (in alphabetical order) Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biehl, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Jessica Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez , Shirley MacLaine, Emma Roberts, Julia Roberts, Taylor Swift and Carter Jenkins. The movie follows the “intertwining storylines of a group of Los Angelinos as they find their way through romance over the course of one Valentine’s Day.” In other words, yet another cross-generational movie about how the beautiful people deal with love. Yawn.

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Alice in Wonderland (March 5): Alice in Wonderland is indeed a strange tale. Alice’s curiosity prompts her to follow a talking rabbit with a pocket watch down a hole and enters a land of odd creatures where nothing is as it seems, replete with talking animals and a power crazy queen whose army is a walking, talking deck of cards – and of course, she finds it was all a dream. The 1951 Disney animated film made this a favorite of children of all ages – which is why the idea of creepy Tim Burton taking over kind of bums me out. I was initially excited about seeing his version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but in the end was disappointed. Instead of Willie Wonka being a fun-loving man who just enjoys making candy and takes us along on his wacky adventures, we got Johnny Depp as a Willie Wonka whose father was dentist and ruined Willie’s childhood by forcing him to wear a horrible contraption on his head to straighten his teeth and wouldn’t allow him to have any candy. Because Willie’s childhood was “taken away” from him (think Michael Jackson, whom Depp reportedly used as inspiration for his character), he becomes a man desperate to relive his childhood. Sad. Depp is once again teaming up with Burton for Alice. Depp’s a fine actor, but I shudder to see what the two of them will do to this story.

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Green Zone (March 12): Matt “I Love Howard Zinn and I’m smarter than Sarah Palin” Damon in a movie about war. That pretty much sums it up.

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Wall Street 2 (April 23): Gordon Gekko is back. Sigh … again with the remakes. But Wall Street is once again in liberals’ sights as a symbol of all that is wrong with the world. The plot via IMDB: “As the global economy teeters on the brink of disaster, a young Wall Street trader partners with disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko on a two-tiered mission: To alert the financial community to the coming doom, and to find out who was responsible for the death of the young trader’s mentor.” Everyone’s favorite nerd Shia LaBeouf joins Wall Street veteran Michael Douglas in the sequel, directed once again by Oliver “I Love Castro” Stone. What’s not to, er, like?

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (April 30): The first Nightmare movie was shocking partly because it was different: a child murderer preys on the children of a lynch mob who killed him by entering their dreams. How can that be topped? Has Hollywood become so bankrupt in the idea department that it has to remake horror flicks from the 1980s?

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Sex in the City 2 (May 28): Haven’t we seen enough of these self-absorbed, sex-addicted, relationship-phobic women who have nothing better to do than to shop, do lunch and talk about … well, sex? Frankly, they’re getting a little long in the tooth for this sort of thing. Before you know it, they’ll be starring in Sex in the Nursing Home. And for the record, I am not one of those SJP haters…I happen to think she’s an attractive and talented woman. But let’s move on already.

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A-Team (June 11): When I was in high school, the A-Team was one of the top TV shows. Yes, I am showing my age. I watched it occasionally, but knew people who scheduled their evenings around it. A bunch of ex-U.S. Army Special Forces guys are on the run for a “crime they didn’t commit” become soldiers of fortune whose clients are always somehow oppressed. It was a product of its age: over-the-top action and over-the-top characters. I do enjoy watching reruns, but again wonder why Hollywood can’t seem to get out of the rut of revamping either old movies or old television shows for today’s audiences. The only bright side I can see are appearances by original A-Team stars Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz.

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Karate Kid (June 11): In the original film, Ralph Macchio plays Daniel, a teen whose divorced mother moves them from New Jersey to California. A fish out of water who is bullied by the local jerks – who happen to all belong to the same karate school run by a creep with a violent streak – Macchio is befriended by Mr. Miyagi, under whose handyman exterior is an accomplished martial artist and who teaches him that martial arts are more than just about beating up your opponent. “Wax on, wax off” became a catchphrase of the day (heh, I still say it). The new movie has the single mom and her son moving to China, but the rest of the plot is pretty much the same. As you might have already figured out, I’m not a big fan of remakes and am leery of films that don’t have an original storyline.

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Piranha 3-D (August 27): Since Avatar’s success, be prepared to be inundated with 3-D movies. In Piranha, a tremor under Lake Victoria unleashes the voracious ancient piranhas, leaving Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) to save the hapless townsfolk. Poor Elisabeth. … true stardom has always eluded her and she is now relegated to doing films about man-eating fish that jump out of the screen at the audience. And it’s not even the very first horror movie about these killer fish (surprise!). Watch for appearances by Christopher Lloyd, Richard Dreyfuss and Jerry O’Connell (whom I really loved in his online spoof of Tom Cruise giving a creepy Scientology talk). Bottom line: If you loved Anaconda, you’ll probably love Piranha. If not, it’s probably best to save your money and your sanity.

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Jackass 3-D (October 15): What did I tell you? 3-D! And not just any 3-D movie, but a movie about a bunch of men who refuse to grow up and go around perpetrating stupid, dangerous pranks and stunts for their own amusement – and get paid for it. It’s based, of course, on the television show from MTV (remember when they actually used to feature music videos?) and the previous two Jackass movies. I’m sorry to say that Johnny Knoxville, whose career was launched by this series and whose biggest role to date was Luke Duke in the Dukes of Hazzard movie, and all of his friends are back. I’m not necessarily a comedy snob, but I don’t find humor in watching people hurt themselves.

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What is the enduring fascination with a 55-year old flick that stars a fake Japanese reptile stomping Toyko into matchsticks?  The first thing is that Godzilla is a truly entertaining movie.  Actually, it’s two movies.  The version most Americans have seen on TV is the 1956 re-cut version of the 98-minute original Japanese movie, Gojira.  Some American producers decided it could make them a bundle, but it needed a bit of familiarization before the American audience would accept it.  They hired a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr to film some awkward footage as American reporter “Steve Martin,” cut out a lot of draggy filler, and shipped the slimmed down 80-minute final product to drive-ins all over the fruited plain.

Gojira is pretty cool on its own and is available in an awesome DVD collector’s edition (which also includes Godzilla, King of the Monsters).  Gojira is very dark, both literally and figuratively.  Black and white is really the only way to see Godzilla in action, and most of the monster attacks conveniently take place at night.  In the shadows and the flickering flames of the shattered city, you almost forget that it’s a dude in a dinosaur suit.

Under the capable, steady direction of Ishirô Honda, Gojira forgoes subtlety and is a pretty straightforward nuclear weapons allegory.  Godzilla represents the Japanese perception of what they saw as an uncaring, unstoppable and undeserved alien force of remorseless destruction wreaking havoc on their homeland, sort of like the rain of fire that descended upon Japan from American B-29s less than a decade before.

Accordingly, the central visual theme of the film is flame.  It surrounds Godzilla as he smashes through the city, it frames him on the horizon and it literally comes from within him, evoking both the pika don of the A-bomb detonations but also the even more destructive night fire bombing campaign of General Curtis LeMay.  There’s more going on here than just a monster movie – and post-WW2 Americans could not have cared less.

Of course, you don’t need to let this self-pitying revisionism get in the way of your enjoyment of the film.  I had two grandfathers bobbing out in the Pacific waiting to go in with the invasion the A-bombs ensured never happened.  I also served for nearly two decades in the 40^th Infantry Division, which was scheduled to be the first to hit the beaches and probably would have been wiped out on the sand.  Accordingly, my sympathy for the just consequences the Japanese suffered as a result of treacherously starting their brutal, savage war of conquest is distinctly limited.

But the film does provide an interesting insight into the attitude of willful indifference to the facts regarding the war that persists in Japan to this day.  For example, visiting the A-bomb museum in Nagasaki, one must search through the myriad, elaborate displays of destruction and suffering to find the most important thing any such museum might provide to its visitors – context.

Literally squirreled away near the back of the museum, I stumbled upon a small display of pictures.  They were not clearly labeled but it seemed that some were of Japanese-occupied China and one was particularly recognizable to an American – the burning hulk of the USS Arizona.  That was 2002; perhaps things have changed.  But walking out of that museum – or out of Gojira – one might be forgiven for thinking that the Japanese were just sitting around, minding their own business, enjoying some teriyaki and bottles of Asahi Super Dry, when all of a sudden these terrible things happened to them for no conceivable reason.

Sorry, Ishirô – you can try peddling that to somebody else cuz I’m not buying.

And the American producers were wise to cut that silliness out and American-ize Godzilla into something an audience that consisted of many people who had literally been shot at by the Japanese just a few years prior might want to watch.  They removed most of the allegory and, as the trailer shows, they gave Godzilla the full P.T. Barnum treatment, promising – and delivering – “dynamic violence” and “savage action.”

But they left the essential story elements in – Raymond Burr’s crudely inserted scenes simply frame the action and clarify the story so the movie can get right to the landscape-wrecking fun.  The movie starts off with some mysterious events going on out in the Pacific.  You don’t see the big guy at first – you just see shadows, bubbles, flashes, and huge footprints and you hear his legendary roar.  When Godzilla finally shows up in all his glory – the special effects here really are terrific – it’s just awesome.

There are still no laughs – well, no intentional ones – in Godzilla.  The people of Tokyo look and act terrified, and the movie plays the threat of the creature straight.  You see the injured and the dying – it’s not graphic, but the movie does show the figurative fallout of the monster’s rampage.  In the end, one character makes a noble sacrifice that will put a lump in your throat.  And, as with all the best monsters, you sympathize with Godzilla as he meets his fate.  It’s actually quite moving.

Sadly, after Gojira, the Godzilla series followed a regrettable pattern common to great genre flicks.  The first movie is a serious, uncompromising film made by serious people for serious people (but sometimes, as with Godzilla, fully appropriate for and beloved by kids too).  Then the series starts heading south.  Pretty soon your terrifying, mysterious, darkness-swathed wraith becomes a fat guy in a lizard suit wrestling King Kong for laughs in broad daylight.

It happens all the time.  The 1931 classic Frankenstein was a disturbing meditation on man and the limits of science.  By 1948, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster was chasing Abbott & Costello around while Dracula and the Wolf Man looked on.  The original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is a very tough, very creepy little horror flick.  I think Freddy Krueger fights Jason in the last sequel.  Or maybe Chucky.  Or Optimus Primus the Transformerzoid.  Who knows?  Who cares?

I haven’t seen any other Godzilla films in years, and it appears I have not missed much.  The movies reached their nadir after 1969’s Godzilla’s Revenge, where the big guy stopped stomping cities and started helping out lonely latch-key children.  Yawn.  From its very loud, very explodey trailer, 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars looks more like Godzilla v. The Matrix.

And don’t even mention the awful 1998 re-boot.  The new Godzilla featured a redesigned, doofy-looking monster plus some transplanted pseudo-raptors ripped-off from Jurassic Park chasing Matthew Broderick all over Manhattan.  This only reinforced one of the five key principles that guide my life – never see a movie starring Matthew Broderick that does not also feature Ben Stein.  Well, to be fair, Glory is pretty badass too – and itself no doubt a future “Movie We Like.”

Now, that is not to say that the later Godzilla films do not provide their guilty pleasures.  Godzilla v. The Thing (1964) is a lot of fun.  For some reason, a few years ago they insisted on re-titling it Godzilla v. Mothra, but to those of us who, in the 70’s, waited up late for Creature Features to see it, it will always be known by its original TV moniker.  And, as a bonus, it features the miniature Mothra twins’ ear-melting Mothra song.  And some of Godzilla’s later antics have a kind of goofy charm:

Another delightful Godzilla-related musical interlude is provided by the mind-boggling tune Save the Earth from 1971’s terrible, terrible Godzilla v. The Smog Monster. This is the one where Godzilla battles what appears to be a sentient, flying cow pie.  The song is the true lowlight.  It’s this combination of over-earnest 70’s enviro-nonsense and 60’s Japanopop that is mistranslated into English and served up for your listening pleasure.  You can almost see Al Gore sitting alone in his mansion, nodding his head, grinning, and snapping his fingers to its big beat as he gazes upon his Oscar and Nobel Prize.

Forget the rest of the series.  Stick with the original – okay, the second original.  Godzilla, King of the Monsters is a terrific 80-minute thrill ride mercifully free of the kind of clichéd movie industry nonsense that ruins so many movies today.  There’s no nauseating shaky-cam, the shots last longer than 0.35 seconds, and the whole thing is just plain cool.  The kids dug it big time.  Plus there’s a guy in a rubber dinosaur costume smashing up Tokyo who represents the awesome, righteous wrath of the American people – what’s not to like?