When Platinum Dunes the production house created by Michael Bay Andrew Form and Brad Fuller first came into being it took on the father of modern horror films The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s safe to say everyone expected it to be a total failure given who was involved; when it turned out that it actually wasn’t too bad of a film fans were justifiably surprised. A few mid-level misfires later Platinum Dunes raised their aim at iconic horror franchises even higher bringing back TCM‘s director Marcus Nispel to tackle Jason Voorhees. Again people weren’t expecting much so it was another pleasant surprise that 2009’s Friday the 13th turned out to be a thoroughly entertaining respectful recombination of the cabin-in-the-woods slasher. From there the studio didn’t even bother to go back to lesser franchises they notched their crosshairs as high as they could go; Freddy Krueger.

Fast forward twelve months. The main thing anyone will want to know about A Nightmare on Elm Street is whether it is at the very least a worthy remake of the original Wes Craven film about a slain pedophile who resurrects in the dream world to kill teenagers in their sleep. The short answer is a resounding yes. Samuel Bayer’s film is the best remake in the Platinum Dunes stable; Jackie Earle Haley is an excellent successor to the original’s Robert Englund; and Freddy Krueger isn’t just scary again he’s the most disturbing he’s ever been. The long answer is of course a little more complicated and requires plenty of qualifiers.

Yes A Nightmare on Elm Street is the best remake Platinum Dunes has produced but the reason behind that is also the film’s handicap. For the most part Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer’s screenplay hems incredibly close to Craven’s original. There comes a point in the film however where staying faithful to the source material becomes a bit too problematic. Mainstream audiences particularly those who didn’t grow up with Krueger will be unaffected but horror fans may soon grow bored with the lack of individuality in the scripting department. And then just as the film threatens to overthrow its predecessor by changing (for the better) Krueger’s origin story it backs off once again sacrificing innovation for tradition.

It would appear to be a contradiction but that adherence to tradition in turn becomes the remakes’ greatest strength. Bayer and company dive even deeper into the Elm Street mythos giving the audience in the process two crucial looks at what Krueger was like before the parents of the molested preschoolers delivered their gas-can brand of mob justice. Haley’s astounding amount of talent makes profound use of every second of these brief glimpses into a pre-burn Freddy. Then once the kind soft-spoken kid-loving mask of the pedophile-in-hiding has been literally burned off the true monster underneath emerges. This contrast between the Freddy the kids knew and the Freddy they now know as teens makes for some legitimately bothersome bedroom nightmares toward the film’s end.

As for the teens they too are marked improvements this time around. Johnny Depp may have emerged from the ’84 classic but he was about it. Rooney Mara Kyle Gallner Thomas Dekker and Katie Cassidy all do an admirable job with the at times thin characterizations they’re given. It’s a testament to the talent of each of them that they overcome the limitations of the script to warrant some investment in their fight against their dream killer. And as for that dream killer…Haley is the perfect replacement for Englund. His take on the voice may be indistinguishable from his work as Rorschach in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen adaptation but considering it fits Haley’s commanding presence as Krueger as snugly as the iconic bladed glove whose newly stylized dragging across the pipes in Freddy’s dream boiler room sounds skincrawlingly likely a cross between nails on a chalk board and an arc welder that’s not too much of a complaint.

A little more worthy of complaint are a few failed attempts to reinact iconic moments from the original most notably Freddy’s emergence from the wallpaper above Nancy’s bed. It’s inexcusable that a special effect in the year 2010 should look worse than the effect from the 1984 film it’s imitating but CGI the perpetual enemy of the horror fan once again rears its ugly head. That embarrassing failure aside this film could not look better. Bayer did a tremendous job of altering the reality of the dream world with subtle visual distortions (a lot of straight lines are skewed obtusely outward while the edges of the frame curve oh so slightly inward) when necessary. And the effects work on Krueger’s face is appropriately gruesome in all the right spots. One can even forgive the terrible wallpaper CGI scene in exchange for inspired touches like a partial singed cheek that flaps slightly when he exhales or moves too quickly.

While this rebirth of Krueger no doubt boasts a number of glorious kills (the bold opener sets the gore precedent quite nicely) its biggest strength in the fear department is this new far more disturbing structuring of the character as a joyless disgusting psychopath. Craven’s original used Krueger’s actions mainly as the logistical justification for why he would be killing these teenagers whereas Bayer’s handling of the material leverages the origin story beyond just physical torture and into mentally disturbing psychosexual territory. The original franchise gradually acclimated to the idea of Krueger as a sexual threat but this iteration makes no qualms about it. It’s not just the burns to Krueger’s face that have been updated for realism; his motivations have as well — and that makes this new Nightmare on Elm Street scary as hell.