Congratulations, Michael Bay, you've found something you're worse at than directing. Heh. Now, I'm not actually one of those prone to anti-Bay ranting - the man's directorial style has its fans and from time to time he turns out a Bad Boys 2 and provides a quality night of mindless entertainment - but good God, this man should never produce again. For that matter, most everybody connected to the positively atrocious A Nightmare On Elm Street remake should turn in their union cards at the earliest opportunity and head off in search of alternate employment because this sure as hell aint their calling.

You can make a very good argument that its problems aren't the actors' fault - there are a number of legit talents in here with the likes of Clancy Brown, Jackie Earle Haley, Thomas Dekker and Kyle Gallner - but there's plenty of blame to spread around in other areas.

Let's start at the beginning. Hello, director Samuel Bayer! Bayer's making his feature debut here after a lengthy career in music videos. He should go back. Because when it comes to the basics of plot and character development Bayer simply doesn't have a clue. Tension? Progression? Story arcs? Who needs those? Well, good stories need those, frankly, but Bayer seems to feel no need for any of them. And no sense of when someone is turning in a good performance versus simply mailing in their lines. Or when a given scene makes any sense at all. Or how to build tension and fear. Or much of anything else.

Moving along, hello cinematographer Jeff Cutter. Note to Mr Cutter: Se7en was in 1995. That particular visual style hasn't been interesting since. And when you're making a film that exists largely in a dream world, you might want to establish some sort of visual distinction between real life and dream because when real life is already hyper-stylized and color filtered there's not a lot to distinguish it from the dream. Pig in a pot? Hell, that's just the sort of thing that happens in films like this. You mean I'm supposed to be afraid? Doesn't everybody have a pig in a pot? I'll bet David Fincher has at least six in his kitchen right now.

Onwards! Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer, I'm not sure what to call your particular contribution to this fiasco but it sure as hell wasn't a script in any conventional sense. A collection of events assembled in point form? Sure. There may have been one of those lying around the set somewhere. But an actual script? One with a story that progresses in a way that makes sense and lets you get to know the characters? One that builds mood and tension? One that makes you give a damn at all about anybody involved? There sure as hell wasn't one of those here. The writing from start to finish is flat out atrocious and completely unacceptable. Characters are wafer thin, plot even thinner and there's not a single actual scary scare.

Most critically here, though, is the mind-boggling reality that Bayer and company have taken Freddy Krueger - one of the most iconic figures in film history - and they've made him a boring, one note caricature of his former self. He's not engaging. He's not threatening. He's not much of anything. He simply shows up at regular intervals because this is what he's expected to do. Freddy is a shell of his former self and this callous, cynical strip-mining of a legitimate icon to make a quick buck off the preteen set is absolutely criminal.

Yeah, there are a couple decent visuals scattered through the film. I counted three, actually. But that's it. Literally. The race for the 2010 Razzies now has a clear front runner.