After countless sequels, it is hard to see what more filmmakers could get out of “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

Even so, the 1984 horror movie hit has been remade and updated to the present in a new version just released. The new “A Nightmare on Elm Street” retains the general outlines of the original, but is not a shot-by-shot remake. And the original’s director, Wes Craven, was not even involved.

The cast is all new and the story re-set in the present, which required a few plot adjustments. But the basic “boogey man in your dreams” idea remains, with teens in a peaceful suburb dying from attacks during nightmares about an evil man with a burned face, wearing a striped sweater and sporting a glove with razor-sharp knives. Several teens try to stay awake to escape the killer and find a way to stop him.

The cast has come and gone in the various sequels but this is the first “Nightmare” without Robert Englund as Freddie Kruegger. Yet, Jackie Earle Haley is well cast as the murderous, wisecracking Freddie. Kyle Gallner plays Quentin and Rooney Mara is cast as Nancy, the teens who try to unravel the mystery of Freddie. Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker and Kellan Lutz play other teens Kris, Jesse and Dean, who are caught in this nightmare. The director is Samuel Bayer, whose previous works are music videos and some short films.

There are several problems with remaking such a famous movie.

For one thing, the premise is so well-known that the element of surprise about the “who” and “how” of the killings is gone. Even without being a fan of the original, you know all about Freddie, his knife-tipped gloves and his attacks on his dreaming teen victims as they sleep.

That means this new movie has to entertain and surprise some other way. Reasonably, one would think that ever more creative dreams would be the way to create suspense, fear and shock. Yet the dreams show little imagination until near the end, where there are a few visually clever scenes. Worse, the film always lets you know when characters are dreaming, eliminating a chance for suspense. There is more story than the original, but not enough overall creativity to overcome a certain dullness. Although resisting a temptation to simply up the gore factor is a plus.

Jackie Earle Haley is very creepy as Freddie but his strong performance is not enough to rescue the whole movie from its lapses into dullness. Yes, dullness. It has some moments, mostly thanks to Haley, but not enough to really make it consistently scary and revive a too-familiar horror tale.

The remade “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is not the worst horror movie ever, but it is more shrug-worthy than praise-worthy. Those who categorize films into separate scary genres may disagree, but if you really want to see truly frightening film dreamworlds, it is better to check out “Pan’s Labyrinth” or “The Orphanage.” C- –Cate Marquis