1994’s Wes Craven’s
New Nightmare, written and directed by Wes Craven.
Starring Heather Langenkamp, Miko Hughes, David Newsom,
Robert Englund, Tracy Middendorf, Wes Craven, Sarah Risher, Robert Shaye, John
Saxon, and Tuesday Knight.
What is it about?
Set in the real world where the A Nightmare On Elm Street series is just a bunch of horror movies, New Nightmare stars Heather Langenkamp,
as the actress who played Nancy Thompson in the original movie (and pt.3), who
has been having nightmares about the movie character of Freddy Krueger.
Heather’s husband, Chase (David Newsom), and their son, Dylan (Miko Hughes),
also suffer from visions of the demented killer with the razor sharp glove. Nancy
reaches out to original members of the cast (Robert Englund, Wes Craven, John
Saxon) for help, but the only solution may be for life to imitate art as she
plays Nancy one last time in an effort to take down Freddy for good.
Why is it worth seeing?
New Nightmare exists
as an outlier to the Nightmare on Elm
Street franchise, connected but existing in a different universe, a
welcoming feature. Despite possessing a unique and compelling feature of the
slasher sub genre of horror, after 6 movies the franchise had grown
increasingly stale and cynical, cranked out year after year to diminishing
returns. By the release of Freddy’s Dead,
pretty much all anyone could ask for was that whomever came up with the title
was being honest. While Freddy does
come back, it’s not to the original’s iconic setting of 1428 Elm Street of
Springwood, Ohio- it’s here (specifically Los Angeles), in the real world.
One of the drawbacks of the previous sequels was the continual insistence on Freddy trying to manifest himself outside of the dream realm. It took away from the series strongest mythology, in Freddy’s strengths, his mastery of the unconscious, and the movies’ sharing with us that feeling his victims’ felt- that lack of control and logic while they underwent vulnerable Rapid Eye Movements. It’s the stuff of obscure madness. But writer/director Wes Craven, who created the series in the first place, has a new goal in mind- that Freddy, the antagonist of the fictional series (who after so many films had practically become a wise cracking protagonist), could leave the fictional world of film to instead inhabit reality. Craven, ever the mad scientist/auteur, creates a meta film in which he even plays himself, the writer/director of the series, who is finishing the script to the film we are watching as we watch it. It’s a clever (by half) trick, and its self aware musings would later serve as a blueprint for his other successful horror franchise, the ultra meta Scream.
Blessed with notoriety (Freddy Krueger is one of the most iconic horror villains of all time) and a (decent) budget, Craven sought to give his gloved maniac a makeover, and it works for the menacing boogeyman (although I’m in the camp that Freddy works best in the shadows with modest means of cutting up the competition). Another welcome wrinkle is how Heather isn’t just portraying the typical demographic of Nightmare films, that of teenagers, but is a wife and mother who has to try to defeat the series’ typically mocking portrayal of adults as hedonistic parents who suck at parenting. Her efforts to defend her son while she understands just what is affecting him pulls you in. So does the franchise’s return to zero gravity nightmares.
But the series continues to lose its way in how to combat Freddy- is the dude a manifestation of dream logic, or not? The number of ways to dispatch of him (before he inevitably returns again), are almost as numerous as his victims, and it makes one pine for the original’s depiction of a specter who could be ceased once the victim stopped believing in being a victim. It was empowering stuff, that required potential victims to not buy into what their senses were telling them while in an agitated state (powered by the ultimate agitator). Once the meta hijinks are explained there’s not really much to go over (much like the previous sequels’ habits of resurrecting Freddy with tricks like flaming dog urine), and some of the weaknesses in previous films persist (laugh out loud bad dialogue, bad acting, and bizarre situations- such as a psychiatric nurse who seems to believe she has the power to place children in foster care so they can be psychiatrically assessed). That, and effects that seem a little too ambitious for the team that is creating them, diminish our favourite Fedora clad monster.
Self aware and polished almost as sharp as the franchise icon’s razor fingers, once the clever premise is established we have no place to go but to where the franchise already has many times in the past. After a while, it all starts to feel like a nightmare.
One of the drawbacks of the previous sequels was the continual insistence on Freddy trying to manifest himself outside of the dream realm. It took away from the series strongest mythology, in Freddy’s strengths, his mastery of the unconscious, and the movies’ sharing with us that feeling his victims’ felt- that lack of control and logic while they underwent vulnerable Rapid Eye Movements. It’s the stuff of obscure madness. But writer/director Wes Craven, who created the series in the first place, has a new goal in mind- that Freddy, the antagonist of the fictional series (who after so many films had practically become a wise cracking protagonist), could leave the fictional world of film to instead inhabit reality. Craven, ever the mad scientist/auteur, creates a meta film in which he even plays himself, the writer/director of the series, who is finishing the script to the film we are watching as we watch it. It’s a clever (by half) trick, and its self aware musings would later serve as a blueprint for his other successful horror franchise, the ultra meta Scream.
Blessed with notoriety (Freddy Krueger is one of the most iconic horror villains of all time) and a (decent) budget, Craven sought to give his gloved maniac a makeover, and it works for the menacing boogeyman (although I’m in the camp that Freddy works best in the shadows with modest means of cutting up the competition). Another welcome wrinkle is how Heather isn’t just portraying the typical demographic of Nightmare films, that of teenagers, but is a wife and mother who has to try to defeat the series’ typically mocking portrayal of adults as hedonistic parents who suck at parenting. Her efforts to defend her son while she understands just what is affecting him pulls you in. So does the franchise’s return to zero gravity nightmares.
But the series continues to lose its way in how to combat Freddy- is the dude a manifestation of dream logic, or not? The number of ways to dispatch of him (before he inevitably returns again), are almost as numerous as his victims, and it makes one pine for the original’s depiction of a specter who could be ceased once the victim stopped believing in being a victim. It was empowering stuff, that required potential victims to not buy into what their senses were telling them while in an agitated state (powered by the ultimate agitator). Once the meta hijinks are explained there’s not really much to go over (much like the previous sequels’ habits of resurrecting Freddy with tricks like flaming dog urine), and some of the weaknesses in previous films persist (laugh out loud bad dialogue, bad acting, and bizarre situations- such as a psychiatric nurse who seems to believe she has the power to place children in foster care so they can be psychiatrically assessed). That, and effects that seem a little too ambitious for the team that is creating them, diminish our favourite Fedora clad monster.
Self aware and polished almost as sharp as the franchise icon’s razor fingers, once the clever premise is established we have no place to go but to where the franchise already has many times in the past. After a while, it all starts to feel like a nightmare.
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