Wes Craven’s New Nightmare review
Two years before he rewrote the rules with Scream, Wes Craven did more than dip his toe into the meta-horror waters. He made a brilliant movie that the world wasn’t quite ready for.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
Directed by Wes Craven
Written by Wes Craven
Starring Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Miko Hughes, John Saxon, Tracy Middendorf, David Newsome and Wes Craven
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare Review
Ten years after he was born (and three years after he died) beloved child murderer Freddy Krueger found himself in the most unique concept a classic slasher killer ever did. Wes Craven, franchise creator and writer/director of the 1984 original, returned to the series with a new creative vision. An exploration of horror on the people who make it. People involved in the original nightmare would star as themselves in a story about a demon trying to break out of its fictional cage. It brought in the poorest box office receipts in franchise history.
It might seem dismissive to say the world wasn’t ready for Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Box office returns can easily be explained by the sharp decline in quality of the last two films, after all. The problem with that argument is that the clever marketing of the previous film as the one where Freddy will really die saw it bump up its worldwide grosses by a full third. New Nightmare was, to say the least, a more difficult sell.
Attaching high concept to a classic slasher franchise was unheard of in 1994. The closest 80s slashers ever got to high concept was Jason Voorhees body-swapping around the worst film in Friday the 13th canon. Even that was still a straightforward narrative. For its part, the Nightmare franchise was probably the least likely to break that mold. By the third film they’d found a formula…and they were sticking to it through diminishing returns come Hell or high water. None of that interested Craven. Aside from an early draft of Nightmare 3 (unsurprisingly the third great movie in the series), Craven wasn’t involved in the creative day to day of the property he created. That changed in 1994. As it turns out…1994 was two years too early.
Just two years later Craven’s name would become synonymous with meta-horror. He had invented one of the most successful horror villains in history and returned a decade later to meditate on what that meant. In 1996 he helmed the wildly successful Scream…and opened a love of the genre up to a new generation of fans. Or, perhaps, rewarded the one who had sat through so many declining franchises throughout their lives. Even if they didn’t care that he had already done that once before.
Scream had every advantage over New Nightmare. Scream is about people who love slasher movies. The 17 years olds who grew up in a post-Halloween era where slasher movies were synonymous with horror. It featured a hot young cast, was full of pop-culture references and made horror cool again. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare was about A Nightmare on Elm Street. That limits your core audience right there. In a broader sense it is about all horror, where stories come from and what they mean (specifically to their creators). That’s still nowhere near the appeal that Scream brought to the table. Let alone the hip-factor.
Craven didn’t stock his cast full of young actors you could find in the pages of Teen Beat. This story wasn’t about bringing Freddy Krueger to a new generation of fans. He brings key members of the original’s cast back together to play versions of themselves. Heather Langenkamp, the original’s Nancy, is an actress married to a special effects artist. They have a young son named Dylan (Miko Hughes). If you want to know exactly how meta this gets…Hughes was best known as Gage in 1989’s Pet Sematary. Langenkamp’s real-life husband worked on that movie…as a special makeup effects artist.
Robert Englund has a dual role as both Freddy Krueger (or the demonic entity that has adopted his form) and as himself. New Line chief Bob Shaye plays himself…as does Craven. John Saxon, Nancy’s father in the original, returns as…you guessed it…John Saxon. Lin Shaye (sister of Bob) returns as a nurse…having portrayed a teacher in the 1984 classic.
When you watch New Nightmare with fresh eyes you may be caught off-guard at how unlike the other Nightmare movies it is. Aside from an opening dream sequence (what else), this is a story about earthquakes, stalkers and the stress of raising a kid who is going through some unexplained trauma. Set aside that it takes place in “the real world” for a moment…this is the seventh Freddy movie…and it’s a bold gambit. A gambit that pays off as Heather’s world begins to morph into the movie world of her nightmares. The story literally becomes about accepting her role as Nance one last time.
The way the change is achieved is nothing short of incredible. Small, repeated moments from the 1984 film begin to plague the new narrative. Freddy is desperate to cross over into our world…and he needs his final girl to take up the mantle again. The key moment occurs when Saxon, portrayed as a caring family friend throughout New Nightmare, begins delivering dialog in the character of Lt. Thompson. He turns to Heather now looking straight off the 1984 screen. She understands what has to happen next. Freddy has her son…and she can’t fight him as Heather Langenkamp. She accepts her role and turns to see the outside of her home…now looking as it did when Nancy Thompson lived there in a movie ten years earlier.
The standout sequence in New Nightmare even involves a twist on the best kill of the 1984 version. Tina’s bloody crawl across the ceiling is reimagined for doomed babysitter Julie. This time, Dylan can see what’s happening with Freddy in full view. It’s a brilliant kill in a movie that only features four deaths. Two of which happen in the opening sequence. By the way…the original Nightmare had four deaths as well. Go figure.
Langenkamp is tremendous in New Nightmare. Whenever people put Nancy Thompson on a list of best final girls…I always think “isn’t she kind of better as Heather Langenkamp?” Englund plays this version of Krueger completely differently than the wise cracking scamp the series had devolved into. There is genuine menace here again. He isn’t looking for laughs and one-liners. Craven cleverly fits a scene of Englund as the fan favorite Freddy so the difference couldn’t be clearer. Hughes is terrific as Dylan. Saxon was never less than great in anything.
But it’s the idea of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare that holds up best after three decades. A creator returning to his greatest idea and turning it completely inside out. An examination of where ideas come from and how they affect the people who give them life. A bold, original take on a subgenre whose best days seemed long behind it. Of course, Craven’s own Scream proved that wrong just two years later. New Nightmare struggled to find fans because it was about movies. Scream talked about movies, but it was about the fans. It took a fan to write it as Kevin Williamson did. Craven couldn’t write Scream. He lived on the inside of the idea. What he could do…he had already done to near perfection two years earlier.
Scare Value
Two years was all it would take for the world to embrace turning the camera onto a different slasher subject. Scream, of course, benefitted from aiming straight at the audience. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare takes a harder path…examining the effects of horror on the people who make it. It was a brilliant concept for the decade long franchise that had gone firmly off the rails. Thirty years later…it remains the perfect conclusion to what Wes Craven dreamed up in 1984.
4.5/5
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare Links
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