Fowler's Frights 2015: Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
Starring: Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Wes Craven
Directed by: Wes Craven


When Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare didn't give the fans the proper sendoff they wanted for Freddy Krueger, studios were talking about the possibility of bringing him back. But how do you go about doing it? Two words: Wes Craven. The director of the groundbreaking first film returned to the series, severing ties with all the humorous sequels and bringing the series back to its horror roots. However, to keep it different, the film goes behind the scenes and looks at the heavily meta concept of how the world viewed Freddy Krueger and A Nightmare on Elm Street at the time, then brought an eviler and more powerful version of Freddy into the real world. The final result is the best sequel I've seen to this series since Dream Warriors. Calling a lot to the original film, while injecting enough mockumentary style footage and giving Freddy an updated look, New Nightmare shows the world that Freddy Krueger is best on the big screen when envisioned by the Master of Horror, Wes Craven.

Like I was saying, New Nightmare takes the Nightmare films and presents how the modern world views them. That opens the door to a lot of meta humor. For example, we aren't seeing Nancy and Freddy Krueger, but rather Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund playing themselves after the success of the films. We are able to see how being the leading lady in a groundbreaking horror film isn't always the greatest thing in the world, as Heather lives with a natural fear of stalkers due to her fame. And we see that Robert Englund isn't the guy who haunted our nightmares for all those years, but is just an actor who loves his fans. This and a number of other elements, from touring New Line Cinema to actually watching the first film on television, really help add a realistic tone to the film before the man with the knife fingers show up to rip people apart.

Speaking of which, Freddy's given a fresh new look, complete with a more anatomically correct representation of his disfigured skin and sharper, sleeker knives attached to his fingers. Definite props go to Robert Englund (Why not? He's the man...) for playing the new Freddy, the campy and goofy Freddy that we are used to saying when he makes television appearances, and for playing himself as the man behind the makeup. It's an actor's performance that you aren't expecting for the seventh installment in a horror franchise, but of course Robert Englund is up to the challenge and absolutely flourishes with it. With recent talks that he may return as Freddy one more time, I'm excited to see him back as long as he can bring something new to Freddy, while maintaining what he does best in the role.

Earlier this year, Wes Craven tragically passed away, leaving behind one of the greatest horror movie legacies that any filmmaker has ever seen. This film marks a great turning point in his career, as it showed the world that the man can still scare people, while also knowing when to have enough fun with the horror genre. It's a film like New Nightmare that opened the door for him to make my favorite horror film Scream. If you really wanna look at it that way, I owe a lot to this movie. Wes also has a role New Nightmare as himself, playing it very melodramatic, but with enough warmth and charm that showed through in interviews and through the words of his colleagues. The horror world lost a big game changer this year, but thankfully we have films like New Nightmare to remind us why Wes Craven was one of the best horror directors of all time.


Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Sometimes dragging on a little too long, Wes Craven's New Nightmare was a much better way to bring the original Nightmare series to a close. It's a very unique approach to a horror film, keeping the tone very meta, but also the most serious and scary we've seen the concept of Freddy Krueger since the original Nightmare on Elm Street. Definitely worth checking out if you're looking for the best films in the franchise.

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Wes Craven's New Nightmare and movie images are copyrighted by New Line Cinema