Friday 16 August 2013

Wes Craven's New Nightmare

"Wes Craven's New Nightmare" aka "New Nightmare" (1994, Wes Craven, New Line Cinema) is the 7th Freddy film in the series and is the finale by Wes Craven which aims to put Freddy to bed for good and reclaim the series after some truly abysmal sequels. Of course, we all know that "Freddy vs Jason" happened 9 years later, but that's a different story...

This film enjoys an invisible fourth wall and acts as a nice wink and a nudge to the fans as we follow, instead of Nancy from the first film, Heather Langenkamp (who played Nancy in the first film) as she begins to suffer Freddy nightmares.  This quickly escalates into a much darker story when it becomes apparent that Heather is not the only one.

To make matters worse, she's been asked to appear as Nancy again on Wes Craven's new Freddy film and is surprised on air by an appearance of Robert "Freddy" Englund during an interview.

With 'cameos' from Wes Craven and John Saxon as well as hefty screen time of Robert Englund in both his forms, this film brings the franchise back from the dead while also giving a satisfactory 'out'.

The effects are fun and fit in with the series perfectly and Freddy's stalking is actually more frightening again and less cartoony. There are also question-marks over Englund's disappearance mid-film which has the spooky connotations of him actually transforming into the nightmare man!

The explanation as to how Freddy can get into the real world is good and ties in well, separating this film from the mythos of the previous ones nicely.

More scary but not without the laughs we've come to expect from Mr. Krueger and a wholly fun film. Recommended!

[Image: New Line Cinema]
Hani

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