New Nightmare

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

Written and Directed by: Wes Craven

Starring: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Miko Hughes, Tracy Middendorf, John Saxon, David Newsom, Fran Bennett, Wes Craven

Okay. I guess one could call this the seventh film in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, though it's sort of something else. It's one of those life-imitating-art deals, which Wes Craven seems to be into. It comes up several times in the Scream trilogy.

Freddy Krueger, who was killed in Freddy's Dead (as the title would imply), comes out of the movie and begins stalking Heather Langenkamp (who plays herself) and her young son (who is played by somebody else). Also playing themselves are all the starts of the first film who weren't doing anything else important, namely Robert Englund (who owes his soul to the movie anyway) and John Saxon (Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette and Laurence Fishburne appear to have been busy). Plus Wes Craven and Robert Shaye and apparently Sara Risher, Marianne Maddalena, Tuesday Knight, and Nick Corri, none of whom I noticed while watching it.

All of which is an really clever idea, kudos to whoever thought it up (Wes Craven, I suppose. Note: The title Wes Craven's New Nightmare is actually significant to the plot, as opposed to any of John Carpenter's movies (i.e., John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars, John Carpenter's Escape from L.A., et cetera) - I'm not going to bore you to death with the details of it, though. Ha), it just isn't done very well. It feels almost as though Wes got jumbled towards the end. Everything gets tangled up in a big knot and it ceases to make any kind of sense in any possible context.

I'm really not sure what was happening at the end of the movie there. I guess Heather Langenkamp goes into the movie, but I'm not entirely sure. It was weird and bizarre.

Another problem I was having is that I really don't like her any more. I did appreciate her when she was cute and little and the best thing in the movie, but now she's really not. She was pretty awful, actually. I mean, she was playing herself for fuck's sake, how hard can it be? The little kid was terrible, too. And a lot of the dialogue was crappy, which didn't help a whole bunch.

I would have been happier if someone else had played the lead. Robert Englund, maybe - that would have made an interesting plot. Wes Craven, even. He wasn't all that great in this, not that he was in it a whole lot. He was just nerdy and kind of disgusting. Everybody was vaguely disgusting...

Anyway, there's some interesting stuff in there. That whole snakey thing at the end there was pretty cool. Still, it was kind of on the dull side. And sweet Lord, the music was bad. It was really, really loud, too, which bothered my brain.

It was just kind of irritating. I do appreciate the effort, though. It's just the wasted potential that bugs me. I guess I've got Freddy vs. Jason to look forward to now. Goodie.

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