WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE (1994)

The term “meta” has been thrown around a lot in horror movies over the years. The idea that a horror film is self-referential or “breaks the fourth wall”—a horror movie that is aware of horror movies, so to speak. Most famously, the original Scream franchise that launched in the 1990s changed horror forever, and the franchise continues to flourish today, 30 years later. Wes Craven, the director of the first four Scream films, had already made his stamp on the horror genre with the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984). However, the movie that bridges the two iconic franchises together is often overlooked, which is WES CRAVEN’s NEW NIGHTMARE (1994). Made just two years before the original SCREAM, I feel it is often overlooked by casual horror fans and has one of the boldest ideas in a horror film. What if Freddy Krueger entered the real world? A world where his films exist, and the actors and filmmakers who made him famous are the targets. Not just a campy cartoonish version of Freddy Krueger that was seen in FREDDY’s DEAD (1991) a few years earlier, but an entity that is back to basics, darker, and demonic.

The plot is completely different than any previous A Nightmare on Elm Street film. The protagonist is Heather Langenkamp, who plays herself....famously known as the actress who played Nancy Thompson in the original and third films in the NOES franchise. She lives in Los Angeles with her young son (Miko Hughes) and husband (Chase Porter), who also works on special effects for films. Apparently, this was very similar to real life, even if she is playing a “character.” As the tenth anniversary of the first NIGHTMARE film is approaching, she is asked once again to play Thompson in a new film described as “the definitive Nightmare.” As she ponders this decision, tragedy strikes, and she and her son must deal with trauma. Is she going insane by the trauma of a tragic loss, or is this horror icon actually coming to life to terrorize her and her family?

The film really attempts to bridge reality and film with Robert Englund playing himself and Freddy Krueger. A fascinating character and plot development that I wish had been explored more. How is an actor perceived by the public and his peers for being famous for playing a killer for years? Even John Saxon, who played her father, Lt. Don Thompson, in the films, makes an appearance as himself as a mentor to Langenkamp. What really makes this “meta” is that the director Wes Craven and film producer Robert Shaye play themselves. No actors play Craven and Shaye. When I was younger, I thought they were actors playing these real-life characters, but Craven creates our world in his film. The “New Nightmare” Wes Craven also appears to be haunted by Freddy Krueger, which is another compelling aspect of the story that I wish we saw more of. How do these filmmakers who create these evil characters deal with being storytellers moving forward? Can they or should they let franchises die?

The film is somewhat of a slow-burn at first, so you must not go in thinking this is a typical Freddy Krueger gore fest with just perverse dream sequences and teenagers getting slashed. It is more than that. It’s a solid character study of a woman who has this franchise and character haunting her life, which may be what Langenkamp was really going through. Part of the back story of the plot is that she is receiving obscene phone calls from a stalker, and her family is dealing with the aftershocks of an earthquake. All grounded in reality, as there was a major deadly earthquake in Northridge, California, in 1994, and Langenkamp did deal with a real-life stalker. Again, Craven creates a world with details that are so “meta.” The film is a Freddy Krueger film, but it feels so much different. The music, the dialogue, and even the lighting appears so different than Craven’s original and other sequels in the franchise. It felt so real and scarier when I first saw it. When you are a kid, you tell yourself, “It’s only a movie,” when you are scared. But what if it’s not? What if Freddy Krueger enters the real world?!

As I have gotten older and become more fascinated with horror films, filmmaking, and the psychology of why we love being scared, I have come to love this movie even more. It was way ahead of its time and possibly too cerebral for everyone. It has numerous plot points and “easter eggs” that are so self-referential that were possibly missed by all but diehard fans of the franchise when it was released. Without the media we have today, I can imagine audiences in theaters when this was first released being puzzled after watching this film. It was not a box office success, but it’s a true end to an iconic franchise (yes, I know years later we would also finally get FREDDY VS. JASON). But there’s only so much a horror franchise can do to bring back fans with a seventh installment. I wish more horror franchises would take a swing like this. For example, Scream, which is now known as the ultimate meta horror franchise. But what if, for example, Neve Campbell was haunted by a real “Ghostface.” But maybe that would be too dangerously meta, after all, a famous slasher once said, “Movies don’t create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative.”