‘New Nightmare’ Review: Wes Craven Updates the Series with a Meta-aware Film that Ultimately Misses the Mark

With the last two films in the “Nightmare” franchise painfully uninteresting, fans were reinvigorated with “New Nightmare,” released in 1994. The original’s director was back (writing and directing), and Freddy was also back, reprised by now horror legend Robert Englund. And in “New Nightmare” Englund is not just playing Freddy (he does) but also himself, Robert Englund. And Heather Langenkamp is back, playing not Nancy Thompson but Heather Langenkamp. “New Nightmare” is Craven’s attempt to kickstart the dying series by bringing Freddy out of dreams and into reality. And honestly it doesn’t work. Craven himself criticized New Line Cinema during “Freddy’s Revenge” for this tactic, and should have listened to his own advice. “New Nightmare’s” plot had potential. But in execution, it mixes elements of the worst of the series (“Dream Child”) with a film that in itself serves as a giant 4th wall break. 

“New Nightmare” does have an inspired plot. It centers on Heather Langenkamp and her husband, Chase (David Newsom), the latter who’s a SFX tech in the movies. Heather dreams that Chase is working on a mechanical Freddy hand for a new movie, a device which goes on to kill multiple people on set before she wakes up in a sweat. She and Chase write it off to nerves. Heather’s been having stalking phone calls by a creepy fan who imitates Freddy—that’s why she’s having disturbing dreams. And chase is working on a bubble commercial, not a Freddy project. The events of this dream and the morning are worsened when a strong earthquake rips through L.A. Things are off to a rough start. 

Craven Attempts to Reimagine ‘Nightmare’

However, it isn’t long before a series of happenings—mostly involving Heather’s young son, Dylan (Miko Hughes)—insert Freddy back into her life. And all along the way, her real life interactions with “Nightmare on Elm Street” actors and studio execs (John Saxon, Robert Shaye) blur the line between dream and reality. We even get several scenes with Wes Craven himself. He once delivers a monologue on Freddy and his intentions that’s a masterclass in filmmaking and plot development in one. However, it isn’t long before a series of skip-and-jerk plot issues—alongside the film’s need to revive Freddy—cause it to feel all-too-familiar. It’s not a Part 1 familiar but a Parts 5-6 familiar. However, to its credit, it does attempt in small parts to be creepy again.

That’s the positive: “New Nightmare,” in parts, actually tries to be a horror film. I’m not sure that was ever the intention of the series past Part 4, as Krueger was morphed into a comic and little else. Here, Miko Hughes supplies a lot of the eerie parts, mostly as he stares at TV sets in Heather’s house that mysteriously turn on, playing the original “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” He’s also having bad dreams of a nightmare man his stuffed dinosaur Rex protects him from. But given the prank phone calls that continue to chant the Freddy rhyme (One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…) and Rex showing claw marks that resemble Freddy’s knives, we’re pretty sure we understand where this is going. 

Robert Englund Playing Robert Englund… and Freddy

I found this to be the most unbelievable aspect of “New Nightmare”—Heather’s acceptance. This is a movie about characters that acted in a movie, and Heather—not Nancy—accepts it all too readily. She does a TV appearance with a talk show host and Robert Englund appears in full Freddy make-up. It’s realistic and like so many of the talk shows did back then. But then she meets Robert backstage to talk, and he’s not Freddy, but Robert, a kind friend. Her conversations with John Saxon are the same. Truthfully, Saxon knocks his scenes out of the park. And at the film’s end—when he becomes Lt. Thompson, Nancy’s dad, he’s no longer the kind John we’ve come to know. It shows Saxon’s acting versatility. 

However, when Freddy appears in Nancy’s life (not Robert Englund, but Freddy), it’s like we’re seeing Nancy react to Freddy, and not Heather Langenkamp, an actress who should disbelieve the existence of a real Fred Krueger most of all. It’s also irritating how much Craven’s film focuses on her son Dylan. He becomes the focal part of the film, a way in which Krueger attempts to enter reality. Craven himself talks about the motivations why: once the “Nightmare” film’s ended, Freddy, an ageless demon, needed to spread his evil, no longer contained by the films he starred in. In fact, Wes’ script seems to write itself as we watch: Nancy will do or say something, then pick up his script, and what she just did is the last sentence in his working screenplay. It intends to be ultra meta, but I found it quite incredible.  

A Missed Opportunity

Also irritating are how many scenes hover around Dylan, who ends up in the hospital after hysteria and nightmarish dreams. The doctors and nurses think Heather is ‘purposefully keeping her son awake,’ which is what is causing his delirium. The hospital doctor (played by Fran Bennett) tires to circumvent Heather’s parental rights so many times in an attempt to advocate for ‘the child’s best interest’ I lost count. And when Krueger really reappears (is this a spoiler?), he’s updated with a new, slick wardrobe and improved makeup. But, lo and behold, he’s still cracking jokes. And since Freddy is a character from a movie—and “New Nightmare” presents no credible reason he would be able to exist in our reality—I found the whole thing too much. The film’s end, deep within Freddy’s lair, was designed well and offered decent atmosphere. But Krueger running around clearly—and without that miasma that accompanied characters’ dreams in Part 1 and the excellent reboot—it smacked too much of the last two installments that were insulting to the “Nightmare” legacy. 

All-in-all, “New Nightmare” tries. Wes Craven answers fans’ call with a film that brings Freddy back in a meta aware way that would reflect in his later “Scream” film, written by Kevin Williamson. Its problems are it tries too hard, is too aware, and doesn’t give an imperative to Freddy’s existence. He stalked kids’ dreams in the series opener for revenge over their parents murdering him after harming neighborhood kids. He was scary, vicious, and inescapable. Here, he stalks Heather and her son out of routine: it’s what Freddy does. Heather and he are destined to do this dance. Reality and dream merge too chaotically here, and I found a lot of it ludicrous. But worst was that Craven—who had prior washed his hands of the series—had a chance to make Freddy scary again, but followed the last few movies instead. Sure, there’s an updated plot device, but it’s the same old Freddy. In a franchise that’s clambered on for far too long, “New Nightmare’s” sameness is ultimately its biggest disappointment.