Product: New Nightmare [VHS] (1994)
Rating: 5.0
"The Matrix" meets Freddy in one of the best movies ever
The best thing about "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" is not just the originality of its plot, but that it screws with your head more than the Wachowski Brothers did in "The Matrix." This is like a horror film version of that movie and it makes the Wachowski Brothers look like amateurs in the field of reality manipulation. Wes Craven finally returned to the series after ten years - unless you count the screenplay credit for "Dream Warriors - and he has made what I believe to be one of the best horror films ever made. It still has its effects on me even after I've seen it about twenty times. Freddy is finally back to where he belongs - being a terrifying idea instead of some joker. He is vicious. He is mad. He is demonic. He is evil incarnate. And Heather Langenkamp is back, too, as herself, as is practically everyone in this film. She's pretty hot in this one, too. Anyway, this movie is a superb example of what can be accomplished in the film craft with a little original thinking. Sure, this film ends with the same kind of underworld plunge that the entire series specialized in, but that was to be expected. Where else are you gonna fight Freddy? Besides, the sets were so spectacularly built and the action so tight that it didn't matter to me that Wes had gone back to the typical "Nightmare" cliche. It's not what you do, it's how you do it. And Wes Craven did it right in every single frame. My favorite sequence has to be when Heather's little boy Dylan decides to take a rather dangerous route home. You know what I mean by dangerous, right? Like, there's a freeway between where he is and where he wants to be? Yeah... that kind of dangerous. Man, that scene still has me holding my breath. This is the best entry in the series, period. I loved the original, and it's the only other one that I would give a full five stars, but if there were more stars to give this movie, I'd give it about a seven.