Wes Craven's New Nightmare

“
This time, staying awake won't save you.

”— Tagline
***Wes Craven's New Nightmare*** is a 1994 American slasher metafilm written and directed by original *Nightmare on Elm Street* creator Wes Craven. Although it is the seventh film in the franchise, it is not part of the series continuity, instead portraying Freddy Krueger as a fictional movie villain who invades the real world and haunts the cast and crew responsible for his films. While the canon *Elm Street* films are about dreams overlapping reality, this entry is about films overlapping reality. In this film, Freddy is depicted as closer to what Craven originally intended, being more menacing and less comical, with a greatly updated attire and appearance.

The film features various people involved in the motion picture industry playing themselves, including actress Heather Langenkamp who is compelled by events in the narrative to reprise her role as Nancy Thompson. *New Nightmare* features several homages to the original film such as quotes and recreations of the most famous scenes.

## Plot

Heather Langenkamp lives in Los Angeles with her husband Chase and her young son Dylan, and has become quite popular due to her role as Nancy Thompson from the *Nightmare on Elm Street* film series. One night, she has a nightmare in which she, Dylan and Chase are attacked by animated Freddy claws of an upcoming *Nightmare* film in which two of the workers are brutally murdered on set. Waking up to an earthquake, she spies a cut on Chase's finger exactly like one he'd received in his dream, but they quickly dismiss the notion.

Heather receives a call from an obsessed fan who calls and quotes Freddy's nursery rhyme in an eerie Freddy-like voice which coincides with a meeting she has with New Line Cinema in which she is pitched an idea to reprise her role as Nancy in a new *Nightmare* film, which Chase had been working on, unbeknownst to her at the time. When she returns home, she sees Dylan watching her original film, when she interrupts him he has a severely traumatizing episode where he screams at her. The frequent calls and Dylan's strange behavior cause her to call Chase who agrees to rush home from his work site as the two men from the opening dream did not report in for work. But Chase falls asleep while driving and is slashed by Freddy's claw which causes him to have a massive accident. His death seems to affect Dylan even further which causes concern for Heather's long-time friend and former costar John Saxon. He suggests she seek medical attention for both him and for her after Heather has a nightmare at Chase's funeral in which Freddy tries to take Dylan away.

Dylan's health continues to destabilize, becoming increasingly paranoid about going to sleep and fearing Freddy Krueger even though Heather had never shown him her movies. She visits Wes Craven who suggests that Freddy is an entity drawn to his films, released after the series completed and now focuses on Heather, as Nancy, as its primary foe. Robert Englund also has a strange knowledge of it, describing the new Freddy to Nancy, only shortly after disappearing from all contact. After another earthquake, Heather takes a traumatized Dylan to the hospital where the head nurse, suspecting abuse, suggests Dylan stay for observation. Heather returns home for Dylan's stuffed dinosaur while his babysitter Julie tries to keep the nurses from sedating the sleep-deprived boy. Dylan falls asleep after the nurses sedate him successfully, and Freddy brutally kills Julie in Dylan's dream. Capable of sleepwalking, Dylan leaves the hospital of his own accord while Heather chases him home across the interstate as Freddy taunts him and dangles him before traffic. Upon returning home, Heather realizes that John has established his persona as Don Thompson. Upon Heather's compliance in embracing Nancy's role, Freddy emerges completely into reality and takes Dylan to his world. Heather finds a trail of his sleeping pills and follows him to a dark underworld. Freddy fights off Heather then chases Dylan into an oven. Dylan escapes the oven and doubles back to Heather, and together they manage to push Freddy into the oven and light it, destroying the monster and then his reality all together.

Dylan and Heather emerge from under his blankets, and Heather finds a copy of the film's events as a screenplay at the foot of the bed; inside is a thanks from Wes for defeating Freddy and playing Nancy one last time. Dylan asks if it is a story, and Heather agrees that it's just a story before opening the script and reading from its pages to her son.

## Cast

* Heather Langenkamp as herself / Nancy Thompson
* Robert Englund as himself / Freddy Krueger
* Miko Hughes as Dylan Porter
* John Saxon as himself / Lt. Donald Thompson
* Tracy Middendorf as Julie
* David Newsom as Chase Porter
* Fran Bennett as Dr. Christine Heffner
* Wes Craven as himself
* Robert Shaye as himself
* Marianne Maddalena as herself
* Sam Rubin as himself
* Sara Risher as herself
* Claudia Haro as a New Line Cinema receptionist
* Matt Winston and Rob LaBelle as Chuck and Terry, two special effects workers
* W. Earl Brown as Morgue attendant
* Lin Shaye as Nurse with pills
* Nick Corri as himself; Corri played Rod in the original film and is silently present during the funeral scene.
* Tuesday Knight as herself; Knight played Kristen in the fourth film and is silently present during the funeral scene.

## Production

Written under the working title of *A Nightmare on Elm Street 7: The Ascension*, Wes Craven set out to make a deliberately more cerebral film than recent entries to the franchise—which he regarded as cartoonish and not faithful to his original themes. The basic premise originated when Craven first signed on to co-write *Dream Warriors*, but New Line Cinema rejected it then.

In *New Nightmare*, Krueger was portrayed closer to what Craven had imagined: darker and less comical. To correspond with this, the make-up and outfit of the character was different, with one of the most prominent differences being that he now wears a long blue/black trenchcoat. In addition, the signature glove was redesigned for a more organic look, with the fingers resembling bones and having muscle textures in between. While Robert Englund again plays the character, "Freddy Krueger" is credited as "Himself" in the end credits.

Craven had intended to ask Johnny Depp, whose feature film debut was in the first film, to make an appearance as himself, but Craven was too timid to ask him. Upon running into each other after the film's release, Depp said he would have been happy to do it.

## Release

### Box office

*New Nightmare* earned $6,677,118 during the film's opening weekend, and a domestic total gross of $18,090,181. The film is the lowest-grossing of the franchise.

### Critical reception

The film received largely positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, 77% of critics gave the film a positive review. Several critics have subsequently said that *New Nightmare* could be regarded as a prelude to the *Scream* series—both sets of films deal with the idea of bringing horror films to "real life". While the *Scream* series appealed to huge audiences, *New Nightmare* gathered a smaller, fan-led cult following.

Roger Ebert of the *Chicago Sun-Times* gave *New Nightmare* three stars out of four and said "I haven't been exactly a fan of the *Nightmare* series, but I found this movie, with its unsettling questions about the effect of horror on those who create it, strangely intriguing." Kevin Sommerfield from the horror website Slasher Studios gave it four out of four stars and said "*New Nightmare* is that rare horror film in which everything works. The performances are pitch perfect, lead by a tour-de-force performance by the amazing Langenkamp. The script is full of twists and turns and the movie is quite possibly the best looking of the entire series."

*Entertainment Weekly*'s Owen Gleiberman however gave *New Nightmare* a negative review, stating "After a good, gory opening, in which Freddy's glove—newly designed with sinews and muscles—slashes the throat of the special-effects guy who's been working on it, the movie succumbs to a kind of sterile inertia. *Wes Craven's New Nightmare* isn't about Freddy haunting a film set, which actually might have been fun. It's about Heather Langenkamp, star of the original *Nightmare on Elm Street*, being menaced for two long, slow hours by earthquakes, cracks in the wall, and other weary portents of doom." Gleiberman described the film as "just an empty hall of mirrors" that "lacks the trancelike dread of the original" and the "ingeniously demented special effects" of *Dream Warriors*.

**Films:** *A Nightmare on Elm Street* • *Freddy's Revenge* • *Dream Warriors* • *The Dream Master* • *The Dream Child* • *Freddy's Dead* • ***New Nightmare*** • *Freddy vs. Jason* • *A Nightmare on Elm Street* (2010)
**Characters:** Freddy Krueger • Nancy Thompson
**Comics:** *Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash* • *The Nightmare Warriors*
**Music:** "Dream Warriors" • "Are You Ready for Freddy" • "Nightmare" • "A Nightmare on My Street" • "Freddy Kreuger" • "I'm Awake Now" • *Freddy's Favorites* • *Freddy vs. Jason* (score)
**Miscellaneous:** *A Nightmare on Elm Street* (NES game) • *Freddy's Nightmares* (episodes) • *Never Sleep Again* • *I Am Nancy* • *Jason Goes to Hell* • *Mortal Kombat* (2011)
**Related topics:** *Friday the 13th* • *Mortal Kombat* • *Evil Dead*