New Nightmare — Review

Has there ever been a seventh film in a long-running franchise that marked such a triumphant return to form more than Wes Craven’s NEW NIGHTMARE? After kickstarting the iconic slasher series with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET a decade prior, and just two years before turning the genre on its head with SCREAM, Craven carved out his first slice of meta cinema with a movie made of conceptual gold. Bringing Freddy Krueger into the real world to terrorise the cast and crew of the Elm Street franchise was a genius move—one that was overshadowed by the glowing success of SCREAM, but that should not be forgotten for being the revolutionary breath of fresh air that it was.

Craven's clever script still required committed acting performances to succeed, and both Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund came back firing on all cylinders. Langenkamp brought the same inner strength and conviction to the fictionalised version of herself that she’d imbued Nancy with in both her previous appearances as that character, while Englund gleefully pulled double duty as both himself and a new, much darker version of Krueger. Craven filled the movie with meta references and razor wit, but neither compromised what was another excellently crafted film about a horrifying, dream-invading murderer. NEW NIGHTMARE came closest to recapturing the essence of the original, and it proved that Elm Street was always at its best when in the hands of its creator.