It’s no secret that director legend Wes Craven’s “Nightmare on Elm Street” series suffers from sharp fluctuations in quality. This may be because Craven never saw the series as a franchise and wanted to keep it as one installment. Although he also acted as an idea generator for later entries in the series, the creative direction was in different hands.
New Line Cinema producer Robert Shaye recognized the potential of nightmare caregiver Freddy Krüger early on and decided to expand the series. To this end, he brought on board young, capable directors who were allowed to indulge in the horror franchise. Under his leadership, the series about the child murderer increasingly deviated from its horror roots and took a comic path. A development that Wes Craven was always critical of.
However, before the end of the series (we’re excluding the stupid “Freddy vs. Jason” and its failed remake here), Wes Craven returned to the director’s chair – and delivered one of the best installments of the franchise with “Freddy’s New”. Nightmare”. Amazon Prime Video has now added the meta-shocker to its schedule. So if you don’t have any plans for Halloween yet, be sure to check out the amazing conclusion to the series “Nightmare”.
And that’s what “Freddy’s New Nightmare” is about
Heather Langenkamp (the actress can be seen in almost all Freddy films as Nancy Thompson) celebrated her big Hollywood breakthrough with the series ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’. The franchise is now buried and Heather is looking for new jobs. But she is haunted by strange dreams in which the nightmare caregiver Freddy Krüger (Robert Englund) is hot on her heels.
She desperately seeks advice from the other people involved in the film series: while former Freddy actor Robert Englund tries to calm Heather down, director Wes Craven explains to her that her fears are completely justified. Freddy is real – and in the past he was only tamed by the movies. Now that the series has ended, the killer returns to his dreams – and Heather’s son Danny (Miko Hughes) appears to be on the murderous caretaker’s list as well.
Great meta fun for Freddy fans
It’s a shame that the film still doesn’t get the recognition it deserves among genre fans. This may be because the series had already been mercilessly exploited by producer Robert Shaye and adapted to the mainstream horror market – and the remaining fans expected more horror-comedy than meta-horror. The short description alone makes that clear what a frenzied, self-reflective and sometimes surprisingly dark horror fun “Freddy’s New Nightmare” ultimately turned out to be.
Nearly everyone who has played a major role in the Nightmare universe over the years drops by for a final appearance in this nasty meta-movie. It almost feels like a collective farewell, because even if this shocker would be followed by two more, rather unsuccessful films with Freddy Krüger (and a revival of the series should not be ruled out in the future), “Freddy’s New Nightmare is and remains “ The last real “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie.
If you’re in the mood for the horror shocker, you can watch the trailer again to get in the mood. We have included these here: