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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliantly innovative return to Elm Street, January 26, 2004
Freddy was always Wes Craven's baby. The Elm Street sequels, without the creator's active involvement, veered increasingly farther away from his original vision, and Freddy Krueger as we knew and loved him did die in the sixth film. Evil never truly dies, though, a fact made clear by this remarkable, visionary film. Only the most ingenious of scripts could bring Freddy back to us in an acceptable way, and Wes Craven was the only man who could do it. Hearkening all the way back to the fairy tales of old, we learn that Freddy was only one incarnation of what could be called the ultimate evil. Stories, so long as they are told, have the power to contain the forces of evil; when Freddy was killed and the Nightmare series ended, that evil was freed from its bonds and thus given the opportunity to cross over to reality. The whole idea behind Wes Craven's New Nightmare is simply brilliant and ingenious, and it works fabulously on more levels than I will have space enough to expound upon here.Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy in the first and third films, plays herself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. She is joined by a myriad of cast members and contributors to the original Elm Street film, including John Saxon (who played Nancy's father), Robert Englund (whom everyone knows played Freddy), Wes Craven himself, and a number of the men and women who worked with Wes and New Line Cinema to bring Freddy to life in 1984. Craven is working on a new script that will revive Freddy and pit him against his old nemesis Nancy. The only problem is that fantasy is becoming fact for Heather and her family, and the script begins to mirror real life in a frightening way. Heather begins having horrible dreams of Freddy, and her son Dylan (Miko Hughes) begins suffering from his own nightmares. As crazy as it sounds, Heather is forced to conclude that Freddy Krueger is somehow becoming real, and she will eventually have to reassume the role of Nancy in an effort to stop him from passing through the final gate from fantasy to reality. Wes Craven's New Nightmare is to me the greatest Freddy film of them all. The idea of having cast and crew members of the original film serve as Freddy's conduit to true existence works amazingly well. Langenkamp gives a truly amazing performance in the highly personal role of herself, trying to save her son and her very sanity from the evil she once defeated as a character in a movie. Non-actors such as Wes Craven and New Line Cinema's Bob Shaye play their parts very effectively, and the images of Robert Englund that we see could not be in greater contrast to those of his character Freddy. There are a number of direct references and haunting similarities between the original film and this fresh and exciting new Freddy classic. Not only should these delight the Freddy aficionado, they serve to make the ultimate ending of this film believable and effective. Heather Langenkamp has to become Nancy once again to stop Freddy, only this time the battle is disturbingly real. Wes Craven's New Nightmare presents itself as real life rather than cinema, making this the most innovative horror sequel I have ever seen. Some Freddy fans don't care for this film, while others such as myself absolutely love it. For some people, Freddy had become the witty, wise-cracking, over-the-top killer of the later Elm Street sequels, and these fans want this type of film to showcase Freddy doing his thing as many times as possible. To me, that is not the true Freddy. A Nightmare on Elm Street's original power was drawn from an incomprehensible foe that could kill you in your dreams and scare the audience to death in the process. He was evil; he just wanted revenge in the form of blood, guts, and terror, and he didn't need to make a big production out of it. It is that Freddy who now haunts Heather. This dark film may deliver far less of Freddy-ness in terms of body count, dialogue, and on-camera minutes, but that only makes Freddy all the more frightening and effective. Wes Craven's New Nightmare truly morphs the boundary between the real and unreal, delivering a level of suspense and evil that all the earlier Elm Street sequels could never hope to equal. The DVD features a long-desired extra in the form of commentary by Wes Craven himself. He not only furnishes the reader with all sorts of fascinating trivia about the film, he also captures the true essence of Freddy as a monstrous villain and lends a philosophical appraisal of human nature and the archetype of evil in society. I see this film as a defense of the horror genre itself, one made abundantly clear in Craven's references to a career of anguish with the MPAA and censors in particular. It is the very existence of horror stories that allow evil to be contained in this world, and the eradication of horror films in particular, something a number of people would love to see happen, would truly let the genie out of the bottle and give free rein to evil in the hearts of men. Wes Craven's New Nightmare captures to a significant degree not only the attraction of horror but the absolute necessity of it.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quite Innovative for a Franchise Film, September 21, 2006
Okay. I don't "do" horror. Only DVDs I own in the genre are IT and ALIEN. I've never been a fan of gore or monsters or teen girls running about screaming before they're decapitated in a fountain of blood as the killer cracks a one-liner. Just never got into it, I guess. Couldn't suspend my disbelief or sit through it.
But this movie. This movie...
This one's different. Not perfect, but a truly post-modern piece of metafiction. It makes the case for horror films as the modern fairy tales, as well as for Freddy as part of our American mythology and modern cultural consciousness. I'd never heard the argument before, that horror stories "trap" the evil that lurks just under the surface of ordinary life. Fascinating.
Execution was nearly flawless, and even 12 years later stands up very well. The only thing that dates this film are the HUGE cell phones, but that couldn't be helped. I wish I'd seen Freddy more and the kid less (not a fan of child actors, although he was *quite* good), but I realize that this "ultimate evil" was kept in the background on purpose, a shadow over anyone who'd helped trap him in those movies.
The infrequent and largely low-key gore was a big plus for me. I've never really enjoyed or even seen the point of all the blood and guts (and brains). The musical score was dead-on. The suspense near the end was gruesomely spectacular and enjoyable in that horror-movie way. The funeral scene was genuinely creepy, as was Freddy's new look for this film.
My absolute favorite moment in the film is when the protagonist is on-stage with a talk-show host at a filming ...and Robert Englund, dressed as Freddy, runs on stage and then high-fives adoring members of the audience. It was really a deja vu, through-the-looking-glass moment, since I'm looking at a Freddy in a film that is being portrayed as mere Robert Englund in a costume, hamming it up for a talk show audience. The cheese factor of how it's done, overlayed with that ominous tone coming from the protagonist's perspective ...it was a stroke of BRILLIANCE.
The close second best moment is Wes Craven's meeting with the protagonist. Here he explains his philosophy of horror as the means of "trapping" evil... and Freddy's pending escape into "our world."
I was totally creeped out at the thought that whatever Craven wrote, it just ...materialized in the "real" world. Like Craven was unwitting accomplice to this "ultimate evil"-Freddy, slowly taking this poor actress and mother apart, rendering her weak enough for this ...demon to "cross over." The thought of a writer shaping actual reality, toying with real lives while thinking it's just a harmless story... creepy stuff. Delightfully clever and well-done.
It just clinched it for me to see the scene fade to black on a screen containing the entire dialogue scene I just witnessed, fading to black on the words "screen fades to black." Awesome!
As for weak points, like I mentioned, I wish I'd seen less of the kid. I felt there was a bit TOO MUCH foreshadowing with the kid getting more and more unhinged over the film. I kept feeling "Yes, I GET IT. You can move on now." They could have accomplished that with less scenes of the kid getting more nutso. In general, the film felt too long, but maybe I just don't handle suspense well. It was very much "What's going to HAPPEN?" throughout. The ending felt a bit too sudden and a little anticlimactic, but perhaps that is typical horror and/or Freddy fare.
I intend to buy the DVD. It will be the 3rd horror film I own, out of hundreds of NON-horror films. That's saying a LOT.
This is the horror film for the rest of us. See it. Get it.
'Nuff said.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What kind of stupid person spoilers the entire horror movie?, August 18, 2004
Hey, I liked this movie a lot...in fact I saw it before it went into wide release at the Toronto Film Festival and Wes got a standing ovation. It's probably better than the original.
But I can't understand why any Amazon reviewer would be dumb enough to spoiler the ENTIRE movie in their review. And they don't even warn you! Hey--It's a horror movie. If we wanted to know what happens beforehand, we'd ask ya. The point of a horror movie is to be surprised.
If you're reading these reviews and haven't seen the movie yet, beware! There's a total spoiler post below, and you should skip it if you want to enjoy the film.
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