Horrorfest 2015: Cravenfest - Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Finally, after a long hiatus, Wes Craven has returned to rescue us from the continual march into awfulness that is the NIGHTMARE sequels with 1994's WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE. Get ready: shit's about to get meta.

So apparently Craven had this idea for NIGHTMARE 3 but wasn't given the greenlight to go ahead with it until the franchise was all but dead. Heather Langenkamp returns to star as… HERSELF! You see, this flick takes place in "the real world" where Langenkamp starred in NIGHTMARE. Now it's 10 years later and she's set to appear on a talk show to discuss the legacy of the film. In conjunction with that, real-life producer Bob Shaye wants to talk to her about a new NIGHTMARE script real-life director Wes Craven wants to cast her in. Even John Saxon and Robert Englund are on hand… as themselves!

Unfortunately, all is not well. Langenkamp is getting prank calls from a Krueger-quoting apparent NIGHTMARE fan, her kid (Miko Hughes) is having nightmares, and earthquakes are rocking Los Angeles. Before she can even get out the door in the morning she has to deal with all of these obstacles.

Since this is a NIGHTMARE movie it's only a matter of time before Freddy shows up. Spoiler alert: turns out there's actually an ancient demon that was satisfied with appearing as Freddy in the NIGHTMARE movies, but now that the movie are over he's growing restless and trying to break into the real world to do some real damage.

Freddy himself goes back to being frightening in this flick – he still gets in a couple one-liners, but his whole character design and the way Craven shoots him takes him back to the realm of terror. He's still the same recognizable character, but now he has a long black trenchcoat that makes him look more cool and less cartoon, and a newly designed bladed hand that is more menacing than the glove we've grown accustomed too. He's also used more sparingly here, more like the original film than its sequels, with Craven saving the majority of his appearances for the grand finale, and even then, allowing silhouettes reminiscent of NOSFERATU to do some of the work for him. Craven's also wise to bring in fairy tale elements, likening Freddy's luring of children to their doom to the witch from Hansel and Gretel.

This is a great premise for the sequel, especially for a franchise that has been done to death, and a very adventurous, cool route to go. Instead of thinking, "It's the seventh movie, we better play it safe and give people what they expect" they do the exact opposite – "Hey man. It's seven movies. Who gives a fuck. Let's get crazy."

Craven comes back in a big way, showing the makers of the various sequels exactly what they did wrong and how it could have been done better. The dream sequences are classically creepy, Langenkamp's lead performance is great, the special effects are top notch, Freddy is more Krueger than ever and even all the non-professional actors like Shaye and Craven himself get the job done.

This movie clearly set the stage for what was to come shortly for Craven – the SCREAM series, taking the idea of the slasher movie within a slasher movie to the next level.

Of course, there was one last sequel to NIGHTMARE, the crossover FREDDY VS. JASON. I saw that movie back when it came out, and remember it as being a lot of fun and, while not as ambitious as the original NIGHTMARE flick or NEW NIGHTMARE, at least not as offensive or tone deaf as the worst of the sequels. Still, I won't be watching or reviewing it for CRAVENFEST this year because it's time to move on.

Same for the NIGHTMARE remake – I'm curious to see what it's like, but I haven't heard good things, and there are only so many days left until Halloween!