Summary:
As Heather Langenkamp prepares for her role in the latest installment in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series, she finds hers and her child’s dreams are being afflicted by Freddy.
My Thoughts:
It turns out when you bring Wes Craven, the creator of Freddy, back to the franchise, you get a film that is worthy of the Nightmare name (unlike “II: Freddy’s Revenge” and the last installment, “Freddy’s Dead”). This is probably the best of “Nightmare” sequels; it’s creepy, has great special effects, it’s filled with nostalgia for the original, and it brought back many of the important original cast members from that first film, including Heather Langenkamp (“A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors”), John Saxon (“Enter the Dragon”), and of course Robert Englund (“A Nightmare on Elm Street V: The Dream Child”). The overall quality, particularly when it comes to the direction and writing in this film, is easily and obviously a notch above the rest of the Nightmare sequels.
While far from perfect, this entry brings a new meta-approach to the horror genre that really helps breathe new life into the franchise. In a way, some of the meta-writing, particularly the deconstruction of fan’s relation to slasher movies (both the killers and the victims), feels very similar to the writing in “Scream”, a film Craven made only two years after this one. Craven loved the horror genre, but he was also smart; he knew that there was a lot wrong with the horror genre (you can plainly see his dissatisfaction with modern horror in writing of some of his later films, particularly the “Scream” series- but also in this one). I believe that Craven was trying to push the genre forward as a whole, and he did so many times in his career; starting with his incredibly brutal yet (surprisingly) well received debut films, “The Last House on the Left” and “The Hills Have Eyes.”
The basic premise for this film revolves around actress Heather Langenkamp preparing for the next Nightmare on Elm Street movie; simultaneously, she has begun having nightmares about Freddy Krueger, stemming, she believes, from a psycho fan who has found her number and insists on calling her weekly to sing the ‘Freddy’s Coming For You’ song. Heather is married now, and she has a child named Dylan (Miko Hughes, “Pet Sematary (1989)”) with her husband Chase (David Newsom, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”), whom works as a special effects engineer on the same Nightmare movie, designing a new Krueger glove. After Chase dies in a freak accident, both Heather and her son become convinced that the real Freddy is trying to break free from the movie world to come into reality to kill her. Are Heather and Dylan going crazy, or is it possible Freddy is really making his way out of the movies and into their homes?
I believe I’m right in saying that this is the longest Nightmare movie by at least fifteen minutes; all of them tend to hover around the hour-and-twenty-five to hour-and-thirty minute mark. The length is noticeable, particularly towards the beginning of the film, when the dream sequences are more spread out, and we spend more time developing Heather’s world. I actually enjoyed the time this movie spent letting us get to know more about Heather’s character, but I am also a bigger Nightmare fan than most people, and I will admit that it’s a bit indulgent. However; this film also has a weird worldbuilding hump to overcome (the rest of the franchise has been set in a cinematic world, and this one is set in reality), which is why I can mostly forgive it the slow start.
The second half of this film is a sheer delight for fans of the series; I had a huge grin on my face for almost forty-five minutes. Freddy recreates some of his more brutal kills and expounds upon them in more graphic ways. There’s a scene near the middle that is almost identical to Tina’s iconic death in the first “Nightmare”, where Freddy drags a girl’s body up a wall and slashes her open on the ceiling. There are other scenes that are more fantastical, and towards the end we get to see what might be the darkest iteration of Freddy yet.
SPOILERS
Freddy ends up dragging Heather’s son down to hell where Heather must follow to face him in a fiery boiler room. The production design is awesome, and Freddy, who we’ve only seen glimpses of up until now, is finally revealed. In this version, Freddy’s face is more burned, and he looks far darker, stronger, more evil. I sort of love the redesign, and I also love the way that Craven brings back Freddy’s body contortions, without making them seem cartoonish. In some movies, when Freddy extends his arms or suddenly is a hundred feet tall, the sequences can become rather silly, but in this film, when Freddy opens his mouth to try to swallow Dylan, it’s pretty freaky looking. The final confrontation is pretty satisfying overall, especially if you like the series.
Verdict:
Clearly I’m a “Nightmare on Elm Street” fan, so I probably enjoy this film a bit more than the average cinephile. That being said, out of all the “Nightmare” sequels, this one is easily the least cheesy and probably the one with the most cinematic integrity. What’s better; you don’t even need to watch entries II-VI to enjoy this one! If you like Freddy, watch this movie.
Review Written By: