WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE
A film review by David Cromwell
Copyright 1994 David Cromwell
All the good reviews you've been seeing about this movie are right on target. Not only is this a good horror movie; it's simply a good movie period. The intelligence behind this movie is so far above your average dead teenager movie that it's practically in another dimension. The movie is also well-crafted, the production values are excellent, and the pacing is wonderful. There's not a single dead spot in the whole film.
I went to this movie because my teenage son and his friend wanted to go. I was a little leery about it, so one of the factors that created tension in the movie for me is that I was always wondering "when is he going to show something truly revolting; something that makes me wish I hadn't come" (as in CALIGULA or I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE). The good news is that this movie always stays within the bounds of the contract between filmmaker and viewer implicit in the old-time, classic horror movies/psychological thrillers. You see the shadow on the curtain, you hear the screams, you see the blood-stained water spiral down the drain, but you never see the knife enter the body. In the best Alfred Hitchcock tradition, the violence in this movie, at least the violence that occurs in reality, is all implied.
There is a scene in a morgue where the sheet covering a corpse is lifted up only enough to see the face of the victim and only the *beginning* of the claw marks that supposedly run the length of the entire torso, which we're given to believe has been torn apart. When the sheet is lifted again for better look, you don't see much more than you did the first time, but you do see the reaction of the person viewing it. My son observed that this film could be shown on TV without any cuts. However, it probably won't. It is so intense and scary, that my eight-year-old daughter would be *seriously* traumatized by watching it.
The best part of this movie is its complexity and the interworking multiple levels of reality. Wes Craven has created an amazingly complete and consistent world, with all its different levels tied seamlessly together. Even the cliched character of Freddie is made believable within the context of the film.
Craven also has some fun on the side, throwing in some ironic commentary about the effects of modern horror movies on kids, making conscious reference to horror movies of the past, and observing a number of time-honored horror film conventions.
The first time I saw this movie, it was an experience. When I go back to see it again, it will be to watch for the details I missed the first time and to appreciate the craft with which it was made.
-- cromwell@bnr.ca Warning: Not the views of BNR Inc.
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