WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE
A film review by David Elliot
Copyright 1995 David Elliot
I finally got around to seeing WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE last night. I had already seen PULP FICTION too many times, so WCNN seemed a viable option for some blood-soaked entertainment. How wrong I was.
The plot is one of the silliest, and most confused in recent memory. The actors in the film all play themselves, all the way down to Wes Craven playing the director of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (which he was). Heather Langenkamp--the heroine from NIGHTMARES 1 and 3 plays herself down as a jittery, slightly spineless mother. The film opens with a stupid scene in which a robotic Freddy glove slices two SFX techs into mince, then runs around the room like Thing from THE ADDAMS FAMILY. It's really quite embarrassing to watch.
To cut a long (and inane) story short--Wes Craven tells Langenkamp that because the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films have ended--Freddy has been let out "like a genie from a bottle" ... erm ... because ... that's the way the script was written.
Freddy has been getting into Heather's dreams, because he was the one who "killed" him first. He also enters the dreams of her son--an intensely precocious and distasteful little child, a cross between Macauley Culkin and Linda Blair. The kid's stuffed dinosaur "protects him from the mean ol' man with the claws." Oh, how cute yet menacing ... I don't think.
I don't want to give too much away, but let's just say that the final scene where Heather climbs into her sons bed and crawls down one end to face Freddy has to be one of the most ridiculous scenes ever put into a commercial horror flick--especially one with Freddy's cult-hero status.
The performances are hammed up--Langenkamp's screeching, illogical portrayal being rather annoying--and Robert Englund (the actor who plays Freddy) is simply written out of the script half way through the film. The loose ends are never tied up ... and the film basically sucks.
If you are not convinced to stay away from this piece of garbage, I'm going to print it in capitals:
FREDDY IS ONLY ON SCREEN FOR 20 MINS OF THE FILM!!!!
That's right. The big guy with the killer claws is only seen for the final scene ... and even then he acts like a moron. I give this film a low -3 on the -4 to +4 scale. Steer clear, guys. It's garbage. If only I could get my 9.50 back....
David
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