For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Day 12 prompt was Movie in a Movie. There are only a couple of movies that fit that genre, and I picked probably the best one, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994).
Storyline
It’s nearing the 10th Anniversary of the film ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and one of the stars, Heather Langenkamp, is being scared by a voice on a phone, sounding very similar to the film’s villain, Freddy Krueger. When Heather realizes that Freddy has now entered the real world, the only way to defeat him is to become Nancy Thompson once again
Our Thoughts on New Nightmare
I think this an absolutely perfect example for today’s prompt. It fits so well into the genre and to me is a tribute to not only the Nightmare series but to Wes Craven and the horror genre itself.
I grew up with the Nightmare on Elm Street series and it was one of the first horror movies I saw in the theater on the weekly visits with my dad. I was 13 years old.
Also, watching this movie, it is hard to believe that it was only 10 years from the original to this one. My how different things look in just a decade!
The First Nightmare on Elm Street was scary and original. It had the great idea of a killer killing people in their dreams. All of its sequels (except for part 2, which went in a horrible direction) just built on to that idea, and the idea wasn’t scary anymore as the series progressed. Now with New Nightmare, Wes Craven came up with another original idea. It turns out that Freddy is in fact real, some kind of ancient evil that took the form of Freddy Krueger and could only be contained through storytelling, IE: the Nightmare On Elm Street movies. But since the series has ended, the genie is out of the bottle, and this ingenious film unravels.
I wouldn’t say this movie is that scary, it’s more creepy than it is scary, but I love its imagination. It plays mind little mind games and you wonder what is real and what is not. Freddy Krueger is even credited as “himself”. It’s a must-see for any Freddy fan and in many ways it stands on its own…but only if you’ve seen the other movies. If that makes any sense.
This is one of the best sequels in the Nightmare series and it’s nothing short of brilliant. It’s nice to see that Freddy is back in the bottle where he belongs, and hopefully will be for a long time…
8 out of 10
Trivia
In this film, Freddy is depicted much closer to what Wes Craven had originally intended for the character, much more menacing, much less comical, with an updated attire and appearance. However in 2015, before his death, he would admit he regretted changing his appearance and said: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Which was why he kept Ghostface’s mask the same in every Scream movie.
The television show appearance was inspired by a real encounter. According to Wes Craven: “Robert Englund and I did an appearance together on public television in the San Francisco area. It was about whether this kind of movie was bad for children or not. There were parents in the audience and then kids. All the kids leaped to their feet and started chanting, ‘Freddy! Freddy! Freddy!’ I remember looking at the show host and the parents, and they all looked horrified.”
The events in this film revolve around Heather Langenkamp having a stalker. In real life, she did have a stalker, and Wes Craven got her permission to weave it into the story.
Director Wes Craven had intended to ask Johnny Depp to make an appearance as himself in the funeral scene. Craven never worked up the courage to ask him, but after the film’s release, they ran into each other. Craven asked Depp if he would have made an appearance in the movie and Depp said that he would have, and that Craven should have asked him.
In the ending credits, Freddy Krueger is credited as himself, even though Robert Englund reprises the role.
All of the earthquake sequences in the film were actually filmed one month prior to the Los Angeles quake of ’94. The real quake struck only two weeks before the end of filming. Subsequently, a unit was sent out to film drive-by footage of actual quake damaged areas of the city before the end of filming. The cast and crew believed that the earthquake scenes that were filmed before the real quake struck were perhaps a bit overdone, but when viewed after the real quake hit, all were frightened by the realism of it.
Miko Hughes has kept the sewn up Rex dinosaur since filming. Wes Craven had an original copy without the scars.
Did you know that Miko Hughes also plays Gage in Pet Sementary (1983).
