Runtime: 112 minutes
Directed by: Wes Craven
Starring: The people
involved in the original NOES, along with the likes of Miko Hughes,
David Newsome, and Tracy Middendorf
From: New Line Cinema
Meta, but not insufferably so.
This movie was on my shortlist for viewing during this Halloween season anyhow, but discovering that Monday was the 25th anniversary of its release meant that talking about the movie sometime this week was only the logical thing to do. Henceforth, last night I saw Wes Craven doing the meta thing even before Scream.
The movie is set in “the real world” and bad things happen to Heather Langenkamp and her (fictional) family as Craven wishes to return to the NOES series, but not to help New Line Cinema resurrect a once-popular series of slashers. Turns out, horror stories serve an important purpose in real life and Freddy Krueger being killed off in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare has serious consequences.
Throughout the movie there are many nods & allusions to the original film and franchise fans will love that. So will Freddy once again a menacing and scary threat rather than a wisecracking comedian who became such a pop culture figure that children loved him. Krueger had a new appearance and well... I am not sure if it was entirely successful. The effects sometimes look good and other times-especially the 90's CG that clearly wasn't from ILM-have not aged so well. Yet overall this was a refreshing different take on the franchise.
Krueger wasn't seen all that often but that was not to the movie's detriment. While I wouldn't have minded to see such things as Englund interacting with Freddy, the movie is still smart and it was nice to see the lives of Craven, Sara Risher (a producer on all those films) and New Line Cinema founder Bob Shaye on screen. The cast does a nice job, especially Heather in the lead role, as she has much of the screentime. Little Miko Hughes once again did well as a little kid in a scary picture. Definitely a different aspect is the scares mostly come from real life horrors, such as Heather's young son being a target and bad/inexplicable things happening to him. Also, Langenkamp was unfortunately a victim of stalking in the past... and not from a NOES fan; rather, it was someone who loved her in the cheesy 80's TV series Just the Ten of Us.
New Nightmare had the misfortune on being released the same day as Pulp Fiction; no surprise this was not a box office hit between that and it being wildly different from the rest of the franchise. At least it later found popularity, especially in the ensuing years where meta fiction has become far more common and accepted.
This movie was on my shortlist for viewing during this Halloween season anyhow, but discovering that Monday was the 25th anniversary of its release meant that talking about the movie sometime this week was only the logical thing to do. Henceforth, last night I saw Wes Craven doing the meta thing even before Scream.
The movie is set in “the real world” and bad things happen to Heather Langenkamp and her (fictional) family as Craven wishes to return to the NOES series, but not to help New Line Cinema resurrect a once-popular series of slashers. Turns out, horror stories serve an important purpose in real life and Freddy Krueger being killed off in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare has serious consequences.
Throughout the movie there are many nods & allusions to the original film and franchise fans will love that. So will Freddy once again a menacing and scary threat rather than a wisecracking comedian who became such a pop culture figure that children loved him. Krueger had a new appearance and well... I am not sure if it was entirely successful. The effects sometimes look good and other times-especially the 90's CG that clearly wasn't from ILM-have not aged so well. Yet overall this was a refreshing different take on the franchise.
Krueger wasn't seen all that often but that was not to the movie's detriment. While I wouldn't have minded to see such things as Englund interacting with Freddy, the movie is still smart and it was nice to see the lives of Craven, Sara Risher (a producer on all those films) and New Line Cinema founder Bob Shaye on screen. The cast does a nice job, especially Heather in the lead role, as she has much of the screentime. Little Miko Hughes once again did well as a little kid in a scary picture. Definitely a different aspect is the scares mostly come from real life horrors, such as Heather's young son being a target and bad/inexplicable things happening to him. Also, Langenkamp was unfortunately a victim of stalking in the past... and not from a NOES fan; rather, it was someone who loved her in the cheesy 80's TV series Just the Ten of Us.
New Nightmare had the misfortune on being released the same day as Pulp Fiction; no surprise this was not a box office hit between that and it being wildly different from the rest of the franchise. At least it later found popularity, especially in the ensuing years where meta fiction has become far more common and accepted.
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