In 1994, Wes Craven made movie history by making one of the most innovative horror sequels. In this movie, he blurred the lines between movies and reality in a whole new way. I am a huge fan of his A Nightmare on Elm Street series. In particular, I enjoy the original, #3 Dream Warriors, and this sequel, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.

All of these films have one major thing in common. They all feature the original Nightmare protagonist, Nancy Thompson. Nancy is played by actress Heather Langenkamp. Langenkamp became a sensation after A Nightmare on Elm Street was released. She will forever live on in movie infamy as the first person to defeat Freddy Krueger. That brings us to Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.

Despite dying in , Nancy is brought back in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. It is not determined how Nancy would be brought back for another Freddy Krueger movie, but that’s okay. In Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Heather plays herself. She is now married to Chase Porter (David Newsom) and they have a son, Dylan (Miko Hughes), who is around 4 or 5 years old (Miko Hughes was around 7 or 8 during filming, but he was small for his age and Dylan doesn’t seem to go to school).

Heather is having dreams about making another Freddy Krueger movie. In her dreams, the Freddy claw comes alive and starts killing people. During the daytime, Heather is still doing interviews about playing Nancy. She heads out to one, leaving Dylan with his babysitter, Julie (Tracy Middendorf). At the interview, she is surprised by Robert Englund who is dressed in his Freddy garb. While Heather tries to hide her shock and horror, the audience goes crazy. At the same time, Robert foreshadows what will happen in this movie, by saying “Freddy’s Back!” While Robert seems nice (if not a little creepy) Heather tries to keep her cool and not be freaked out by him. It’s clear she’s been affected by her nightmares.

It isn’t long before she learns that Wes is making a new film. New Line wants to hire Heather on to bring Nancy back to life. She is scared to do so because of her dreams and she learns Wes was inspired to make the sequel because he is having dreams of his own. She also learns that Chase, who works on films by developing special effects and synthetic devices (such as the Freddy claw), knew about this. He has already developed a prototype for the Freddy claw. Heather is flustered and unable to accept. She returns home to find Dylan screaming as he has a nightmare. His dinosaur Rex has been slashed.

Heather calls Chase and tells him to come home. He does so when he learns about Dylan’s trauma. Heather is worried because she has a history of mental illness in her family. She just hopes she hasn’t passed it on to Dylan. While she’s waiting for Chase to come home, Heather dreams the claw has come to life and kills him. It is implied that is exactly what happened, causing him to flip over in his car and crash. When the police show up to tell Nancy Chase has been killed, she demands to see his body. At the morgue, his chest is covered with claw marks. Nancy gets sick and realizes, Freddy is coming to life.

The film continues on from there. In it, we get to see the original A Nightmare on Elm Street cast (including Robert Saxon who returns as Nancy’s Dad and Heather’s close friend) having fun together. This one is pure genius by Craven and though it really isn’t all that terrifying, it is a great film to watch, especially if you love Freddy Krueger movies. When Wes Craven stopped directing the Krueger movies, the quality of the films went down the tubes. It is nice to see him back, returning to his original creation and making it more entertaining in the process.

If you are looking for a fun film to watch this Halloween I highly recommend Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. This is a film you can’t take seriously. If you do, you might be the one singing, One…Two…Freddy’s Coming for You and it just might be you who ends up on the ceiling screaming in agony.

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