O Novo Pesadelo: O Retorno de Freddy Krueger

Freddy Krueger began as a very scary character who scared the hell out of everyone. As the movies went on, Freddy lost his edge and looked liked a bad stand up comic with horrible one liners.

Freddy seemed dead with the sixth film of the series, but Wes Craven brought him back from his rut and made him someone to fear again. This of course helps prove my theory that a good Nightmare on Elm Street movie cannot be made without Craven.

Two things make this film so good. One, the story is original. The Nightmare movies just kept repeating themselves, with Freddy coming back and going after the people who stopped him before. This rime around, we see Freddy trying to break into the real world, outside the movies. Very original. Two, the movie is not filled with constant gore. This shows how good the movie because any movie filled with gore obviously has a pathetic story and is not worth watching. This movie is and is one of Freddy's best yet.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Intense, smart and still underrated seventh film in the series delivers exactly what the title says and that's something new. This time out the people involved with the making of the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET are starting to experience strange dreams. Wes Craven appears ready to join the series again and has started writing a script but star Heather Langenkamp begins to fear that some type of Freddy is actually after all of them. This isn't the first film to deal with a horror director being haunted by his creation as Lucio Fulci did this type of thing with CAT IN THE BRAIN but there's world of difference between the two films. This one here is an incredibly smart and extremely intense venture into ones fears and how like can sometimes imitate art. It's sad to think that this film will soon be twenty years old and yet it's still never gotten the credit that it deserves. As a behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood the film works extremely well but it also works as a straight horror film. I think Craven's screenplay is so well written that we never have trouble believing what's going on. It's a pretty interesting idea to have those making movies become haunting by the fake thing they created. Not only do we get Craven and Langenkamp but we also have New Line head-man Robert Shaye and Freddy himself Robert Englund being haunted by the fake monster. Everyone acts themselves very well with Langenkamp turning in her third venture in the series and without question her best performance. She handles everything extremely well and comes off very good as the concerned mother who must eventually take on Freddy to protect her son. Englund has a lot of fun in the parts of himself but he really goes all out when it's time to play Freddy. A few other cast members from the first film make brief appearances here but John Saxon gets a very good role and does a great job with it. It's always great seeing him in anything. I think the greatest thing the movie does is get Freddy away from the one-liners and jokes and returns him to the scares of the original film. The entire look of Freddy's face, glove and clothes were changed here and I think they were all done for the better. The bulked up creation is a lot creepier here and he's able to be that menace of terror once again. Craven's direction is top-notch from start to finish with some of his best work appearing in some very disturbing scenes. One involves a freeway sequence and another is a re-enactment of one of the death scenes from the original movie. The film depends a lot on "real life" emotions and these work extremely well and add to the drama of what the characters are going through. It's a real shame that this film isn't given more credit as it did come before SCREAM and really was the first of the decade to go for that "smart" horror film.

The actress Heather Langencamp lives in Los Angeles with her husband Chase Porter (David Newsom), who is secretly working in a mechanical hand for the next movie of Freddy Kruger, and their son Dylan (Miko Hughes). During an earthquake, Heather has a dreadful nightmare where Chase's partners die; in the morning she is invited to be the guest of a talk show about the tenth anniversary of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" with the presence of Robert Englund. Later the executive of New Line Cinema Robert Shaye invites her to perform Nancy Thompson again in the latest project of Wes Craven based on his own nightmares, but she turns the invitation down. Heater is being disturbed by a man that calls her in the telephone and sends creepy letters to her. When Dylan has nightmares with a man with claw and tells that he is protected by his T-Rex toy showing symptoms of schizophrenia, and Chase dies in a car accident, Heather becomes paranoid with Freddy Krueger. The reactions of Robert Englund and Wes Craven indicate to her that something is going wrong. Further she discovers that Freddy is an entity that does exist and is an ancient demon trying to use her weakness as the gateway to the real world. Heater needs to face the evil Freddy Kruger to protect her beloved son.

"New Nightmare" is an original approach to bring Freddy Krueger back after his death in "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare". The story blends reality with fiction and transforms Freddy Krueger in a millenary evil entity that tries to reach the real world through the actress Heather Langencamp, giving a survivorship to this character. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Hora do Pesadelo 7 – O Novo Pesadelo – O Retorno de Freddy Krueger" ("The Hour of the Nightmare 7 – The New Nightmare – The Return of Freddy Krueger")

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...

My Rating: 9/10

Wes Craven's New Nightmare features Heather Lengankamp, who played Nancy in the first and third films, living a normal life with her husband and son. Lately, strange things have been happening, and her son isn't acting like himself. She is called in for an interview with New Line Cinemas, where she finds out that Wes Craven is making a new Nightmare film. The events of this film are beginning to unfold in the real world, because Freddy Krueger is angry at being killed off in the last film, so he steps out of fantasy and into reality to go after the makers of the original film. Now Heather Lengankamp must protect her son and defeat Freddy one last time...Only this time, it's real.

I love this movie. I personally think it's just as good as the first movie. This is one of the most original and ingenious plots for a horror movie I've ever seen. All of the people involved with the original films appear as themselves, including Heather Lengenkamp, John Saxon, Robert Englund, and Wes Craven. Freddy is amazing in this movie. He appears with his trademark brown hat, but now he's in a much darker red and green sweater along with a brown tattered trench coat, and his burns are more severe. Also, his trademark knives are actually coming from his fingers. The best part about it is that in this film, Freddy isn't a wise cracking killer...He's an all business violent and brutal killer.

This movie features the best acting for a slasher movie I've ever seen, but then again, almost every actor in the movie plays themselves, so it would be pretty hard to screw that up.

Overall, this movie is on a par with the original, and I'd recommend it to any horror fan.

8/10