Freddy Kruger is coming out of the movies and into reality and his main target is actress Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy in the original “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie.
Blaine: New Line Cinema had killed off Freddy Krueger with the sixth “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie, “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare”, but when the 10th anniversary for the original “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie was coming up fans were asking themselves if Freddy Krueger, everyone’s favorite boogeyman, could be resurrected again? The reason why New Line had killed of Freddy was because they were running out of ideas for new “Nightmare” movies. The people at New Line were thinking about going back to Wes Craven, the creator of “Nightmare on Elm Street”, and asking if he could make one more movie for them. But the thing was after the first film New Line and Wes went their separate ways because they disagreed a lot. Plus Wes felt he was robbed of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” sense he sold the rights to New Line in order to get his film made. Robert Shaye, the CEO of New Line, felt terrible after listening to this interview Wes had done saying that he felt like he didn’t get a fair shake. Robert wanted to make it up to Wes and wanted to work with him again so he called him up asking if he could do one more “Nightmare” movie? Wes had went through all the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies and he didn’t know how he was going to create something new for the “Elm Street” franchise. Then he thought it could be about a lot of the people who had been apart of the original film and that Freddy would be coming out into the real world. It would be taking a whole new turn for the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise.
Heather Langenkamp thought it was cool that she would be playing herself in this movie, but she was also concerned that maybe it was going to focus more on her. Someone was stalking Heather by calling her on the phone at odd hours and threatening her life. It was a fan of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise who was pissed off that they ended it. Heather moved to London and stayed there for a while just to get away from all of it. For years Wes Craven had been told by people that the films he has made in his career could possibly cause people to kill. The threats are what helped give Wes more ideas of what “New Nightmare” should be about. Wes had said that “A Nightmare on Elm Street” did haunt almost everyone who was apart of it because people wouldn’t let them move on from it. Robert Englund was interested in the project after Wes had told him what it was going to be about. “New Nightmare” was a great reunion for a lot of people who were involved with “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. The “Nightmare on Elm Street” sequels got more foolish than scary to fans as the franchise went on, but Wes Craven made it dark again with “New Nightmare”.
Wes had used a few thing’s in Heather’s personal life for “New Nightmare” like the fact that she is married to a makeup artist and she was a young mother at the time. Heather’s husband, David LeRoy Anderson, was Wes’ special effects guy and Wes had offered him to play himself in the movie, but David didn’t want to because he felt that would be a curse…..he was flattered though that Wes thought of him. David Newson, who looked nothing like David LeRoy Anderson, was hired to play the real life husband. Mike Hughes played Heather’s son, Dylan, in the film. For a kid his age at the time he had a lot of fun making a horror movie. Mike Hughes is now an adult and he said that looking back to his childhood a lot of kids like to pretend and that’s what acting was to him.
Julie is Dylan’s nanny and Wes had originally written her as a pawn of Freddy’s. Julie would be the stalker and would be the one harassing Heather. Tracy Middendorf, the actress who played Julie, felt that she didn’t really belong with this group of people who had been apart of the original “Nightmare on Elm Street” because she was new.
Freddy Kruger got a new look out of “New Nightmare”. Wes felt that Freddy should look new, bulky and muscular. He looks like an evil snake and his skin isn’t burnt it’s more like it has been torn off and you can see a lot of the veins. He got a new hand with knives coming off the fingertips. It’s like a glove, but it’s attached to Freddy’s skin. Freddy’s glove in all the other movies had knives for only four fingers, there was never a knife on the thumb tip until Wes thought about adding that to Freddy’s new look for “New Nightmare”. My favorite line that Freddy says in “New Nightmare” is when he’s in the hospital killing Julie and he is asking Dylan “You ever play skin the cat?"
Wes felt like adding an earthquake into “New Nightmare” because it makes cracks on the walls of a house and it’s almost like Freddy’s knives clawing through them. The inspiration for that came from Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” when the walls of a woman’s bedroom crack. A few days after they shot the scene where Heather is in bed with her husband and this earthquake happens, the earthquake in Northridge happened. Wes had sent a second unit crew to shoot the damage that had been caused by the earthquake so they could add that into the film during a scene where Heather is watching the news.
Wes Craven is in the movie as himself and he’s like the wise one of “New Nightmare” because he knows Freddy is bringing himself into reality and the only way to stop him is by putting together a script with a happy ending. He’s also acts a little creepy.
They brought back the rotating room after using it in “A Nightmare on Elm Street” only this time fans were going to see Freddy dragging the body of the victim around the room without being invisible. Shooting that scene was scary for Tracy Middendorf because she was being dragged around while the room was rotating. Wes kept telling her to scream a lot because she is being murdered.
Freddy shows up at Heather’s house and takes Dylan. Heather then realizes she is not in reality anymore she’s in a movie and in order to save her son she must play along. She finds her son’s sleeping pills on the floor, so she takes one at a time so she can fall asleep and go into the dream world where Freddy is. Freddy’s place is this Greek ruin from hell with a boiler room added to it. Heather would be the tough girl by punching Freddy, putting an eel in his eye and saying “Fuck You!” to his face. Heather loved that because Nancy never got to say something like that before. What Heather didn’t like was Freddy’s tung expanding and wrapping itself around her head.
After Heather and Dylan defeat Freddy they return to reality and that was an easier ending for Wes to think of compared to “A Nightmare on Elm Street” when he was having trouble thinking how that one would end. “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” was released on October 14,1994 and got a lot of great reviews. There hadn’t been a “Nightmare on Elm Street” that had gotten a good review since the first one. It was different because Freddy wasn’t going after teenagers he was going after the people who were involved with the first film. It didn’t do so well at the box office however a lot of fans thought it was the best way to kill off Freddy and who better to kill off Freddy than his creator Wes Craven. Little did fans know that Freddy would show his face again with another iconic character.
My rating on “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” is five out of five stars.
