Wes Craven's New Nightmare Movie Review

Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a work of imagination and wit from the man who's been scaring us for over 25 years. In this film, he's written nice roles for himself and three participants in 1984's The Nightmare on Elm Street—Heather Langencamp, Robert Englund, and John Saxon, plus producers Marianne Maddalena, Robert Shaye, and Sara Risher. They all play themselves, caught up in a new nightmare that's much worse than Freddy Krueger circa 1984. Heather, now a wife and mom, doesn't want to make another horror movie, but bad things start happening, and she's dragged into another bout with Freddy to save her son Dylan (Miko Hughes) and herself. Hughes is a good little actor, and Tracy Middendorf is wonderfully effective as Julie the babysitter. But it's Langencamp's show and she holds our interest and attention for all 112 minutes of this enthralling yarn. In addition to the horrific aspects of the plot, Craven does a clever job scraping past our jaded response to cinematic terrors and jabbing at a much more basic source of fear.

1994 (R) 112m/C Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Miko Hughes, David Newsom, Tracy Middendorf, Fran Bennett, John Saxon, Wes Craven, Robert Shaye, Sara Risher, Marianne Maddalena; D: Wes Craven; W: Wes Craven; C: Mark Irwin; M: J. Peter Robinson. Nominations: Independent Spirit Awards ‘95: Best Film. VHS, LV, Closed Caption