This is probably not going to be a review. This is going to turn out with me just praising every little perfectly placed detail in this movie. I was probably around 10 years old when I had seen this the first time. They used to play horror movies on cable all throughout October for many years, non-stop all day. I mean, by no means should I have been watching them probably. The particularly terrifying ones came on later at night, and I really didn't do a lot of sleeping when I was a kid. We had a TV in our basement that I could sneak down to and watch whatever and my parent's room was too far away for them to hear anyone awake.
I don't even know where to begin with this. This is maybe a perfect movie. I have been obsessed with the Nightmare on Elm Street movies for as long as I could remember. Freddy has always and will always be my favorite movie villain. I did a quick google on the movie afterwards to check the ratings for the movie and it turns out this was the least successful of the Nightmare series. Which is insane. I mean to be fair, I believe it came out 10 years after the original Nightmare on Elm Street, but there were still 4 movies following. New Nightmare was only 3 years after Freddy's Dead (The Final Nightmare). They don't necessarily include this in the series as it has it's own story line.
Here come all the spoilers.
The lead, Heather Langenkamp, is cast as herself which was really confusing for me at the beginning. I was like who the fuck is Heather. But she plays Nancy, the female lead in Vol. 1 and Vol. 3. So the movie starts out with a bunch of people on the set of a Nightmare on Elm street movie. She is sitting in the background. Her husband and two other dudes are making a new Freddy glove for this new movie they're planning.
So at this point I was like, okay, are they saying all 5 movies that came before are all just movies. None of it was real. Wes introduces this INSANE meta film which is so incredibly smart and well written. In this scene, the hand starts moving on it's own and murders two men working on it. Everyone screams and then of course Heather wakes up screaming. Heather who was Nancy.
After this nightmare, Heather's son starts having nightmares about Freddy. Now it's not necessarily revealed if she has shown her son the Nightmare on Elm Street movies or not (I mean he is a child). What we all know from the previous movies is that Freddy's existence relies on fear. And unless people are talking or having nightmares about him, then he loses his power and ability to kill. So however it is that Dylan discovered Freddy, it's really put the possibility of the movies not being make-believe in Heather's head and creating fear.
We get the scenes we want still. We get the claw coming out the beds, we get the tongue coming out of the phone, we get the memorable "1, 2, Freddy's coming for you" song.
Heather heads to a talk show interview where she is being interviewed about the 10th anniversary of the film. She mentions how she really isn't interested in playing Nancy again. Though unrevealed, she obviously is terrified because of the recent occurrences. All of a sudden Robert Englund pops out dressed up as Freddy to scare everyone, especially Nancy. He is fashioning the classic costume and makeup and puts on a cute act for everyone. Everyone still seems very excited about the movies which is why they're talking about doing another movie on the show. Then for the first time we get to see Robert Englund out of costume just playing his normal ass self. It's still quite creepy. I can't imagine being Heather and recently having nightmares and then just going back to talking to your coworker/friend about normal ass things. To me Englund still has this creepy vibe to him no matter what. I mean to me probably cause I only know him as Freddy. After the interview, Heather goes to New Line Cinema (just too funny) to talk about playing Nancy in a sequel. After many offers she refuses because she's just worried that the things happening around her are real. Which in the real world, which is where this is set it's supposed to be reality, everyone would think she is nuts. It's the meta! The meta is bringing the confusion and questions, but also the fear. It's brilliant of Wes to completely disregard his series to pretend like it was all make believe to bring a completely new and unique level of fear by it happening to people in real life. At Heather's husband's funeral, there is an earthquake, and she falls into her husband's coffin. Where Dylan is being pulled into the earth by the claw. She is struggling to reach him but then snaps back into reality. This scene is kind of strange because it doesn't necessarily say why it happened at the funeral. Did Heather really fall asleep at her husband's funeral? I don't know how else Freddy would have got there. Obviously it was a dream and she comes to and everything is "fine". That night Heather falls asleep and wakes up to Dylan sleep walking as pre-usual. In this nightmare - he attacks her with a claw he made out of kitchen knives. Then she wakes up screaming. So she was dreaming within her dream. But Dylan is in front of the TV where he keeps going when he sleep walks and they are playing Nightmare on Elm Street. Since he is asleep, does this mean Dylan has pulled her into the dream world? Not necessarily, because she isn't actually seeing Freddy herself, but the behavior of her previously normal child has changed drastically which continues to grow her fear. She takes Dylan into the hospital which of course they want to keep him overnight for psychiatric assessment. Also as previous and future victims of Freddy, he is diagnosed with sleep deprivation. So nurses are doing normal things and trying to help him get to sleep. Which we all know is the opposite of what we want. Of course by "we" I mean viewers, since we now know these things from the movies are actually happening. But of course everyone else is just trying to take care of him. I suppose in 2020 it wouldn't be considered a cameo but the actress who gives Dylan sleeping pills in the hospital instantly caught my eye because she looked so familiar. Lin Shaye! She was the teacher in the original. She was also in the Insidious series and the Ouija series. I love to see a familiar face. So she spooked me immediately. Heather then goes to visit Wes. PLAYED BY HIMSELF. It's brilliant. She's asking him about the script, and he is just so vague about it. Apparently the inspiration for the new script is based on nightmares he's been having. The question of whether his nightmares are about Freddy himself, isn't exactly answered. Heather is trying to get him to answer without revealing that she's been having real Freddy nightmares. Something about their conversation, however, sort of reveals that Wes already knows that Nancy has been having nightmares. Does this mean that Wes manifested Freddy himself in real life for the first time? If he has, then the Dream World is already reopened This is why even just by seeing the hand - Nancy gets pulled in to Freddy's world when she falls asleep just because the fear is on her mind. What was revealed slightly before is that Robert Englund was very aggressively painting Freddy in his house while trying to avoid talking to Heather. Does this mean Robert opened the dream world? Is he having the nightmares too? And since Freddy is alive and coming to people as the character, who is played by Englund, does that mean that Freddy basically possessed Englund and used his body to come to life in the real world? Is Englund okay? We don't hear from him again after that. His voicemail reveals he has gone on vacation "for a long time". Heather returns home to go read about childhood schizophrenia because some part of her wants to believe none of this is real. While reading about sleep deprivation, of course she falls asleep her herself. But Freddy isn't trying that hard to attack her, he's slowly waiting and using her to enter into the real world obviously. Also I cannot imagine being her and being constantly attacked by someone who looks exactly like a coworker/friend. Like how mind boggling. Dylan is forced to sleep at the hospital. Brings his babysitter with him I guess by proximity? Dylan sleepwalks his little self out of the hospital with no one noticing because there was a brutal murder scene. So he is trying to go home and walks over the freeway missing all the oncoming traffic because he's already in Dream World, i feel like. Do we fall it Dream World? I don't know, Dream Child, Dream Warriors, Dream Master. Whatever.
Nancy calls John, who played her father Donald in the original movie. He comes over, acting kind of strange. All of a sudden they are back in their original costumes from the first movie, and John is calling Heather "Nancy". They replay a scene from the original which is just so cleverly transitioned into Nancy's reality and confusion. He asks "Why are you calling me John?" and she realizes at that point they are back in the movie. She is playing the part she didn't agree to but now she can't escape. Heather follows a breadcrumb trail of sleeping pills up to Dylan's bed where he said Freddy would take him. She takes the pills and falls asleep. She is stuck in the make believe dream-realm that was created in the movies and she knows the only way to stop him is to play the game and enter the Dream World and defeat him. She goes down a tunnel and ends up right back in the originally designed boiler room. An ultimately classic scene. It's beautiful. The claw scrapes across the columns of the room while Heather frantically searches for her son. Also, my bone to pick is that Freddy has two claws. The old one and the new one. They don't really mention it. We get another beautiful stretchy arm scene and a stretchy pervy tongue scene. With Freddy's tongue wrapped all the way around Heather like a snake, Dylan stabs it and Freddy falls into the fire and dies the way he originally died in real life. At the hands of the town people for being a sick child predator. Heather and Dylan escape. The end scene is brilliant. The script for this new movie appears in Dylan's room where they land. The script was written and printed and signed by Wes saying, "Thanks for playing Nancy one last time". The script is everything that happened in real life. It ends with her reading her final lines to Dylan. It's nice that Wes took mercy on Heather for this film and ultimately planned to let her live. But he obviously couldn't have written it if she already knew what was going to happen - which is why he kept it a secret from her. She never agreed to the part, but she played it according to his plan. How does he know? Will we ever know? I'd be pretty pissed at my boss for killing off my husband in this movie. Is Robert Englund okay? I'm fine with the questions being unanswered. Brilliant movie and a timeless classic. They made Freddy scarier and more confusing than ever. What is real? What is a dream?
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