RW299 - Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

In this episode of our A Nightmare on Elm Street Rewatch, Cory and Nathan fight the movie monsters as they discuss "Wes Craven's New Nightmare."

Trailer:

Our Favourite Trivia:

Written under the working title A Nightmare on Elm Street 7: The Ascension, Wes Craven set out to make a deliberately more cerebral film than recent entries to the franchise—which he regarded as being cartoonish, and not faithful to his original themes. The basic premise originated when Craven first signed on to co-write Dream Warriors, but New Line Cinema rejected it then.

The film features various people involved in the motion picture industry playing themselves, including actress Heather Langenkamp, who is compelled by events in the narrative to reprise her role as Nancy Thompson. New Nightmare features several homages to the original film such as quotes and recreations of the most famous scenes.

Before making this movie, Wes Craven watched all of the"A Nightmare on Elm Street" films. By the time he was finished, he claimed that he could not follow the storyline at all. He further regards the sequels to be weak compared to his original masterpiece.

In New Nightmare, Krueger was portrayed closer to what Craven had imagined: darker and less comical. To reinforce this, the character's make-up and outfit were enhanced, with one of the most prominent differences being that he now wears a long blue/black trenchcoat. In addition, the signature glove was redesigned for a more organic look, with the fingers resembling bones and having muscle textures in between. While Robert Englund again plays the character, "Freddy Krueger" is credited as "Himself" in the end credits.

The events in this film revolve around Heather Langenkamp having a stalker. In real-life, she did have a stalker, and Wes Craven got her permission to weave it into the story.

In reality, Heather Langenkamp's real husband David LeRoy Anderson is a Special Effects man.

The film has no opening titles to blur the illusion of whether it's a film, a documentary, or something else altogether.

New Nightmare is Robert Englund's favorite Nightmare movie: "I think it stands the test of time, a fun reunion with original cast members like Heather and John Saxon. Wes's script is clever and original, the self-referencial horror story." Heather Langenkamp is also very supportive of the movie, saying, "I was just really shocked that I was in the movie so much, I had totally forgotten I was the star of that movie.

Director Wes Craven had intended to ask Johnny Depp to make an appearance as himself in the funeral scene. Craven never worked up the courage to ask him, but after the film's release, they ran into each other. Craven asked Depp if he would have made an appearance in the movie and Depp said that he would have, and that Craven should have asked him.

Winona Ryder and Drew Barrymore were both considered for the role of Julie. Both actresses turned it down due to prior commitments with other projects. Ironically, Ryder had previously auditioned for the role of Kristen in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and Wes Craven would later direct Barrymore in Scream (1996).

Tracy Middendorf's death scene was shot in a rotating room.

It was the poorest performing film in the Nightmare series. It won an International Fantasy Film Award from Fantasporto for Best Screenplay by Craven.

The television show appearance was inspired by a real encounter. According to Wes Craven: "Robert Englund and I did an appearance together on public television in the San Francisco area. It was about whether this kind of movie was bad for children or not. There were parents in the audience and then kids. All the kids leapt to their feet and started chanting, 'Freddy! Freddy! Freddy!' I remember looking at the show host and the parents, and they all looked horrified."

Wes Craven was looking to get a specific reaction from Miko Hughes and his parents said there was a way to make him cry. His mother left the set and his father whispered in Miko's ear "your mother's dead."

All of the earthquake sequences in the film were actually filmed one month prior to the Los Angeles quake of '94. The real quake struck only two weeks before the end of filming. Subsequently, a unit was sent out to film drive-by footage of actual quake damaged areas of the city before the end of filming. The cast and crew believed that the earthquake scenes that were filmed before the real quake struck were perhaps a bit overdone, but when viewed after the real quake hit, all were frightened by the realism of it.

Wes Craven's daughter Jessica Craven appears as a nurse.

The name "Dylan" is clearly spoken a whopping one hundred three times.

What's Next?

Next week we're hitting the reboot button with "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010).

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