Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42995 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-09-10
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 108 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Halfway through A New Nightmare Heather Langenkamp goes to visit Wes Craven to discuss resurrecting the Freddy Krueger series for one last film. Craven's script focuses on a malevolent demon that has escaped from the stories in which he was trapped because they have lost their power to scare. Sound familiar? This script-within-a-film refers, of course, to the real-life fate of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, and is an idea typical of this intelligent movie which successfully blurs the line between this horror film and its real-life production context. Langenkamp plays herself, in virtually her own life: a D-list actress unable to match the success she found in the original Nightmare on Elm Street films. She, like the rest of the cast and crew of the original films (also played by themselves--most notably Craven and Robert Englund, camping himself up as an adored celebrity and part-time "artist"), is haunted by dreams of the Freddy Krueger character. Craven's script reveals that if Freddy is not trapped within a story more powerful than the Elm Street sequels--i.e. this film--he will become real.

New Nightmare is an interesting precursor to the Scream series, and it attempts to capitalise on its self-reflexivity in a similar way. The idea is that, having openly revealed that the rest of the Elm Street series were "only films", New Nightmare can then set about scaring your pants off. The biggest hindrance, however, is the Freddy character himself. Despite the fact that we are told that this is the "real" Freddy, rather than the cinematic incarnation we've seen many times before it is still difficult to shake off a persistent sensation of déja-vu. Freddy just isn't scary any more: his face looks a lot less gnarled than it used to be and even the once-terrifying claw seems to have lost its edge. Similarly, having hammered home the fact that this movie is real, those elements of the film which require a little more imagination--such as Freddy's body-stretching, the surreal scare sequences and the Gothic-fantasy finale--appear absurd. Thus, if certainly not as good as the original, New Nightmare is at least an intelligent, fresh and occasionally scary film: which makes it head and shoulders above most of its genre and certainly better than most of this series. --Paul Philpott

Special Features
4:3
DVD 5
English
Region 2
Stereo English
Stereo
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
None

Synopsis
Freddy's back, only this time he's not confined to dreams in this macabre film within a film. Heather Langenkamp, star of the original NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, along with other actors and director Craven all appear as themselves. When Heather's husband is mysteriously killed her son begins to have disturbing nightmares, culminating in a bizarre encounter with the fictional boogeyman. As self-referential as Craven's SCREAM movies, but much more serious and creepy. Some scenes shot on location near the aftermath of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Customer Reviews

A brilliantly innovative return to Elm Street
Freddy was always Wes Craven's baby. The Elm Street sequels, without the creator's active involvement, veered increasingly farther away from his original vision, and Freddy Krueger as we knew and loved him did die in the sixth film. Evil never truly dies, though, a fact made clear by this remarkable, visionary film. Only the most ingenious of scripts could bring Freddy back to us in an acceptable way, and Wes Craven was the only man who could do it. Hearkening all the way back to the fairy tales of old, we learn that Freddy was only one incarnation of what could be called the ultimate evil. Stories, so long as they are told, have the power to contain the forces of evil; when Freddy was killed and the Nightmare series ended, that evil was freed from its bonds and thus given the opportunity to cross over to reality. The whole idea behind Wes Craven's New Nightmare is simply brilliant and ingenious, and it works fabulously on more levels than I will have space enough to expound upon here.

Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy in the first and third films, plays herself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. She is joined by a myriad of cast members and contributors to the original Elm Street film, including John Saxon (who played Nancy's father), Robert Englund (whom everyone knows played Freddy), Wes Craven himself, and a number of the men and women who worked with Wes and New Line Cinema to bring Freddy to life in 1984. Craven is working on a new script that will revive Freddy and pit him against his old nemesis Nancy. The only problem is that fantasy is becoming fact for Heather and her family, and the script begins to mirror real life in a frightening way. Heather begins having horrible dreams of Freddy, and her son Dylan (Miko Hughes) begins suffering from his own nightmares. As crazy as it sounds, Heather is forced to conclude that Freddy Krueger is somehow becoming real, and she will eventually have to reassume the role of Nancy in an effort to stop him from passing through the final gate from fantasy to reality.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare is to me the greatest Freddy film of them all. The idea of having cast and crew members of the original film serve as Freddy's conduit to true existence works amazingly well. Langenkamp gives a truly amazing performance in the highly personal role of herself, trying to save her son and her very sanity from the evil she once defeated as a character in a movie. Non-actors such as Wes Craven and New Line Cinema's Bob Shaye play their parts very effectively, and the images of Robert Englund that we see could not be in greater contrast to those of his character Freddy. There are a number of direct references and haunting similarities between the original film and this fresh and exciting new Freddy classic. Not only should these delight the Freddy aficionado, they serve to make the ultimate ending of this film believable and effective. Heather Langenkamp has to become Nancy once again to stop Freddy, only this time the battle is disturbingly real. Wes Craven's New Nightmare presents itself as real life rather than cinema, making this the most innovative horror sequel I have ever seen.

Some Freddy fans don't care for this film, while others such as myself absolutely love it. For some people, Freddy had become the witty, wise-cracking, over-the-top killer of the later Elm Street sequels, and these fans want this type of film to showcase Freddy doing his thing as many times as possible. To me, that is not the true Freddy. A Nightmare on Elm Street's original power was drawn from an incomprehensible foe that could kill you in your dreams and scare the audience to death in the process. He was evil; he just wanted revenge in the form of blood, guts, and terror, and he didn't need to make a big production out of it. It is that Freddy who now haunts Heather. This dark film may deliver far less of Freddy-ness in terms of body count, dialogue, and on-camera minutes, but that only makes Freddy all the more frightening and effective. Wes Craven's New Nightmare truly morphs the boundary between the real and unreal, delivering a level of suspense and evil that all the earlier Elm Street sequels could never hope to equal.

The DVD features a long-desired extra in the form of commentary by Wes Craven himself. He not only furnishes the reader with all sorts of fascinating trivia about the film, he also captures the true essence of Freddy as a monstrous villain and lends a philosophical appraisal of human nature and the archetype of evil in society. I see this film as a defense of the horror genre itself, one made abundantly clear in Craven's references to a career of anguish with the MPAA and censors in particular. It is the very existence of horror stories that allow evil to be contained in this world, and the eradication of horror films in particular, something a number of people would love to see happen, would truly let the genie out of the bottle and give free rein to evil in the hearts of men. Wes Craven's New Nightmare captures to a significant degree not only the attraction of horror but the absolute necessity of it.

another nightmare that free from fear
i watched wes cravens new nightmare again yesterday-i just cant work out where he was going with this movie, it has no eerienes what so ever and could so easily have done-the beginning is really bad and the opening nightmare is appauling-there is just no sence of freddy ever being in controll as he feels like a totally avoidable entity in that the only deecent kill in the film is in a childs dream and the victim is awake-the story line doesnt ever really explain in a coherent way how freddy is doing this. this is a good film taken as a thriller but horror? absolutely not, although freddy is once again a total mercyless bastard the direction of him is very much a la poor sequels of the original and greatest film in that his shadow is shown with him posing with his blades in front of absolutely no one. freddy seems to have lost the ability to haunt and is constantly looking for his victims-this was a fault with nightmare 4 after the great nightmare 3 as well, the hideous nature of the early incarnations of freddy was that he was totally in controll and haunted you on the whole prior to death by barely even appearing to his victims-the nightmares were exactly that-nightmares that he controlled rather than him ambleing around looking for his vistims in his own world that he used to controll so totally. this film is worth seeing but still the only nightmare movies that are true to the freddy rules of fear and controll are nightmare one and three

Freddy
What can be said about "Freddy" but Excellent. The Entire "Nightmare on Elm Street" was Brill. OK Elm's 2 & 6 weren't the best but if your a "Freddy" Fan, they're OK. Personally I've not found many horror films to send a chill up my spine but the Elm St. series wer Good! Years Later.. We get.. "A New Nightmare".. well thought out & well written with the orignal actress Heather L. now dead in the films, she returns as herself only to be terrorised by Freddy yet again. Imagine, you make an horror film then find the evil Freddy trying to kill you for real! When I first began watching this film I had no idea what to expect and indeed thought it a documentary about the actors.. but then the terror bagan.