Continuing the nods made to the original film, Nancy gets a phone call from Freddy stating how he’s “touched” Dylan and the receiver once again turns into a tongue. The nature of the film succeeds in never making these references forced and, for me anyway, only added to the growing sense of menace. These moments aren’t delivered as obvious fan service even if that’s how they are received, which is good considering where the story will go.
Heather takes Dylan to the hospital where he is diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia. The well meaning Dr. Heffner (Fran Bennett ) is concerned about both Dylan and Heather, raising some oft-argued points about children and horror and these are arguments that will continue as long as the genre exists.
Dylan is required to stay at the hospital and later that night, Heather is attacked at home by Freddy. This iteration of the character does feel different from any of the other ways that Robert Englund has played him before. We can believe that this is an entity inhabiting the form of Freddy Krueger. The make up is slightly different, the way he moves is slightly different, the voice is slightly different. It’s a great performance from Robert Englund in the reasonably short amount of time he’s on screen in comparison to previous entries.
After calling her “Nancy” and leaving bloody cuts on her arm, he leaves as Heather races back to the hospital to check on her son. The cuts are an obvious source of concern for Dr. Heffner who has had to put Dylan in an oxygen tent and Heather goes to see him.
She falls asleep and we see Freddy again briefly before she wakes to find Dylan has been moved. This has now left Heather with a grey streak in her hair identical to the first film and it was during my most recent watch of this movie that I noticed that Heather Langenkamp looked younger at this point in the film. It’s more nuanced that I gave it credit for originally but the way she looks, the way her hair is being worn, the way she dresses; they all take years off the actress and it’s a very clever lead into the final act.
Dylan is fighting a losing battle against sleep and wants his protector, Rex, who is still at home but Dr. Heffner isn’t keen on letting Heather go without talking about her own delusions and suitability to look after her son.
Julie is keeping an eye on Dylan, even going so far as to ensure he’s not given an injection to help him sleep. Sadly it’s not enough and Dylan can only watch as we get a variation on Tina’s murder from the original film. Now sporting a different looking hat and a trench coat, Freddy appears behind Julie and kills her after dragging her bloody body up the walls and across the ceiling. It’s not quite as bloody as Tina’s death was but, this time round, we see Freddy circumventing the room dragging Julie’s body around before breaking her neck and dropping her to the floor.
A sleepwalking Dylan heads for home and Heather follows, calling John Saxon on the way asking for his help. She arrives back at home and finds John already there and Dylan safe for the moment. She tells John that Fred Krueger killed Chase (note how she said Fred instead of Freddy) and John’s demeanour changes in a heartbeat as he says “Yeah, sure”.
This whole sequence is a personal highlight of the film. We cut between two scenes. The interaction of John and Heather as they head outside and he starts calling her Nancy before his clothes change and he is once again Lt. Don Thompson and upstairs where Freddy emerges from within the bed. Accepting her role, Heather tells her Dad that she loves him as he leaves and, once more dressed in her pyjamas, she turns as Charles Bernstein‘s familiar score plays and faces 1428 Elm Street. It’s a really well conceptualised scene that only lasts a couple of minutes but gave me goosebumps. The way the actors become the characters, the change in location, score, the reveal of Freddy; these all add to one of my favourite moments in any of the films.
Heather follows a trail of sleeping pills past an eviscerated Rex, to the bed where she sees a tunnel leading into darkness. Hearing her son’s cry she slides down the tunnel and out of the mouth of a large stone Freddy head into what I’m going to say is the boiler room re-imagined as a gigantic temple.
She finds a un-titled script to this film we’re watching and reads along as the words say that there is no movie, there is only her life and all she’d experienced was bound within the pages of the script. Dylan appears as does Freddy and Krueger momentarily gets the advantage and chases Dylan into a furnace. With more nods to earlier films (long stretchy arms and a jaw capable of swallowing a child) Dylan is close to the end when Heather sticks Krueger with a knife.
Together, she and Dylan manage to get Freddy into the furnace in another nod to the story of Hansel and Gretel, a motif that is prevalent throughout the movie and as he burns he transforms briefly into the evil demonic entity that he really is before exploding in a plume of fire. Heather and Dylan run as the temple is destroyed around them.
They jump into a small pool of water and re-emerge in Dylan’s bed which is billowing with smoke as we see that it’s daylight outside.
With a ding-dong, Dylan declares the witch is dead as Heather looks down and sees the script. Inside we see the title of the movie with a handwritten note from Wes Craven thanking her for playing Nancy one last time and for sending Freddy back to where he belongs.
She confirms to Dylan that it’s a story and he asks her to read it to him which she begins by describing the first scene of this movie and the credits roll.
This is the longest film in the series and we don’t even see Freddy in full till over an hour in but his presence is there throughout so we don’t ever feel short changed. The performances are as strong as any we’ve seen and I love the fact that this is an Elm Street film that’s also not really an Elm Street film.
Forget about what makes sense as if you over analyse any genre film you can pick them to pieces regarding logic. This would be an unfair approach to take with New Nightmare. There’s so much going on here beyond being a pretty damn good horror movie that it’s the kind of movie a film student could really get their teeth into. To get the most out of it, I feel you would have to watch all of the films that preceded it as well as have an awareness of how the character of Freddy Krueger ended up a pop-culture icon.
Whether or not Scream is a better movie is subjective and I couldn’t say for certain that it wouldn’t have existed if not for New Nightmare (after all, Scream was written by a different person) but both show a self-awareness that was rarely seen at the time but still continue today.
That, then was seemingly that. The canonical character had been killed off in Freddy’s Dead and Wes Craven had said hello again before saying goodbye himself to his creation.
It seemed that we really had seen the last of Freddy Krueger. As remakes started to proliferate it seemed that that was where we were most likely headed as we pushed through the millennium with no sign of the “Springwood Slasher”
A certain hockey masked individual disagreed thankfully so it is to see what happens when two horror behemoths clash that I will look at next time.
Till then….
Sleep Tight