By the mid-1990s, the horror segment of the film industry had run bone dry, thanks in no small part to crappy sequels. What makes this ironic is that New Nightmare is the seventh installment in the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise, and in spite of being far more creative than the five sequels preceding it, the market just hadn't recovered enough for it. Not that this is totally to blame for its relatively weak performance at the box office. In spite of being written and directed by the creator of the original, New Nightmare brings very little that could be considered new to the table. In fact, one could say that Wes Craven has been out of ideas since about 1990 or thereabouts.
The conceit of New Nightmare is based in part on the manner in which Wes Craven gets ideas. The original Nightmare On Elm Street was based upon reports he'd read about Asian migrants dying in their sleep after complaining about nightmares that followed specific patterns. The idea in this sequel being that the idea is for real, and the source for that idea is interfering in the real world. It is, on the surface, a ludicrous idea, and it is a real credit to the cast that they can play it with such a straight face. Robert Englund in particular has a trying task in this film. Not only does he have to play a character that has been turned into a joke by three of the five preceding sequels, he has to portray himself taking that character seriously. It is a supreme irony that he is remembered for this role rather than the one he had in V.
To its credit, New Nightmare assembles a lot of the cast and crew from the original in order to bolster this conceit. Even John Saxon, whose career had thoroughly tanked by this point, makes an appearance. Sadly, Johnny Depp, the most successful alumni from the original, is nowhere to be seen. Granted, he had a cameo in Freddy's Dead, but given how pitiful that film was, it would have been nice to see Depp playing himself in this one. Jsu Garcia and Amanda Wyss are also nowhere to be seen, although I suppose it is good that they did not try to stick every actor from the original into this new one. After all, you have to allow the story to flow a bit. But that is where the biggest of New Nightmare's problems come from. Much of the 112 minutes that New Nightmare runs for feels redundant, and entire sequences go by with nothing seeming to happen. It is not a measured pace, but rather a pace that leaves the viewer waiting for something to happen.
Another problem, and this is one faced by all of the Nightmare On Elm Street sequels, is that the dialogue is incredibly stilted. Even Wes himself speaks in a fashion that I cannot really imagine him using elsewhere. I guess part of the problem lies in the unreal subject matter. No matter how hard one tries, one cannot really explain the mechanics of a demonic presence borne of one's imagination and keep a completely straight face. One cannot help but wonder at times if we could have been shown, rather than told, some of the mechanics of the story. A lot of films in this genre spend too much time explaining why we're meant to be scared, or how a particular antagonist works, paying no attention to the economy of time. Still, it is better than most of the previous Nightmare sequels, in which the writers relied upon the knowledge the viewer might have had about the previous stories.
In all, I gave New Nightmare a 5 out of ten. It is worth spending a couple of hours watching while doing other things, such as writing this dreadful review, but as a form of entertainment, it is pretty ordinary.
The conceit of New Nightmare is based in part on the manner in which Wes Craven gets ideas. The original Nightmare On Elm Street was based upon reports he'd read about Asian migrants dying in their sleep after complaining about nightmares that followed specific patterns. The idea in this sequel being that the idea is for real, and the source for that idea is interfering in the real world. It is, on the surface, a ludicrous idea, and it is a real credit to the cast that they can play it with such a straight face. Robert Englund in particular has a trying task in this film. Not only does he have to play a character that has been turned into a joke by three of the five preceding sequels, he has to portray himself taking that character seriously. It is a supreme irony that he is remembered for this role rather than the one he had in V.
To its credit, New Nightmare assembles a lot of the cast and crew from the original in order to bolster this conceit. Even John Saxon, whose career had thoroughly tanked by this point, makes an appearance. Sadly, Johnny Depp, the most successful alumni from the original, is nowhere to be seen. Granted, he had a cameo in Freddy's Dead, but given how pitiful that film was, it would have been nice to see Depp playing himself in this one. Jsu Garcia and Amanda Wyss are also nowhere to be seen, although I suppose it is good that they did not try to stick every actor from the original into this new one. After all, you have to allow the story to flow a bit. But that is where the biggest of New Nightmare's problems come from. Much of the 112 minutes that New Nightmare runs for feels redundant, and entire sequences go by with nothing seeming to happen. It is not a measured pace, but rather a pace that leaves the viewer waiting for something to happen.
Another problem, and this is one faced by all of the Nightmare On Elm Street sequels, is that the dialogue is incredibly stilted. Even Wes himself speaks in a fashion that I cannot really imagine him using elsewhere. I guess part of the problem lies in the unreal subject matter. No matter how hard one tries, one cannot really explain the mechanics of a demonic presence borne of one's imagination and keep a completely straight face. One cannot help but wonder at times if we could have been shown, rather than told, some of the mechanics of the story. A lot of films in this genre spend too much time explaining why we're meant to be scared, or how a particular antagonist works, paying no attention to the economy of time. Still, it is better than most of the previous Nightmare sequels, in which the writers relied upon the knowledge the viewer might have had about the previous stories.
In all, I gave New Nightmare a 5 out of ten. It is worth spending a couple of hours watching while doing other things, such as writing this dreadful review, but as a form of entertainment, it is pretty ordinary.