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It's been 10 years now that she starred in the original Nightmare
on Elm Street, but suddenly Heather Langenkamp is troubled by
nightmares, nightmares that seem to have something to do with Freddy
Krueger - which is rather weird because of all people she should know that
Krueger is only a work of fiction, especially since she is friends with
Freddy-actor Robert Englund. But if that is already worrying, Heather's
son Dylan (Miko Hughes) has nightmares about Freddy as well, and Freddy
seems to have taken quite a liking to the little boy, if you catch my
drift.
Then Heather's husband (David Newsom) dies in a car accident, but
Heather knows it was really Freddy Krueger who killed him. But that's not
all, before long Heather's friend and trusted babysitter Julie (Tracy
Middendorf) is killed too, in a bizarre, Freddy-sort of way - fighting for
her life, she is dragged across the ceiling. Then Dylan even disappears,
but not just like that, but into thin air our of his own bed, and the only
trail leading to him is marked by sleeping pills. In Freddy's horrorland
in her own nightmare, Heather finds Dylan again - but she also finds
Freddy, and together mother and son must fight Freddy, who this time
around also makes use of his really long tongue. Guess who wins in the end
though ...
Wes Craven's New Nightmare tries hard to be a meta horrorfilm
and an intelligent reinterpretation of the Nightmare on Elm Street-series,
which ten years after the first part has grown more thana bit stale ...
however, ultimately the film fails as the meta-level of the production
seems to consist of nothing more than some of the series' actors
(Langenkamp, Englund, John Saxon) as well as key personnel (Wes Craven,
producer Robert Shaye) playing themselves, while the reinterpretation soon
leads to nothing more than a reworking of the already tried and true
formula with no real new additions - plus it's by far not as much fun as
some of the earlier parts of the series, as a matter of fact the film
takes itself annoyingly serious. Only the ending with Freddy's really
long tongue is fun, but that's a little too little, too late.
Not really worth your while.
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