When we think of 90s horror,Screamis the first movie that will come to mind for most. TheWes Cravendirected slasher, released in 1996,single-handedly saved a dying genre, leading to a whole host of successful imitators, likeI Know What You Did Last Summer,Urban Legend,Disturbing Behavior,The Faculty, andValentine. While the cast of young, hip stars and a new iconic villain named Ghostface helped propelScreamto modern classic status,it wasKevin Williamson’s script that made it stand out. Its meta approach to storytelling, winking at horror tropes of the 80s, madeScreama love letter to the past.
As brilliant as this approach was, Wes Craven had already done the same thing a few years later with 1994’sWes Craven’s New Nightmare. The latest film in the franchise took place in a world whereA Nightmare on Elm Streetwas just a movie and starsHeather LangenkampandRobert Englundplayed variations of their real selves. If that wasn’t real enough,one scene inNew Nightmareinvolved an earthquake, just as one happened in reality, leading to the studio having the destruction filmed for the movie whichtook meta to a new level.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
A demonic force has chosen Freddy Krueger as its portal to the real world. Can Heather Langenkamp play the part of Nancy one last time and trap the evil trying to enter our world?
Wes Craven Took a Different Approach With ‘New Nightmare’
When Wes Craven’sA Nightmare on Elm Streetcame out in 1984, it changed the horror genre. The first half of the decade had been dominated by silent, masked slashers who could be fun, but they were also repetitive. There’s only so far you can take a movie where the villain can’t emote or speak, but Freddy Krueger was the exact opposite of that. WhileA Nightmare on Elm Streethad its roots in slasher tropes, with its big bad killing sexually active teens, it was so much more. Freddy was supernatural, a man who had been killed who now lived in the dreams of his future victims. When they slept, he haunted them, and if they died in their dreams, they died in reality. That was an interesting premise, but even better was Krueger himself. With his burnt face and knives for fingers, he looked terrifying, and he had attitude as well, verbally harassing his prey before he murdered them.
As the franchise went along, however, Freddy became so famous that he morphed into a pop culture icon. TheNightmare on Elm Streetmoviesturned him into a comedy act with bad one-liners, and by the early 90s, with horror dying, 1991’sFreddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmaremarked a very temporary end. Three years later, unable to stay dead,Freddy came back, this time led by his creator, the returning Wes Craven,along with final girl Heather Langenkamp. How could she come back though, when her character, Nancy Thompson, had died inA Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors?
New Nightmarewasn’t justanother in a long line of increasingly bad sequels. Craven sought to shake up his iconic character. In this film, the plot is treated like real life, whereA Nightmare on Elm Streetwas just a movie. Langenkamp, Englund, andJohn Saxon(who had played Nancy’s dad, Donald) played versions of their actual selves, with Langenkamp and her son, Dylan (Miko Hughes), being hunted byan entity who takes the form of Freddy Krueger. In 2014, Langenkamptold Buzzfeed, “It’s not like we’re looking at the audience and winking at them. We’re taking the audience into a new spatial relationship with the real lives of people who act in them.”
‘Nightmare on Elm Street’s Original Ending Nearly Killed the Franchise Before It Started
Wes Craven almost robbed the world of Freddy Krueger.
Freddy Krueger Strikes in ‘New Nightmare’ During an Earthquake
Langenkamp likenedNew Nightmareto not just breaking the fourth wall, but breaking the fourth dimension.Robert Englund, even though he plays the entity version of Freddy Krueger, also plays himself, a man shown enjoying the fame of playing Freddy Krueger. Wes Craven is there too as himself, now writing a new film based on the nightmares he’s having. He’s a man in a movie writing a movie based on another movie.Screamlaughs at horror tropes, butNew Nightmaretreats itself seriously, using that realism not to be clever, but to increase the fear.
Freddy Krueger might not be the same Freddy Kruger this time (the makeup is different, and the razor claws are now part of his body), but he is an improved one. The non-stop jokes are removed, taking Freddy from being a twisted comedy act tosomething to be feared again. Early in the film, he kills Heather’s husband (David Newsom), and now turns his sights to her and his son. His reveal to Heather is a memorable one. As she sits in bed at night, drinking coffee, afraid to go to sleep just like Nancy was,her bedroom begins to shake from an earthquake. When the shaking stops, she goes to her closet, and out of the darkness comes this new Freddy. “Miss me?” he asks, before attacking Heather. He chases her to the bed, but before he can slice and dice, the rumbling starts again and Freddy disappears.
Warner Bros. Used Footage From a Real Earthquake to Market ‘New Nightmare’
The movie takes place around Los Angeles, an area where earthquakes tend to happen. This led to another meta-like moment for the film when, during shooting, an actual earthquake occurred.The Northridge earthquake hit on January 17, 1994at 4:31 am with a magnitude of 6.7. It was the costliest earthquake in the history of the United States, with $20 billion of damage, more than $40 billion in economic loss, and most tragic, 57 lives being lost.
Langenkamp spoke to Buzzfeed about how the studio saw an opportunity to tie inNew Nightmare’s earthquake with the real one. She said:
“Immediately, Warner Bros. was like, ‘How can we use this for our marketing?’ To be able to drive around L.A. and get destruction footage, everyone was gleeful about that. But it struck me as very Hollywood.”
In a case of sick irony, the lines ofNew Nightmarewere again blurred between fiction and reality when B-roll footage was shot of the earthquake damage for the film. That is a cheap way financially to add footage to a movie, but Langenkamp said it wasn’t truly “free”, hinting at the tragedy, with people dying and buildings being destroyed. Sadly, this isn’t the only time that a movie has used a real life tragedy to its own benefit.Vic Morrowwaskilled on set during the filming of 1983’sTwilight Zone: The Movie, and while his death isn’t in the movie, the moments leading up to it are. While the earthquake certainly added toNew Nightmare’salready meta script, this ultimately shows that despite the free publicity and effects that can be reaped, they still come at a high cost.
