Freddy Krueger was, for a time, a horror movie character that was played almost as a comedy figure than anything that involved true scares, taking him far away from his roots. The dream killer had been around for a while, and he was probably known more for his bad jokes and puns than for his kills. But hey, at least he had a personality and a voice, not like that Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. But then when his creator Wes Craven came back to direct another installation of the series, he did something truly interesting.
He asked what if Freddy was real.
Actress Heather Langenkamp (playing herself) is having nightmares involving Freddy Kreuger (Robert Englund), the monster from the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Langenkamp, of course, was the “final girl” in the original movie, and she’s apparently haunted by the villain of the film as he appears to be threatening her young son Dylan (Miko Hughes). Her special effects expert husband Chase (David Newsom) isn’t overly concerned, but Heather keeps having these strange dreams of Freddy stalking herself, Dylan, and various other friends and family.
It isn’t long before people start dying in a manner that suggests Freddy may be a bit more real than anyone thought. Yes, writer/director Wes Craven (also himself) has a new plan for a new movie with Freddy, and Heather’s old costars Robert Englund and John Saxon (as themselves) offer comfort when they can, but the problem is a simple one: Freddy Krueger is real, and he wants Dylan. The killings have started, and the reasoning behind it is something no one involved in these movies has ever considered before: what happens when a fictional character isn’t quite so fictional?
This one was pretty clever. Craven, the character, offers the theory that Freddy Krueger needs to be in new movies to keep him from coming into the real world. That, in and of itself, is the central concept of the movie: since Freddy “died” in the previous movie, he will need to come into the real world, warping reality as he goes, to make what was once a movie into something real. Meanwhile, the main character’s fear is the fear of an older person. While the older movies had the characters afraid for their own lives, this time around, Heather is afraid for her son, the target for Freddy’s efforts.
It’s an interesting concept, one reflecting a more mature mindset than might be expected, and reworking the Freddy Krueger character into something scarier than he’d been in years. That said, I do have to ask how good the special effects are here. I don’t know if they looked better on a movie screen at the time or they just aged poorly or look shoddier on my 4K TV. All I know is a scene where Heather and Dylan are dodging traffic seemed like an obvious greenscreen effect. Now, I know they wouldn’t really let a kid, even a trained stunt kid, dodge cars and the like, but it just didn’t look all that real. I can get past effects that may not have aged well if I figure they look good for the time they were created, but that looked a little too weak to me and knocked me out of the moment. That was my only real complaint, though, as this was a fine, if unconventional, entry in the Nightmare series.
Grade: B
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