Heather Langenkamp as Herself / Nancy Thompson
Robert Englund as Himself / Freddy Krueger
Miko Hughes as Dylan Porter
Tracy Middendorf as Julie
David Newsom as Chase Porter
Fran Bennett as Dr. Christine Heffner
John Saxon as Himself / Lt. Donald Thompson
Wes Craven as Himself
Freddy Krueger as Himself
Two years before Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson caused slashers to become self-aware with Scream, Craven created his New Nightmare which is deeper, smarter and possibly even better made than his later work. At the end of the day I do prefer Scream, simply because it's more fun and I have a soft spot for slashers.
New Nightmare takes place in the "real world", in which the Nightmare on Elm Street events are just movies and Heather Langenkamp is an actress. She is married to a special effects wizard (as in real life...she's even done some work in that realm herself, as she's credited on Cabin in the Woods) and has a son named Dylan, played by Miko Hughes, who everyone remembers from his days scaring us as Gage in Pet Sematary (at the age of three).
The film also uses other aspects of her life, such as a stalking incident that happened when she was a part of the show Just the Ten of Us. There are even shots of a real Los Angeles earthquake that happened around the time of production, used for the earthquake story that is in the film. The use of real aspects to keep the film with such otherworldly aspects grounded in reality is a great touch. Of course, the average movie watcher wouldn't know about some of this but it still gives everything a sense of authenticity.
The story in this one is that it's not actually Freddy causing mayhem, but a demon that has been forced into the form of Freddy as it is controlled through storytelling. It stays in that form because it likes it, but it doesn't want to be contained anymore. It's trying to get at Heather because only by playing Nancy again can she keep it contained. Of course one big plot hole of this film is that the Nightmare series would also need Robert Englund, but he disappears halfway through the film.
If this storyline were real, it almost makes you wonder what big franchise would be used to keep it contained if three years were enough to cause it to stir. Maybe it was trapped as Ghostface until Scream was over, then presumably Jigsaw as the next big horror franchise. It's probably trapped in the form of Toby from Paranormal Activity right now. Of course that's just fun speculation and has no bearing on this movie.
The fact that the monster is not really Freddy is important, because it gives Craven and Englund the chance to make Freddy scary again. Considering Krueger was dressed as the Wicked Witch in the last film, he needed some sort of change, one that didn't require just making a super-serious remake that redoes everything from the first film but with more CGI. Outside of a few silly moments, Freddy is scarier here than he's been since the first one.
Everything else is really good. The Freddy kills are kept basic, because having the more fantastic kills would be out of place. In fact there are only four kills and two of them occur off-screen (sort of). While there are a few flaws, such as the Freddy tongue and the mandatory Wes Craven exposition scene, it's still a great horror film and the perfect conclusion to the Nightmare series. Of course, it wasn't the end, as Freddy would get one last hurrah before suffering the remake curse.
Score: 9.0
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