Wes Craven's New Nightmare

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🎙️ EPISODE 587: 10.31.22 I did it! I watched seven A Nightmare on Elm Street movies over the course of two weeks.... and lived to tell about it! We leave the realm of Springwood, Ohio (as well as the continuity of the original six flicks) for sunny Los Angeles and an extremely inventive and super meta return by the master himself, Wes Craven. This was so much different than I thought it was going to be, and it was all the better for it. I thought it was going be some haunted film production thing but the actual result is a terrifying ouroboros-like hybrid affair, blending fiction and a fictionalized version of reality in a fascinating intertextual way. This is not simply "what if we got the actors from the original to play themselves and freaky shit started happening." And even in a bright and sunny L.A., Craven can still conjure a terrifying and lingering menace.

But there's so much more to like here than not. From the unsettling performance of Heather's onscreen son by Miko Hughes, to the countless little details, metaphors and allusions. Just a lovely capper to a decade's worth of one of the most successful franchises I've seen in full. On today's podcast, I went over the 7-tier scoring system used to rank all seven movies. But here it is again, below, along with the final worst-to-first countdown. Come back next October when I dissect the even larger Friday the 13th franchise starting on, you guessed it.... Friday the 13th of October, 2023.


SCORING CATEGORIES + RANKINGS WITHIN

I. Acting
1. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
2. Dream Warriors (Part 3)
3. A Nightmare on Elm Street
4. Freddy's Revenge (Part 2)
5. The Dream Master (Part 4)
6. Freddy's Dead (Part 6)
7. The Dream Child (Part 5)

II. Gore/blood/gross-outs
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street
2. The Dream Child (Part 5)
3. The Dream Master (Part 4)
4. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
5. Dream Warriors (Part 3)
6. Freddy's Dead (Part 6)
7. Freddy's Revenge (Part 2)

III. Special FX/make-up
1. Dream Warriors (Part 3)
2. The Dream Master (Part 4)
3. The Dream Child (Part 5)
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street
5. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
6. Freddy's Dead (Part 6)
7. Freddy's Revenge (Part 2)

IV. Plot/story
1. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
2. A Nightmare on Elm Street
3. Freddy's Revenge (Part 2)
4. Dream Warriors (Part 3)
5. Freddy's Dead (Part 6)
6. The Dream Master (Part 4)
7. The Dream Child (Part 5)

V. Atmosphere/filmmaking
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street
2. Dream Warriors (Part 3)
3. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
4. The Dream Master (Part 4)
5. Freddy's Revenge (Part 2)
6. The Dream Child (Part 5)
7. Freddy's Dead (Part 6)

VI. Characters & character development
1. Freddy's Revenge (Part 2)
2. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
3. A Nightmare on Elm Street
4. Freddy's Dead (Part 6)
5. Dream Warriors (Part 3)
6. The Dream Master (Part 4)
7. The Dream Child (Part 5)

VII. Robert Englund's work/The Freddy character
1. Freddy's Dead (Part 6)
2. Freddy's Revenge (Part 2)
3. A Nightmare on Elm Street
4. The Dream Master (Part 4)
5. Dream Warriors (Part 3)
6. The Dream Child (Part 5)
7. Wes Craven's New Nightmare

THE FINAL DEFINITIVE RANKING OF EVERY MOVIE IN THE 'A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET' FRANCHISE BASED ON MOVIEJEFF.COM'S FLAWLESS SCORING SYSTEM
7. The Dream Child (Part 5) — 18 points
6. Freddy's Dead (Part 6) — 21 points
5. The Dream Master (Part 4) — 24 points
4. Freddy's Revenge (Part 2) — 27 points
3. Dream Warriors (Part 3) — 32 points
2. Wes Craven's New Nightmare — 33 points
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street — 39 points

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 587A - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 588 ⫸

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Wes Craven's New Nightmare (also known simply as New Nightmare) is a 1994 American meta slasher film written and directed by Wes Craven, creator of 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street. A standalone film and the seventh installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, it is not part of the same continuity as previous films, instead portraying Freddy Krueger as a fictional movie villain who invades the real world and haunts the cast and crew involved in the making of the films about him. In the film, Freddy is depicted as closer to what Craven originally intended, being much more menacing and less comical, with an updated attire and appearance. It was released on October 14, 1994.