October 19th, 2012: Wes Craven's New Nightmare

I was hesitant on whether or not I wanted to watch a sequel this month but honestly I don't think I could go an October without Freddy Krueger.  Since I watched the original and remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street last year, I had to figure out which sequel would be the best to watch.  Needless to say the decision wasn't very difficult considering very few of the Nightmare sequels are worth watching more than once. 

"This film gives us all the terror of the original without any of the sarcasm of the rest of the series. Wes Craven's return is impressive and rivals the original in terms of quality." - Wesley Lovell, Cinema Sight

Wes Craven's New Nightmare has been a favorite of mine for many reasons:

1. First and foremost, it was written and directed by Wes Craven, the creator of A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream anthology.

2. It features Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy Thompson in the original.

3. The script is perfect.

4. The "boys have a penis, girls have a vagina" kid from Kindergarten Cop plays Heather's son. 

5. It has the best death scene in a Freddy movie since Johnny Depp's in the original.  You'll know when it happens. 

6. It was the first Nightmare movie I saw.  I was 9 years old and it was edited for television but I fell in love with Freddy immediately. 

I could go on but that's enough to get my point across.  

Even though the Nightmare franchise isn't as solid as some of the others, Freddy is still one of my favorite villains.  Michael and Jason are great but Freddy is much scarier than both of them.  When I was little I remember walking through the Horror section looking at the covers of all the movies.  I'm not sure how I knew who any of these killers were, but the covers of all the Nightmare films always stuck out to me; probably because one featured Freddy swallowing a woman. 

ROTTEN TOMATOES RATING: 79%

The ultimate reason Freddy has always scared me is because he's not real.  Other slasher movies of his time were always featuring someone with a knife, whereas Freddy is only in your nightmares, which is completely out of our control; anything can happen within a dream.  We've all had those nightmares where we wake up and are afraid of going back to sleep because there's a chance the dream may continue.  In the Nightmare films, if Freddy is in your dreams, there's nothing you can do to stop him unless you stay awake.  What's scarier than being afraid to go to sleep?  

-Colby.