Half a decade before Charlie Kaufman wrote himself into his own script and then wove the script into itself, Wes Craven challenged himself and audiences by setting out to make what had become over the course of ten years the bastardized version of his own creation–Freddy Kruger–legitimately terrifying once again. By breeching the safety of the voyeuristic fourth wall that lay between the audience and the events witnessed on screen, the director posits, not only a philosophic conundrum in which we realize that the horror contained within is literally real, but simultaneously presents of the greatest, most articulate, and subtle justifications for the genre. As a consequence, New Nightmare is, quite simply, nothing short of a masterpiece–not of horror–but of cinema.
Renowned scream queen Heather Langenkamp (Heather Langenkamp), of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame, has since severed herself from the genre after ten years and a husband, Chase (David Newsom), and child, Dylan (Miko Hughes). However, recently a stalker seeming to be the iconographic villain of the films in which she once starred, Freddy Kruger (simply, and understandably given the premise, credited as “Himself”), has resumed his taunting of Heather over the telephone. Dilemma is followed by travesty when Chase dies in an automobile accident after, eerily, falling asleep at the wheel. Uncannily, Dylan begins refusing to sleep in the wake of his father’s presence as Heather is informed of a new script by Wes Craven in which he hopes to bring his ominous demonic ghost back to life via the postmodern motif of archetypal evil seeping into the real world when not constrained by a narrative. Is Craven’s work merely morbidly coincidental or is art (imitating) life or vice versa?
Craven’s premise, that the evil which is frozen within a frame, canvas, or narrative is released at the cession of the work of art, not only serves as a segue for an eerily chilling tale as well as an avenue in which to bring back his lionized ghost of years past, but it allows for a cunning reflection upon the aesthetic necessity for horror-themed works of art. In an age in which we rhetorically ponder why there exists so much malevolence in the world, be it in the form of human-directed violence or natural catastrophes, Craven not only asks the question (an all-too-rare occurrence in the genre), he offers an answer (an all-too-rare occurrence in cinema).
Early in New Nightmare, we enter Robert Shaye’s office, the individual responsible for producing the NOES series, where a Marilyn Monroe-by-way-of-Andy Warhol rendition of his cash cow hangs stagnantly, unthreateningly upon the wall. In due course, we learn that the reason that Freddy has left the reel world and entered into our own is that he is merely another symbolic casing, another metaphor, for evil. The problem is that, since the NOES films have come to an end, the evil which was once sheathed in the figure of Freddy no longer has bonds in which to restrain it. As such, Craven cleverly offers once of the most succinct replies to critics of the genre for, within his premise, lies proof of the cathartic effects of cinema. Since Freddy is not longer present in order to vent our vicarious rage, evil has no other avenue in which to direct itself, thus it begins appearing in our world. Craven scathingly applies his line of reasoning in the form of a news report whereby two NOES special effects artists are found dead, apparent victims of a slasher, thus implying that someone who refuses to concur with the director’s aesthetic assessments sought vengeance in the form of what they deemed irony after going to the source of the problem, i.e. the “creators of evil,” without realizing that, in so doing, they were thereby reinforcing the claims made by the filmmaker. By extension, the filmmaker thus grants us that the Aristotelian alibi is actually an axiom. Thus, once Freddy ceased to encompass the dread of evil’s perpetual presence (represented in Shaye’s flippant wall hanging), Craven reminds us by way of his producer that “Evil never dies.”
Indeed, as Heather’s limo driver (Cully Fredricksen), during a moment of beautiful foreshadowing, ominously declares, “They should have never killed off Freddy,” Craven reiterates how frequently this incarnation has occurred throughout time as Kruger’s bony metal fingers echo the sinewy albino talons of one of Yesteryear’s great villains, Nosferatu and, to be sure–as witnessed in Craven’s wry leitmotif of four slash marks throughout the film, from a news report logo to the dangling leaves of palm trees–evil is abound. Yet the rub occurs when we are abruptly awoken from a dream in which our Freudian desires to kill our coworkers are being safely manifested and when we turn off the television wherein a fictional someone who fits the archetypal profile of our sworn enemy is being slain. In such cases, we are thereby forced to confront how our inherently violent natures, which are further compounded by social obligations toward civility, will be expunged.
Not only does Craven topple his critics as he does statues in a graveyard, he convolutes the inherent anxiety of his premise by slowly, patiently developing his themes, never moving onto the next without having first established and examined the previous idea in its entirety. For example, after the safety of Heather’s faux nightmare of Freddy’s essence appearing in the real world is introduced in the opening scene, Craven reinforces his conceit by aligning it with literal evil in the form of earthquakes as each tremor coincides with a cameo of Freddy’s will. Yet no one seems to take note of the pain and suffering which surrounds them though they instinctively react to it: Robert Englund is busy painting a macabre portrait as Wes Craven likewise tries to rid himself of troubling dreams by way of a new script. Such individuals are no more aware that such action is an innate attempt at containing the evil which surrounds them then they are of the fact that subconscious imagery is a figurative compression of real life traumas. Yet, once the nature of the characters’ dilemmas is revealed, the director inquires as to the ramifications of such. We watch as Heather’s meta-real Sisyphean experience of finding the events of her daily life predetermined in Craven’s new work folds in upon itself as she wakes from a nightmare within a nightmare. Only after having his characters step beyond the screen before having them return once again does Craven do what no other meta-fictional director has done: He recognizes the philosophical paradox inherent in the governing semantic legislation surrounding all art. Such becomes all the more daunting at the disclosure that the subplots involving Heather’s stalker and an earthquake in Northridge are real life events (which are mind-bendingly exacerbated when set alongside one of the rare instances of justified allusion in film as Heather utters, verbatim, lines for A Nightmare on Elm Street) as the director tests the aesthetic validity of–not just the Reel and Real–but the Reel, Real, and Meta-Real.
The brilliance of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is deceptive. In A Nightmare on Elm Street, the director presents a postmodern dilemma whereby we are unable to ascertain what is real from what is fantasy. In his follow-up to his epistemological conundrum, he merely pulls the camera back so that the viewer can study the genesis of the problem. In so doing, Craven forces us to acknowledge something we all know: It is not Freddy whom we fear (for any recognizable horror icon would function in the same capacity within the film), but evil itself. As such, the director produces a masterpiece by merely following the precept that the greatest work of art presents an idea in the simplest manner possible. However, as Craven proves with New Nightmare, part of the nightmare of evil is that it is not always a simple black-or-white affair but a fully fleshed out creature onto itself which, to be successfully thwarted, must be understood in its entirety. The only question which the director fails to address is whether or not we will take heed. Of course, we probably won’t have time after the feature ends . . . considering.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
