The Slasher Movie Encyclopedia – Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

Greetings, all.

Man, I both love and hate this day. October is my favorite month, Halloween is my favorite holiday, and now it’s all over. Now we move on to Thanksgiving, my least favorite holiday, and the Christmas decorations, and all the things that aren’t Halloween. Fucking bummer.

On the brightside, we now have a completed look at the Nightmare on Elm Street saga, with a book coming up here in the next few weeks. It’ll have all the entries you’ve read here, along with a few new pieces such as lists and other things. Until then, you funky cats can get my previous books, such as the collection of Man Movie Encyclopedia classics, the Slasher Movie Encyclopedia collection of Friday The 13th entries, and the most recent: Only A Ninja Can Review A Ninja, in which I take a look at all the classic ninja films, and a few recent ones. Just head to amazon and search Caliber Winfield, or you can simply find the links at the bottom. I appreciate the support guys.

Also, big ups to everyone who liked the Caliber Winfield facebook page. We’re zeroing in on that believe 100 mark, which pretty much makes me the most popular man alive. Thanks for the love.

OK, enough of this mushy shit, let’s head to Elm Street one, last, time….

We open up with what appears to be Freddy working on a new claw, and in sense it is, but it’s actually taking place on a movie set. Our three main cats on this set are Chase, a special effects wizard, his son Dylan, and the matriarch , Heather, played by Heather Langenkamp. As this movie takes place in reality. Well, once the movie cuts, they all take a break, when suddenly an animatronic Freddy hand goes lose and starts killing folk, that is, until Heather wakes up in the middle of an earthquake. It was all a dream,.

Her husband heads off to work, when she catches her son watching the original Nightmare on Elm Street, then screaming like a banshee for no reason when she turns it off. We then meet Julie, their babysitter. Then, in about a 4 minute time span, she gets like 4 phone calls, and you’re reminded just how goddamn aggravating the old school phone ring use to be. I’d almost rather hang out with a member of Antifa than listen to that ring. So, she ends up going to this TV interview, where Robert Englund shows up as Freddy, and hams it up for the audience. Afterward, she heads over to New Line Cinema where the head of it, legit, Robert Shaye, pitches her an idea of the ultimate “nightmare”, as Wes has a new script and such. However, she ain’t digging it, because of all the weird shit that’s been happening to her lately. Speaking of which, when she gets home she hears the kid screaming, as he’s apparently having a nightmare. He wakes up, and says his T-Rex saved him, a stuffed dinosaur that has slash marks on it. Why you think your boy Caliber buys all these action figures? Ain’t no dream demon getting me when he’s gotta deal with Rambo & Robocop.
Well, Heather calls up her husband and says to come home, cause Dylan is acting like a basket case. On his drive home, Freddy’s claw comes from out of the seat and digs into Chase’s chest, causing him to crash. She heads to the corner, and has a look at the body. There, she discovers the giant claw marks down his chest. At his funeral, there’s an earthquake, causing his casket to fall awkwardly into the hole. She gets up but trips on Rex and smashes her head into a steel pole, at which point she sees Freddy drag Dylan down into the grave. This of course is a dream, caused by her smashing her head. Back at home, Dylan, once again, is up at the middle of the night watching A Nightmare on Elm Street and acting like a basketcase again. This kid is like me with Kelly Divine movies…er, I meant The Expendables!
The next day at the park, Dylan & Heather go to the park, where she talks with John Saxon, who played her dad from the first one, and while they’re doing that, Dylan climbs to the very top of a jungle-gym set, in an attempt to meet God. Fuhreaking brat. Like, damn, bruh, go ahead and do all your basketcase shit at the house, but you’re out here in the park making me look like a massively bad parent, dude. C’mon. She later calls up Robert Englund to talk to him about all this, as he’s being affected, as he’s seen the new Freddy, and is even painting him. He makes an off-hand remark to Heather about the script Wes is writing, where Wes said he’s to the point where “Dylan tries to meet God”. Basically, this indicates that what Heather is experiencing, Wes is writing. OK, if I’m her, I’m gonna have a MAJOR bone to pick with that.

Caliber: Dude, what the fuck, Wes, we have to talk. You have some sort of control over my life with your script dealer, and you’re boning me, man!
Wes: What do you mean?
Caliber: What you write happens! To me!
Wes: Right, I know.
Caliber: So what the hell! You got me looking like the worst parent ever out in public with my nut-case kid, I randomly made the news due to the fact that because of me science discovered a new form of micro-penis syndrome, and going through my Nightmare on Elm Street collection, I only have copies of parts 2, 5, and 6! What’s next, I’m gonna be mistaken for the guy who’s suppose to be the center of a 100 man bukkake? Cripes all Friday, throw me a bone, man! Hop on that computer and have me run into Kelly Divine from 2009, or Phoenix Marie from whenever, or at least have me win a scratcher, something….geez, dude.

So, the kid freaks out again, this time taping knives to his hand and freaks out on mom. The phone rings, she answers it, and we get the ol’ Freddy’s-tongue-through-the-phone deal, Dylan then has a seizure. She ends up taking him to the hospital, where the head-burse believes it to be childhood schizophrenia. Afterwards she heads to Wes Craven’s house to ask him what’s going on, and he says in his nightmares, there was an ancient evil, an evil that can be trapped in stories and such, but when the stories are over, it’s free again. Well, this one in particular liked being Freddy, and wants to cross over into our reality. However, there’s only one thing stopping him, Heather, or, as he sees her, Nancy. Later that night, they finally meet, and have a tussle. Freddy is back to Freddy from part 1. There are no quips, no jokes, he’s brutal, he’s menacing and mean. He looks much scarier too. He isn’t burnt, but more like his skin split. Also, he has blades on all his fingers.

Back at the hospital, Dylan asks for Rex, so Heather heads back to the house to get him, while Julie hangs at the hospital to watch him. The nurses dope up Dylan in hopes of letting him sleep, which is of course bad news bears. Heather is being held at the hospital, as the head nurse believes something is up with her. Unfortunately for all involved, Dylan passes out, which brings out the new Freddy, in all his might. He’s got himself a new green hat, and a trench coat. He then proceeds to slash up Julie good, and drag her all around the room. At that point, Dylan loses his shit and runs away, heading home.

Once there, he leaves a trail of his sleeping pills for her to take and follow Dylan where ever he went. Once there, it appears to be a subsection of hell. Very gothic, with fire, and all sorts of sweet stuff. They battle it out, and to be honest, it could have been done better.

At one point Freddy wraps his giant tongue around Heather’s head, and, I dunno, for how serious they were going with this, it sure seemed pretty goofy, I could have done without that. They eventually trap Freddy in an oven type situation, and he explodes. That was a bit lacking, but OK.

Official Slasher Movie Encyclopedia Tally:
Killed: 5
Swear: 2
Boobs: 0
Slow Motion Scenes: 0
Foot Chases: 1
Fake-Out Scares [ie, a cat]: 2
Car Stalling: No
Instances of Drugs/Drinking/Sex: No
Warned But No Belief: Yes

Box-Office Business:
Costing $8 million total to make, it opened up at #3, and in the end brought in a total of $19,721,741.

Things You Need To Know In Order To Survive:
The stalker aspect is real. Wes got permission from Heather to put it in the story.

Heather’s husband is also a special effects designer in real life.

The film has no opening titles of any sort.

In order to get Miko to cry, they had a trick. His mom would leave set, and his father would tell him that his mother was dead. Hey, gotta make that money, baby!

Two weeks before filming ended, California got hit with a legit haredcore earthquake. All the footage you see of earthquake damage in the film, is real.

The name “Dylan” is said 103 times.

When Heather ducks the trailer on the freeway, it was done via greenscreen. In order to hit it right, it took her around 100 takes, which resulted in her being so sore the next day she couldn’t walk.

Final Rating:
Man, after watching part 5 and 6, I can’t tell you how refreshing this was. Everything about the film is top notch, from the story, to the acting, the set pieces, the look of Freddy, it’s great. The idea is clever, if not a bit odd, but I can dig it. Really, it’s very different from the other films, because, hell, Freddy only kills 2 people. That’s it. Plus, we don’t even see him until almost an hour into the movie. It’s less of a horror movie than it is a psychological thriller. It’s very bare bones, in my opinion, which is what it needed after the over-complicated crap of parts 5 and 6. Definitely one of the strongest in the series, and the favorite among a lot of people.
3 & 3/4 Head-Butts Out Of 5

Any questions, comments, drunk-ramblings, feel free to send them my way, I always dig hearing from you, the beautiful people.
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