Comments on: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

By: JediRob

JediRob — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:26:00 +0000

I have always adored New Nightmare. It was ahead of its time. Glad you cam around on it!

By: sexyarmpit

sexyarmpit — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 16:33:00 +0000

One of my favorites of that series. It actually works well as a direct sequel to the original. If you remove all the sequels and watch the first one followed by New Nightmare, it works. I actually liked it when I originally saw it in the theater although parts 4-6 left me underwhelmed which is an unpopular opinion.

By: Jay Thomas

Jay Thomas — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 21:40:00 +0000

This was the first Nightmare I saw as a kid. During the opening, I had to run home from my neighbor’s house to ask my parents if I could watch it. They said yes. I had no idea what I had just watched but I knew I loved it. I didn’t understand the meta until much later.

My quest to then see every Nightmare went like this:

new nightmare

4+5 (my neighbor had these 2 on VHS and we would watch constantly.)

By: colemunro

colemunro — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 09:29:00 +0000

I’ve always held New Nightmare very near and dear to my heart. I always felt it played well on the theme that we give Freddy his power, by telling stories about him and keeping our fears in tact we make him what he is. There’s a little Freddy inside us all.

By: Judson

Judson — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 07:53:00 +0000

I looooved New Nightmare growing up. I had a junk tape that I used to record the commercials when they came on TV. I loved the commentary on the series, Heather, the pacing, and the “darker…more evil” Freddy. I was in the 6th grade when this came out and collected every thing I could about the film ( which was pretty much the novelization and the ads from the newspaper). As I’ve gotten older some of the seams have started to show and the ending doesn’t hold up that well but I get such a nostalgia kick from it, it still ranks pretty high.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 06:26:00 +0000

couldnt agree more we are about the same age and growing up i had the same feelings about it but now as an adult i love the movie thanks for the article was a great read

By: Black Orange

Black Orange — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 02:59:00 +0000

Great piece John!

While I absolutely love both Freddy and Jason damn-near equally, my scale is slightly tipped toward Jason. How undiplomatic of me!

But, really they’re both different and very special to me. I’ve got both my Nightmare and Friday Blu-ray box sets sitting side-by-side. They really hold their own special kinds of nostalgia.

Here’s an ironic little factoid for you, Scream writer Kevin Williamson actually got some of his self-referential inspiration from Jason Lives (’86), so it’s more likely that the team-up of Craven and Williamson took place because of Craven being drawn to the script of that style he liked. (Source: Mentioned a few times in special feature interviews on the various Friday box-sets, likely repeated elsewhere.)

I think the most fascinating part of New Nightmare (which I absolutely love by the way), is that Freddy isn’t actually in it at all. In fact, it’s made very clear that Freddy is just a fictional character.

Really, it’s just a demon, an unknown, unexplained demon (some obvious explanation, but more subtext, throughout the movie) that enjoys taking the form of Freddy (the fictional character) either for personal preference or because it’s a great way to fuck with people haha!

In any case, the movie requires a lot of suspension of disbelief and just needs to be rolled with to enjoy the different layers of art, imitating life, imitating art and the social commentary about fear and the unknown, evil and so on.

As you’ve all seen countless Craven interviews on the subject as I have, it gets really quite deep into really, the core of being human and existence.

By: Brett Gallman

Brett Gallman — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 02:44:00 +0000

This pretty much mirrors my experience with WCNN exactly. I was about a month shy of my 11th birthday when my dad took me to see it. After begging to see Dream Child and Freddy’s Dead and being denied, I was finally going to see Freddy on the big screen–or so I thought. I was confused as hell and obviously didn’t know what to make of it. I don’t think it really unlocked for me until 11th grade, when I read Power of Myth and all that jazz and figured out exactly what Craven was up to. I definitely love the movie now and find it to be one of the most fascinating sequels ever.