The 10th Anniversary of A Nightmare on Elm Street, saw the release of this seventh film in the franchise, and whilst it does offer something new to the genre it isn’t all good.
The basic premise sees star of the orgional Nightmare on Elm Street Heather Langenkamp and assorted cast and crew regulars from the series, battle the real life incarnation of Freddy as he desperately tries to breakthrough the barriers of fiction into our reality.
The main problem with the film is timing. Released a whole years before Scream, the film is far too clever for it’s own good. Whilst the idea of Freddy crossing into our reality is very clever, it is perhaps the execution that lets the story down as nothing really exciting happens until an hour into the movie.
Fans of the series will undoubtedly enjoy watching the likes of series creator Wes Craven and Freddy’s alter-ego Robert Englund playing themselves but there are moments where it was in danger of becoming cheesy. In fact the only actors who really worked for me besides Freddy were Heather’s son Dylan played by Miko Hughes and newcomer Tracy Middendorf as the endearing babysitter Julie.
On the plus side however the actual concept and the darker Freddy were very refreshing. I particularly liked Wes Craven’s line ‘That new claw makes his old one look like Mother Theresa’s mitten’. But any credence added by these aspects is then weakened by the Hansel & Gretel sub-plot.
I do respect this film, and especially Wes Craven for taking the material and creating something new with it and I applaud the fact that Wes and Robert were able to make Freddy frightening again, but there’s just a niggling TV movie aspect to the whole thing that detracts your attention from the story.
OVERALL SUMMARY
A film for fans of the series only. The main fault is the clever script that appears to even have some of the cast and crew puzzled as to how to treat the material. Definitely one of the weaker entries in the series and the score is rather annoying as well.
