Wes Craven's New Nightmare

[HarlotBug3]

My wife and I recently watched all ten, yes eye through ex, Friday the 13th movies, followed by all seven Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

80s cheese is one thing, and both did their best to bring it to new lows, but 'Wes Craven's New Nightmare' is one of the lamest attempts at metafiction I've ever seen. Hell, it is frankly one of the lamest movies I've ever seen. No matter how merely 'bad' the others were, this one was essentially unwatchable.

My OCD demands I start what I finish, but to anyone else looking to watch "all" the nightmare movies: I'll forgive you if you skip this one. 

[Psycho Circus]

  I actually think it's a masterpiece compared to 4,5 & 6. I thought it was a decent enough concept seeing as the series had run out of juice. Freddy looked quite scary for once too, before all the lame "rubber pizza" masks they got him wearing.

[Torgo]

I actually think it's a masterpiece compared to 4,5 & 6. I thought it was a decent enough concept seeing as the series had run out of juice. Freddy looked quite scary for once too, before all the lame "rubber pizza" masks they got him wearing.

Couldn't agree more. The thing that brings down New Nightmare a bit was Wes Craven's "acting" in the scenes that he was in.

[HappyGilmore]

As cheesy as the movies may have been, I've always been fond of the Nightmare flicks, especially when compared to other franchises.  4-6 may have been cheesy, but none more so than the Friday or Halloween flicks.

New Nightmare was definitely a step up, and a fitting 'end', I suppose for the series.  Granted, they made Freddy vs. Jason, but that seemed more a fanservice film than anything.

[John Randal]

New Nightmare was not executed very well but I think that was the scariest Freddy out of all the movies.

[Derf]

I thought it was different enough to be enjoyable. Freddy hadn't been really scary since the first movie (which had some reasonably good creepy moments), so I didn't go into the movie expecting scares, just entertainment. Yeah, the storyline was cheesy but well-done overall, and I didn't notice until the opening credits came on at the end that they hadn't been shown at the start, which I thought was kinda neat. I can see how it might not have worked for everyone, but I remember enjoying it when I saw it in the theater (haven't watched it since).

[Jack]

I couldn't even make it through more than about 15 minutes of that thing.  I thought the first NOES was great, but after that the franchise almost immediately went down the crapper.  The whole "go into the dream, have somebody wake you up - but they ALWAYS fall asleep - and pull Freddy out into the real world" got really old, really fast.  This past Halloween I thought that maybe I had been a little to hard on the franchise, so I made an effort to watch them again.  No, I hadn't been too hard on them, just forgotten how truly awful they were.  And I'm a gigantic slasher fan too - my DVD collection is a veritable smörgåsbord of cheesy slasher goodness.  But I just can't stand those movies at all.  And the last one is practically the worst of the lot.

[Mr. DS]

By the time this film came out the world had kind of forgotten that Freddy was a bad @ss.  Thats thanks to the awful part 4 (which proved to be an MTV culture nightmare) and the forgettable following films. This film kind of reinstated that Freddy was in fact a powerful and downright frightening entity.  That and you felt bad for the victims unlike the last 3 films. 

I guess my twos complaints are Freddy simply got turned into a generic type of monster.  Englund at least gave Freddy character.  That and the kid who played the son was waaaaaay too over the top. Then again, the kid also played Gage in Pet Semetary but to a much more effective manner.  You figure with age he would have gotten a bit better.  And yes I know I'm picking on a kid...

[Rev. Powell]

I thought it was good--not great, but good.  Another retread wouldn't have done a thing for me, unless it was laughably incompetent.