The 1980’s are without a question the most celebrated decade in all of horror cinema history. With new releases nearly every week, iconic monsters slicing through the screen every year, and the suddenly affordable price of home theatre systems (VHS,) this decadent ten-year period boomed for the beast. An inevitable drop off set in right as the decade concluded. 1990’s horror is often seen as a down period that sat between a horror filled culture boom and the turn of the millennium technological advances in filmmaking. Often forgotten and criticized, the era of flannel tops and starter jackets did produce some fantastic features. Horror-Nation.com, always producing the best in original content, is happy to launch our newest article features, IT CAME FROM THE 90’S.
Immortal legend Wes Craven redefined the genre over and over. 1996’s “Scream” brough horror back in a big way, grossing over one-hundred-million dollars off of a modest fourteen-million-dollar budget.
“Scream” was a cultural phenomenon, one that spawned three sequels, a television series, and more importantly, got horror fans back in the seats. Not only a fantastic fright film that pays homage to the horror films of the past, but the concept of a film inside of a film was heralded as refreshingly original. It had been done before though. Craven himself actually wrote and directed one of the first incarnations of this concept with the brilliant and massively underrated 1994 release of “New Nightmare.”
Set as a stand-alone film in which the Nightmare on Elm Street films are part of pop culture in this fictional world, original scream queen Heather Langenkamp is brought on a popular talk show to discuss the possibility of another Freddy Film. Now a wife and mother, Langenkamp alludes to being done with that part of her life. Shortly after the show, strange visions start happening, coinciding with her son’s sudden mental demise. Langenkamp’s husband Chase, is already working on the new nightmare, even before his wife signs on to the project, and races home to be with his family as they start to fog the lines between reality and fiction. Tragedy strikes and Langenkamp consults with her former co-stars who are all having a similar supernatural experiences. It is Craven, playing himself, that believes that an evil entity was captured by the popularity of the films and has been released with the ending of the series. The supernatural slasher sees Langenkamp as his primary foe and must eliminate her to be released upon the world. Langenkamp gears up for the fight and role of a lifetime.
Much like “Halloween 3: Season of the Witch,” “New Nightmare” has found the appreciation and following the film deserves. At release, many fans were simply disappointed not to see a direct follow up to the series and the box office only turned a modest profit. Slowly, “New Nightmare” garnered a cult following and is now heralded as one of Craven’s best works, with the theme of self-recognition receiving much better success two years later with “Scream.” “New Nightmare” is top shelf across the board. The script is not only original, but clever, and the spoken words cut sharper then a set of finger knives. Langenkamp puts in the best performance of her career, showing the strength and vaulnerabilty of a mother to a young child under pycholgocial peril. Craven, Robert Englund, and fellow original co-star, John Saxon, all give haunting performances filled with experience and depth. Freddy’s new look is arguably the most frighting in the series and his straight forward menacing persona plays closer to what Craven originally intended for the series.
Craven was famously shunned from New Line after he stepped away from the third film in the series, stating that Freddy was becoming too cartoonish. New Line President Robert Shaye and Craven made peace and Shaye gave Craven full creative control for “New Nightmare,” wanting the series to get back to its menacing roots. After turning a mild profit, two years later, the peace made by the duo paid off as “Scream” became a juggernaut. The commercial success of “Scream” laid the foundations for one of the greatest and financially successful trilogies of all time, “The Lord of the Rings.” It was the return of the Springfield Slasher that paved the road to Mordor for Frodo and company. “New Nightmare” is arguably the best film in the series, comparable to the tense atmosphere and original creativity of the original. Like a lot of Craven’s work, the film is immortal and always be viewed as ahead of its time.
90’s Trivia: Wes Craven received a master’s degree in both Philosophy and Writing from which world-renowned university?
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