Ancient Cult Files #6 -- Wes Craven's New Nightmare

   In the 1980's, cinema was flooded with horror movies. Film makers had finally realized that horror was a favorite with younger audiences and set about marketing them on a massive scale, especially those in the slasher genre. However, they kind of went overboard. In the year 1989, over 60 horror films hit theaters

before the year's close, and various squeals to slasher franchises were all in theaters at once. People lost interest due to such over-saturation, and the slasher film fell out of favor overnight. 
   At the decade's turn, it seemed that slasher movies were as washed-up as haunted house films; predictable and too cliche to be taken seriously. But Wes Craven, who gave the genre one of the most memorable villains Freddy Krueger (a dream dwelling murderer who torments people in their sleep), breathed new life into the well-worn A Nightmare on Elm Street films with a new angle; self-awareness.

   Wes Craven's New Nightmare was released in 1994, ten years after the original, and rather than being a part of the franchise's story canon (this is technically the 7th in the series) is set in a fictionalized reality of our own, where the previous six films exist as films. The story centers around Heather Langenkamp (played by the real Heather Langenkamp), who is the actress who starred as the final girl Nancy Thompson in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street and is having to live with the fame of the successful franchise. She has married a special effects technician named Chase Porter (a completely fictional character) and they lead a fairly normal family life with their sensitive eight-year-old son Dylan (played by Miko Hughes)in Los Angeles. Heather has been being plagued recently by an obsessive fan who calls her on the phone and leaves cryptic notes in her mailbox on a nearly daily basis and has been

having odd nightmares about working on the set of an Elm Street film, where Freddy's glove comes to life and murders crew members. Her stress is intensified by a sudden series of earthquakes in the L.A. area, which leave large cracks in her bedroom walls that resemble the slash marks of Freddy's four-finger knife glove. 

Heather Langenkamp (fictionalized)

   She dismisses her fears and goes through with an interview about her career on a talk show while Chase goes to a job at a nearby film site, leaving Dylan with his babysitter Julie. Heather handles the interview in stride despite her recent experiences, but is startled again when Robert Englund (in his Freddy make-up) arrives unexpectedly at the interview.
   The strange occurrences continue with Heather suddenly being offered a job to be in another Nightmare film in which her character from the first film (Nancy Thompson) would resurrect Freddy. She refuses, then returns home to find Dylan watching the original 1984 film and upon turning it off, the boy screams at her. Horrified by the day's events, Heather calls Chase to come home, who has been actually been working on the prospective film (building the very glove Heather saw in her dream) unknown to his wife but agrees to come home. 
   On his way back to his family, Chase begins to nod off. Suddenly the glove he has been working on tears into him from under his car seat, killing him and crashing the car. Heather is horrified when she goes to claim his body that he has four slash marks across him. At his funeral, several other members of the Nightmare production circle pay their respects alongside the widow and her grieving son. All goes fairly normal, until a sleep depraved Heather suddenly falls

The funeral nightmare

into a nightmare in which Freddy appears in Chase's coffin as it is being buried and drags Dylan away. She attempts to jump after them, but it then switches back to reality where Heather has seemingly just passed out. She talks to former co-star John Saxon (played by the real Saxon) and confides her fears to him, who tells her that perhaps both she and Dylan should get medical attention for their strange behavior. 
   Though she attempts to comfort her grieving child, Dylan slowly reveals the Freddy has been tormenting him as well, and begins to speak lines from the original film (which seems to perpetually be on television) and behave like the villain by attaching sharp objects to the ends of his fingers. 
   Heather goes to Wes Craven (played by himself) for help, and he explains (though he states it as though he is pitching a movie) that an actual demon from hell who feeds on fear, pays attention to what terrifies mankind the most, and takes on that shape. At the current time, Freddy Krueger is the an image of fear that so many people

Freddy attacking Heather

recognize, that it has chosen that form, but has molded it to its own evil. Wes explains that the only way to contain the creature is to make another Freddy movie, because since the series end, the demon has been attempting to break into the real world but needs to get through the gate-keeper of Freddy's story: Nancy Thompson, who Heather played. The rest of the film details Heather trying to save her son and seal the demonized Freddy Krueger away for good.
   Wes Craven's New Nightmare failed at the box office, but received critical acclaim and has since been citing as a turning point in horror films and for meta-fiction for its self-awareness, something which Craven would do again with his Scream films. Heather Langenkamp (the real one) noted that some of the plot elements, such as having a stalker and being married to a special effects technician, were true to her personal life. She was also a young mother at the time, so she loved the idea of her character having a son. Miko Hughes who played Dylan fondly remembers his

Englund and Hughes behind the scenes

filming experience on New Nightmare, since Freddy Krueger was so popular among children as their "boogie man", he had already been a fan of the series before being cast and watched Robert Englund being put into his makeup every morning. Englund's makeup was altered for the film as well along with the characters costume which mirror more closely to what Craven originally intended for the character.
   This was the second sequel in the Elm Street series I ever saw and I always remember the scene where Heather and Wes have been talking about the demon Freddy and after he explains that they have to trap him in another movie, the exact conversation they just were having appears on Craven's computer screen as a film script. The film pays tons of homages to the original film, so I would highly recommend watching the first film then watching New Nightmare.
   All and all, this is a creepy, psychologically manipulative, amazing meta-horror film.
   Four and a half stars, check it out.

"All children know who Freddy Krueger is."

   

Icons of Cult Vol. I: Robert Englund -- An Example of Dedication

  When I was thirteen-years-old, I couldn't go to sleep one Saturday night because of a horror movie I'd watched.

I tossed and turned all night long, unable to find rest due to the images flashes through my mind: evil smirk, grisly burned face, tipped hat to hide glowing cat-like eyes, and a voice that echoed undisturbed through my conscious mind. The phrase "Don't, fall, asleep." kept circulating as well, making me force my closed eyes to open every so often to ward off any slumber. I rolled over and stared up at my white stubble ceiling, I felt a shiver of fear; I could see the man in a pale silhouette on the painted surface, reaching down with his claws to touch me.

I sat up, shaking my head with my heart racing. The shape I'd seen had vanished, and now only the familiar shadows of my bedroom were there.

Feeling embarrassed at myself for being so startled at nothing, I laid down again, burrowing under the covers like a frightened child, attempting to shield myself from the irrational fear I'd contracted from the screen. 

I was too old for this, I knew that monsters from movies weren't real. 

But it didn't matter what I told myself, my imagination had a different rational.

I was afraid of him.

I dared not dream. He might be waiting for me.

   Before I became such a horror junkie, I was terrified of anything made after 1965. I had a problem with blood and malicious dialogue, so I had never seen Jaws, Night of the Living Dead, or The Exorcist because of my squeamishness toward more "grown-up" films. I was still into horror though, but this mostly consisted of Gothic classics with guys in capes and prehistorical reptiles destroying major cities (all good stuff in its own right). During James' Rolfe's Cinemassacre's Monster Madness during October which I loved, I couldn't go past the sixties, because that was my limit with horror.

   But then at age thirteen, as with many other things, suddenly everything kicked up a notch.

   Over my holiday break, I awoke in the wee-hours of the morning and went to go play some video games, but upon turning on the TV, I saw the ending of a movie. A girl was desperately trying to escape a man with a horribly burned face and a glove with knives for fingers, but no matter how hard she ran, he manipulated the environment and tormented her further, taking pleasure in her terror. As it turned out, the girl was asleep and what I was seeing was her dream. Still afraid of anything post-65, I quickly flipped the channel before I could see anymore, but I had caught the title: A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Englund as Freddy Krueger

   I'd heard of this movie before, and I knew that this the film I'd just seen a snip-it of was not the original (yes I technically saw the 2010 remake first, go ahead and stone me if you wish) and later that day sought out more information via the internet. I read about the original series and I was hooked: crazy dream world antics, kick-ass strong teenage female leads, and of course a demented, sultry, wise-cracking villain.

   Throughout my reading, a name stuck out; Robert Englund, "the only real Freddy Krueger" as many fans described him. After watching the first film and being scared out of my mind due to breaking my temperance of no gore (which ended promptly after), I thought he must be the creepiest guy in the world.
   But upon further internet research, I discovered quite the opposite.
   What I saw throughout the written and visual interviews with him was a kind, patient, and extremely enthusiastic man who loved his fans. He didn't act like his good fortune was pure destiny, but rather that it was all a happy accident as many things are in life.
   Robert Barton Englund was born and raised in the Hollywood area of California where he took an interest in acting from a young age, and ultimately studied it throughout his college career which included UCLA and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England (no pun intended).
  His acting career began with a series of low-budget films such as

From Eaten Alive (1977)

Buster and Billie and Sunburst throughout most of the 1970's and got his first leading role in Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive in 1977. Englund also has been a surfer his whole life, a passion which he got to portray in the film Big Wednesday. He also auditioned for Han Solo for the original Star Wars and encouraged Mark Hamill to look into the project (so yes, you can thank Freddy Krueger for giving you Luke Skywalker). His breakthrough however came with the NBC miniseries V in which Englund portrayed the friendly alien Willie. Still during his time with V in 1984, he portrayed the fictitious serial killer Freddy Krueger for the first time in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. 
   This sadistic character from the mind of Wes Craven was a child murder who was burned alive by the angry parents and now haunted their teenage children in their dreams, tormenting them before ultimately killing them. Freddy was unlike any of the other slashers on scene in the 1980's; instead of being hidden behind a man-made mask and a silent brute, Mr. Krueger had a face of charred skin and was more than proficient in his speech. 

On set of the original Nightmare

   Craven originally was looking for a stuntman to portray the murderer, but found that older men couldn't get into the character properly. He had his doubts about Englund when he walked in for the audition, but he won him over with his analysis and enthusiasm of the character and the rest is history.

   A Nightmare on Elm Street was an instant classic and Robert Englund would star as the dream stalker in six sequels, a meta-film about those who made the original film and an actual demon taking on the form of Krueger to terrorize the real world, and a crossover battle of the century with Jason Vorhees from the Friday the 13th slasher franchise.
   But now that the slasher genre has been bled out (pun intended) for mainstream audiences and many younger viewers refuse to watch films that predate 1995 or so, what has become of Englund?
   Well, he's never stopped working. In his autobiography Englund discussed his feelings towards his career:

"As for me, I'm still a working stiff and will likely be one until the day I die. Most of my work will probably be in the world of horror, and I have no problem with that.........If you wish to typecast me as a genre actor, so be it. Stumbling into this world was a happy accident that gave me a wonderful career." - Robert Englund, from his book Hollywood Monster

Englund in Fear Clinic

   Robert Englund has become a modern-day Boris Karloff, a representative of the horror genre who has become an ambassador for what goes bump in the night, and is damn proud of it. In addition to meeting countless fans every year and signing god knows how many autographs, he has starred in several modern cult flicks such as Hatchet and Strippers Vs. Werewolves and has crossed into the new age of motion picture technology in the web-series Fear Clinic. He often is a part of panels for various conventions and interviews, always happy to answer the same questions over and over again. His genuine gratitude towards his fans who have given him his career is evident in every book, photo, and tattoo he signs with a smile.
   If you still doubt his sincerity, here is a story from Hollywood Nightmare from his friend and collaborator Wes Craven:

"Once a psychiatrist wrote me. He had a young patient who had heard of Freddy Krueger and was having nightmares about him. I really wanted to help, so I got in touch with Robert and asked if he would say a few words to the kid into a vidcam. Not only did Robert do that, but he did it while he was being put into, then out of, his Freddy makeup, describing each step of the way how Freddy was nothing more than latex and glue and nothing to be worried about. Shortly after I mailed the tape to the doctor, I received a letter in return. The youngster was not only cured, he wanted to watch a Freddy movie!"

   After having to be taken in and out of that makeup over a thousand times, it wouldn't be surprising if he never wanted to talk about again, but he still does and does it with pride over the work he's put into the film industry.
   Robert Englund is 68-years-old today, and I'm glad I was born into the generation with him as our horror all-star. After watching the first film and reading and watching a good bit about Englund, I asked my parents to order his book used on Amazon, which I then read

With several generations of fans

with keen fascination (his book is wonderful by the way, I highly recommend it). His retrospective over his career was truly inspiring and left a socially awkward rising 9th grader with a hopeful message to not be afraid of whatever strange path life takes you, but embrace it as it embraces you. I was a shy, lonely middle schooler, but his description of being a theater kid in high school made me want to explore the dramatic arts; ultimately it helped me break out of my quiet little bubble and be more outspoken about my interests in cult, horror, and just who I am and what I like in general. So without Robert Englund, I might not even be running this blog.
   I can only send out so many good vibes with this article, so I'll sum up my feelings towards Englund as simply as I can: out of anyone I'd like to meet and tell how much they've changed my life, I'd pick him.
   Someone who can scare the living daylights out of you as a story-teller, and inspire you to be a better person in the real world, is perhaps the greatest kind of person one can be.
   Happy birthday Robert Englund, you rock dude.

"If only one of my movies survives the test of time, that's wonderful, but if I make you forget your problems for a minute or three, I've done my job." - Robert Englund, from his book Hollywood Monster