Three years after the Elm Street franchise crashed and burned with Freddy’s Dead, creator Wes Craven returned with this unexpected seventh film. It was unexpected because the franchise had seemed to be dead in the water, but also because Wes Craven’s New Nightmare represented a hugely original new take on the material. Here Freddy Krueger transcends the fictional reality of the Elm Street films, and instead menaces the cast and crew of the films themselves. Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, and Robert Englund play themselves alongside producer Bob Shaye and Craven, in this oddly effective post-modern celebration of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

As an intense series of earthquakes strike Los Angeles, actor Heather Langenkamp begins to experience nightmares about the movie character Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). At the same time her son Dylan (Miko Hughes) suffers an unexplained mental deterioration after watching scenes from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. When tragedy strikes her family, and Heather discovers Wes Craven is writing a new Elm Street screenplay, seemingly unconnected factors appear to indicate one thing: Freddy is coming to the real world.

New Nightmare boasts a variety of performances, some better than others. It would be churlish to criticise those of Robert Shaye and Craven, since neither ever claimed to be actors. Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon, on the other hand, are strong and effective. Langenkamp ensures her autobiographical performance is distinct from her fictional Nancy Thompson persona, while Saxon is able to play both himself and his original Elm Street character in different ways.

One would expect a metatextual film like this would embrace comedy, to reflect the absurdity of its premise. Instead New Nightmare plays the entire enterprise with a menace and a gravitas not seen since Craven’s original film. Freddy himself barely appears during the first half, and when he does show up it is with a revised and significantly more menacing look. New Nightmare is not quite up to the level of the 1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street overall, but it is no exaggeration to claim Freddy has never been more effective than he is here.

It is easy to assume this new presentation is what largely motivated Craven to return with this film. He famously disliked the shift of Freddy from frightening monster to comedic icon, and to a large extent New Nightmare serves to right the character before packing him into a box for good. Two years later Craven would direct Scream (1996), which took a different post-modern approach to interrogating and refreshing the slasher film.

While New Nightmare is easily the best Elm Street film since at least The Dream Master, it isn’t faultless. Despite some exception set pieces in the second half, the first tends to drag out a little and gently test the viewer’s patience. It is also arguably too serious, as if Craven feared any levity at all would compromise his meaner, darker Freddy. As an inventive celebration and re-imagination, however, it remains an impressive and unusual work. It is a wonderful epilogue that concludes the original franchise on a powerful note.