Did New Nightmare Kill the Freddy Franchise?
“Are you ready to become Nancy once again?”
Wes Craven’s wicked little baby A Nightmare on Elm Street was a hug financial success for New Line Films, but after 5 sequels and the promise of a FINAL Nightmare, things were waning for Freddy Krueger and his Elm Street kids. So in 1994, Wes Craven decided to get back on the horse and try to revive the series in a more cerebral film that moved away from the “cartoonish” characteristics of the past films. But whilst the film received positive reviews and fan reactions, the film ended the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise, with only a Remake and spin off surviving. But was it Wes Craven’s New Nightmare or just franchise fatigue for the man in fedora? NowThis Nerd jumps into the conversation with a video looking at just what happened with the seventh Nightmare movie and if it really killed the franchise? Did New Nightmare Kill the Freddy Franchise? Find out in the video below!
In the spirit of How to Kill, Slash Course will take a look at some of the strangest entries in long running series on our new show Franchise Killers, beginning with Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Freddy Krueger is in the upper echelon of the slasher stable, but as is true for most horror series, A Nightmare on Elm Street has endured varying degrees of quality throughout its tenure. From the original Nightmare on Elm Street by Wes Craven, to the peak of the series Dream Warriors, every subsequent sequel seemed to bring the evolution of Freddy Krueger to a crawl.
Robert Englund still brings the best Freddy kills, but as the dream deaths piled up, the series began to slow down, and soon Freddy was put on the bench for nine whole years. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare was the final entry in the classic Freddy franchise, and it marks a drastic step in Freddy Krueger evolution. The film depicts Freddy as a demon shaped by stories, in a post-modern look at the power of mythmaking. Unfortunately, as a slasher film, the kill count leaves a lot to be desired. Did New Nightmare lead directly to the Freddy Krueger death? You’ll have to watch and find out how we explained in the video, but if the history of Freddy Krueger has shown us anything, we can only dream of a world without Freddy.
