Heather Langenkamp is happily living in L.A. with husband Chase Porter and their young son Dylan despite the earthquakes. Her fame in the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' has resurfaced as the 10th anniversary approaches. She keeps getting prank calls and signs of Freddy. Producer Robert Shaye wants her to rejoin the franchise to star in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Dylan is getting more disturbed by a mystery man and Chase is working on a new Freddy glove. Freddy kills Chase who fell asleep while driving. Julie (Tracy Middendorf) is the babysitter.

Wes Craven brings in various Nightmare alumni including Robert Englund, and John Saxon as themselves. This is not actually a Nightmare movie until the second half. The first half is really a meta-horror. It brings the Nightmare universe into the real world. It is quite effective. It's also great to have Langenkamp back and she hasn't changed. This is a great way to put a bow on the original movies. The hospital is nice. I really love the scene where John Saxon turns. Wes shows that he continues to build on the horror genre.

The actress Heather Langencamp lives in Los Angeles with her husband Chase Porter (David Newsom),who is secretly working in a mechanical hand for the next movie of Freddy Kruger, and their son Dylan (Miko Hughes). During an earthquake, Heather has a dreadful nightmare where Chase's partners die; in the morning she is invited to be the guest of a talk show about the tenth anniversary of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" with the presence of Robert Englund. Later the executive of New Line Cinema Robert Shaye invites her to perform Nancy Thompson again in the latest project of Wes Craven based on his own nightmares, but she turns the invitation down. Heater is being disturbed by a man that calls her in the telephone and sends creepy letters to her. When Dylan has nightmares with a man with claw and tells that he is protected by his T-Rex toy showing symptoms of schizophrenia, and Chase dies in a car accident, Heather becomes paranoid with Freddy Krueger. The reactions of Robert Englund and Wes Craven indicate to her that something is going wrong. Further she discovers that Freddy is an entity that does exist and is an ancient demon trying to use her weakness as the gateway to the real world. Heater needs to face the evil Freddy Kruger to protect her beloved son.

"New Nightmare" is an original approach to bring Freddy Krueger back after his death in "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare". The story blends reality with fiction and transforms Freddy Krueger in a millenary evil entity that tries to reach the real world through the actress Heather Langencamp, giving a survivorship to this character. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Hora do Pesadelo 7 – O Novo Pesadelo – O Retorno de Freddy Krueger" ("The Hour of the Nightmare 7 – The New Nightmare – The Return of Freddy Krueger")

It's hardly a perfect film for Wes Craven, but it's eerie and thought-provoking, something that been lacking in the previous movies that made Freddy Kruger into a goofy wise cracker and cheesy death scenes. It is also the last the last time that Freddy showed any real menace. Wes Craven made this to take back control of his creation and it works as a criticism of what the franchise became with Freddy as a comedian, not to mention a rebuff to the tired argument about violence in films always causing it in the real world. Freddy was far more straightforward with his kills and didn't manifest elaborate scenarios for each death. Pure intimidation. That's what Wes was trying to bring back. New Nightmare is almost in it's own league. New Nightmare had a great story and very original, creative ideas in it but it was still a bit confusing with the plot of the movie! It's the movie without a movie. He would work this angle again, in the 'Scream' series with the "Stab" movies in Scream are movies within a movie! It's work here, it doesn't work there. 'A Nightmare on Elm Street 7: The Ascension' is being film, and Heather Langenkamp playing herself, the actress that play the original heroic star of the original movie is being ask to reprise her role as Nancy Thompson. She notice that her husband Chase, and son Dylan is also being haunted by Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) outside the filming, and confront the actor Robert Englund about it. She then go to Wes Craven himself, who reveals that Freddy is real, and only she can stop him. There is a interesting theory that comes to front with this. It's probably not Wes Craven's intent, but an audience's interpretation is authorial fallacy to see that there might have been a connection to this movie with that of the 3rd movie Dream Warriors. Heather's character Nancy Thompson's dies in the World of the first three films/four films. Her funeral/gravestone proves this (the gravestone was shown in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master). The character Kristen from Dream Warrior, somehow, created a new world/new reality and placed Nancy's soul into this world in the end of the film like it stated. It's a dream world, yet Nancy's soul can live a full beautiful life in this beautiful dream world. Nancy's physically dead, yet not spiritually dead. I would think that once she ages and dies in this dream world then she would have truly died. Overall, Nancy has been placed in a matrix type reality so, to her, everyone in this reality is real/important to her. Freddy though, once all event's take place in the "real world" (the world of dream warriors),realizes that Nancy is in this dream world/alternate reality and therefore tries to kill Nancy since he wants to finish her off once and for all. It must take a lot for him to enter this dream world though since earthquakes are occurring constantly. Since Wes Craven wrote 1, 3, and this one... could it be Nancy living as Heather. It's a headache, but it's worth checking out or is the previous films fake and this movie real. Is Heather insane or is Freddy really coming out of the film to kill the actress that kill him in the movie? The movie goes with the realish look to it. Surprising the earthquake footage in the film is real. It was taken from the 1994 Northridge earthquake that happen during filming. The movie seem fresh, and the way in which Freddy talked, walked, and looked really brought a much needed shot of freshness to the character that had seriously been lacking. Freddy has a deeper voice. To correspond with this, the make-up and outfit of the character was different, with one of the most prominent differences being that he now wears a long, black trench coat. In addition, the signature glove was redesigned for a more organic look, with the fingers resembling bones and having muscle textures in between. It really adds to his darker vibe. The problem with the movie was that Freddy was way too soft. He looked better than ever and he was darker than ever, but all he did to the kid and his mom was chase them around, wrestle them, and scare them. Also Freddie's screen time is almost non existent, he rarely in the film, but when he is, he's scary! Heather Langenkamp takes most of the movie time, sadly not great in leading the film anywhere, as she unable to act her way through wet tissue. Even with fails, Wes Craven's New Nightmare was probably created solely for the purpose of Wes wanting to erase 2, 4, 5, and 6, and I believe even 3 because he said in the special documentary for the box set that he essentially believes that only the first film and A New Nightmare are cannon. Essentially Wes Craven threw a bratty fit over the fact there were so many sequels and wanted to basically bury the series with A New Nightmare. The meta-fictional methodology of 'New Nightmare' really gave a unique and terrifying storyline and, in my opinion, one of the best films of the franchise. So while the theory is still interesting and I can see how it would work, I think it takes away from how good 'New Nightmare' is. I'd rather watch this one than a complete hideous garbage 2010 one with Haley is, God I dislike that version.