Open wide!
| “ | Hey Dylan, ever played, skin the cat? | „ |
| ~ Freddy to Dylan right before he murders Julie. |
Since it's close to it's 30th anniversary and that it seems people are already rolling out Halloween candidates this month, I have decided to do the same, but… this one's particularly exciting: it's not only my first Wes Craven candidate; it's also my first from the classic A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Hope you appreciate my gift: hehehehe!
What's the Work?[]
Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a brilliantly crafted 1994 horror meta-film written and directed by the late, great Wes Craven. This time around, the actress who portrayed Nancy Thompson from the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Heather Langenkamp is living a good life: she has a supporting husband named Chase (David Newsom) and a good son named Dylan (Miko Hughes). Unfortunately, Heather and Dylan are recently having nightmares while the former is keeping up appearances for things such as parties and interviews on A Nightmare on Elm Street and having the kind babysitter Julie (Tracy Middendorf) So the two must find out exactly what’s causing it all while the being, who resembles Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) schemes to destroy the cast and crew of the movies not just in dreams; but in real life. While all of that is going on, Heather also notices that Wes Craven himself is working on a brand new script for a potential seventh work…
Who is The Entity and What Has He Done?[]
The Entity is a malevolent demonic creature who manifests in reality every now and then to wreak destruction on people. The Entity possesses the glove prosthetic when actress Heather Langenkamp gets trapped in a bad dream and uses it to gruesomely off two special effects artists: Charles "Chuck" Wilson gets the glove’s claws lodged in the neck, while Terrance "Terry" Feinstein is ripped apart in the chest when he gets dragged to the floor by the glove. The Entity also injures Heather’s caring husband Chase Porter by cutting his fingers: the wound getting into the real world.
The Entity next carves holes on one of the walls in Heather’s house as a haunting reminder and calls her repeatedly to mock/taunt her on his impending fate: "One, two… Freddy’s coming for you!" The Entity lays low for a while due to it's low levels of power, but then comes at full force to attack Heather and Chase’s son Dylan in his sleep as he’s sleeping and also pettily dig into his favorite plushie: Rexy for shits and giggles. The Entity later dices Chase vertically in his car after calling Heather and stopping a test of a new glove. The Entity grows stronger and stronger as it tries to pull Dylan down during the funeral, but Heather saves him. The Entity possesses Chase’s remains and tells her to stay with him, but she snaps out of the nightmare.
The Entity repeatedly stalks Dylan and Heather as they are traumatized by Chase’s demise: nearly causing the former to fall off the playground and the latter receiving letters with the initials telling her to "Answer the Phone". Heather phones her fellow co-worker: Robert Englund who had portrayed Freddy Krueger himself. Robert describes that it is "darker, more evil" than Freddy and is unveiled to have been tortured by The Entity via nightmares: forcing him to paint past imagery of The Entity tearing into small crowds of innocents. The Entity afterwards traps Robert as a little hapless fly in a spiderweb in another bad dream with The Entity appearing as a spider and gloating about it: leaving Robert to flee town and unable to help Heather and Dylan any further.
The Entity rips into Heather’s bedsheets and was about to strike, but knives falling out in the kitchen snaps her eyes open. The Entity poses as Dylan as a twisted illusion and sticks his tongue on her phone while creepily noticing that he had felt Dylan’s body, but she fights back and takes Dylan to the doctor to get checked out about his issues for a few days: the poor boy suffering from sleep deprivation. The Entity is revealed when Heather goes to Wes Craven’s residence to know more about it as an old, cruel and sadistic being that’s been there for centuries who can only be temporarily locked away in stories. For example, it has taken the form of the Witch from Hansel and Gretel to lure the brother and sister into the oven but it got bested. However, when the current story dies: The Entity comes out to play.
The Entity has been Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise for a decade straight. But since the movies are over, The Entity is set loose and is going into Wes’ dreams to gain a gateway to the real world. Wes’ solution? Making a script and then having Heather act as Nancy for a final film. Heather goes back home but experiences more terrors and chills. The Entity jumpscares her, says "Miss me?" and begins to chase her down: smashing objects and eventually pinning her to the bed: digging into her skin as he calls her name before she opens her eyes and enters the hospital to get to Dylan.
The Entity warns Heather that he’s getting closer to real life and Heather rushes over to his room only to notice he’s alright and Heather has Julie watch over Dylan for the night but the doctor Christine Heffner orders the nurse to give Dylan a injection to make him go to sleep. Julie is pulled into the dream and is not only impaled across the back, but is also painfully dragged up the ceiling: her hands and feet being punctured into and her neck snapped in front of Dylan as The Entity quotes to him "Ever played skin the cat?", even as Dylan reaches his hand out to desperately save her which leaves him screaming and crying as he runs away.
The Entity appears as Freddy and gleefully toys with him and Heather: pulling him up and down while vehicles go through the highway and almost getting him run over, but Heather, despite being bumped by a car manages to reach him in time: both going to their house only for The Entity to enter and destroy Rexy, altering the street and tricking Heather into calling John "daddy” based on his role as Nancy’s father Donald so that The Entity can breach and begin an absolute slaughter and massacre. Dylan luckily leaves breadcrumbs for Heather to track though and the latter finally gets to go into his dream.
The Entity holds Dylan hostage as Heather explores his lair, including tapestries of him pulling people apart. The Entity suddenly ambushes her when she reunites with Dylan and lowers her head into a pit of snakes, but Heather uses a snake to make it bite the Entity’s face. The Entity is about to stab Heather to death, but Dylan uses a knife. The Entity begins mimicking the Witch: "Come here, my piggy. I got some gingerbread for ya!" and Heather tells Dylan to run before The Entity tosses her into a support beam: knocking her out.
The Entity starts to run near Dylan’s direction: "Mommy! Where’s your mommy piglet, huh?” for one. Heather regains consciousness as Dylan hides in a fireplace, The Entity stretching his arm to drag him into his mouth to devour the boy alive, yet Heather stabs him again with the knife. The Entity plays one last card and wraps his tongue across her so that it can strangle/choke her, but Dylan gets the upper hand and he and Heather push him into the fireplace ala The Witch and activate the lever to increase the flames: The Entity showing it’s real identity for a split second before combusting: being sealed off once more.
Heinous Standards?[]
Freddy Krueger obviously sets the bar with his long-spanning rap sheet: Brutally ending dozens of children, going on a killing spree across various dreams of teenagers and sometimes even adults, locking away their souls inside his body, claiming his own wife’s life and desperately trying to do the same to his daughter Maggie/Katherine years later, systematically murdering every children and teenager in Springwood, having plans to spread his influence worldwide until everyone is dead… etc. The Entity however doesn’t need to be compared because as far as the film takes it? Only the original six are canonical to itself. Plus, they are only treated as fictional stories.
The Entity admittedly doesn’t have much of a kill count initially. Sure, it's all agonizing like how the Entity puts it's blades on Julie’s back and grinding her on the walls or how it causes Chase to crash and leaves nasty marks on his chest and stomach, but it merely gets about four lives… or so you think. The Entity is bluntly spelled out to have been doing it’s atrocities for hundreds if not thousands of years: it has a established pattern such as it disguising as a witch to manipulate Hansel and Gretel so that he can consume them, and Robert’s paintings demonstrate that it visibly loves reducing humans to shreds. The Entity has had many victims and what helps it stand out more is that for the majority of the runtime it's being contained only to Heather and Dylan’s presence: thus why he has to resort to other methods. Speaking of which? The Entity's horrific ways of dealing with Heather and Dylan deserve special mention.
The Entity goes into Dylan’s brain regularly and tortures him to the point where it's heavily implied that it is a pedophile as suggested by it's remark towards Heather while on calling mode. Alongside that, it gets to Chase and ends his life to which he and and Heather find out at night, sending letters and harassing phone calls to Heather and assaulting her in her own nightmares including licking at her cheek with his tongue, has him witness Julie die, does a huge Kick the Dog by taking out the stuffing of Rexy, aka his most prized plushie, and making an effort to finish both him and Heather off: raising his claws to strike Heather and when that fails, grabbing the child to swallow him whole.
With all of that tallied up, I'd say that he carves his own unique niche to pass the standards of the franchise.
Mitigating Factors?[]
The Entity is clearly aware of it's bad deeds and it relishes it. The Entity has gotten comfortable with Freddy's identity and desires to manifest as that to proudly raise Hell upon the planet at large once again: it’s a beast who shapeshifts into various things for it's own content; with its real self having large horns and big, pupilless eyes.
The Entity nevertheless shows a clear personality by the way it speaks to Heather, Dylan, and Julie: cracking a few jokes, faux-affectionately telling Heather if she misses her and calling her Nancy, and even acting briefly sweet to Dylan by acting as the Witch. But all of that does little to hide the monster it really is. The Entity is played even more seriously than the original Freddy: who has some goofy moments even if in the end, it doesn't detract from his wickedness.
Final Verdict?[]
Slight yes to (technically) another version of the love to hate Dream Demon.