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Many credit Wes Craven’s 1996 film Scream as ushering in the era of self-aware horror movies. The characters in these films experience all the usual horror conventions, yet they are horror literate, or aware of the rules and know what to do to stay alive. Although Scream was indeed groundbreaking, as it shattered box office records and brought forth a new wave of horror movies, Craven toyed with the idea of self-referring horror two years earlier with New Nightmare. The seventh of the hugely popular Nightmare on Elm Street movies, New Nightmare was a box office disappointment, pulling in the smallest box office gross of any Nightmare movie to date. Craven only directed two of the Nightmare movies: the original and New Nightmare, with five silly, over-the-top sequels sandwiching the two vastly superior entries in the series. New Nightmare tackles an extremely clever premise: what if Freddy Krueger were more than just a character? What if he were a real entity, hell-bent on butchering the cast and crew of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies? Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Wes Craven, Bob Shaye, and John Saxon (all stars or creators of the original film) play themselves, and they have to do battle with an evil entity that has taken the form of Freddy Krueger. The Freddy in this film is much darker than the sassy Freddy of the Nightmare sequels, and the ominous tone of the original film rings clear throughout New Nightmare. Langenkamp, the star of the first Nightmare, gives a great performance playing herself, as she must ultimately face and defeat Freddy in the real world after already defeating him on film ten years earlier. These real-life personalities know Freddy all too well, and watching them become the victims proves to be extremely entertaining. New Nightmare is clever, fun, gory, original and it ultimately failed because it dared to be satisfyingly different.