10 Horror Franchises That Spectacularly Bounced Back

The Elm Street franchise hit a major decline in the aftermath of 1987's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, with that threequel arguably an even better film than Wes Craven's original Elm Street outing. Dream Warriors was followed by The Dream Master, The Dream Child, and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare; movies which got so progressively worse that New Line Cinema saw no option but to kill off Freddy Krueger and the franchise with 1989's Final Nightmare.

When New Line inevitably revisited the property - because when has "final" ever meant final in horror? - thankfully Craven was back in the director's chair and returned to a kernel of an idea he'd had years prior for what became Wes Craven's New Nightmare. That idea? Why, that was to present Freddy Krueger as the physical form of a demonic entity which terrorises the cast and crew of the franchise.

In taking this approach, Wes opted to revert "Freddy" to a more sinister, menacing, dangerous figure in a similar vein to how he was portrayed in the first Elm Street film. With the character having become a knowing, winking, almost slapstick presence in subsequent movies, Craven made the visage and actions of "Freddy" once again chilling with New Nightmare.

Throw in a healthy dollop of meta and satire, and Wes Craven delivered absolute gold with New Nightmare.