Every A Nightmare On Elm Street Movie Ranked Worst To Best
3. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
So much for 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare being particularly final...
The caveat here, of course, is that 1994's Wes Craven's New Nightmare doesn't technically feature Freddy Krueger as its central villain. Instead, the nefarious threat of the day here is merely known as the Entity; though it does take on the physical form of Krueger.
With Craven back on directing duties for the first time since the first Elm Street - and his first involvement since working on the screenplay for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors - the legendary filmmaker took a meta approach with his New Nightmare. By that, we got a movie that took place in the 'real world' and where the Elm Street series exists as in-universe films. This Entity figure begins to stalk those involved in the making of the Elm Street features, and so we have Heather Langenkamp playing Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund playing Robert Englund, John Saxon playing John Saxon, Wes Craven playing Wes Craven, etc, etc.
New Nightmare was a brilliant, clever return to form for the IP, with Craven using this Entity to revert 'Freddy Krueger' back to a more chilling, sinister, terrifying presence than what the character had been reduced to in the previous few films.