How Scream 4 Referenced Wes Craven’s Unmade Nightmare On Elm Street 4

Horror icon Wes Craven proved he had a sense of humor about his missteps when the helmer mocked his idea for an unmade Nightmare On Elm Streetsequel in the meta-slasher Scream 4. Not content with reviving the sub-genre once, horror legend Wes Craven managed to bring back slasher movies twice during his long career. After audiences tired of countless Halloween clones in the wake of Friday the 13th’s success, Craven introduced dream demon Freddy Krueger in 1984’s ANightmare On Elm Street and added an innovative supernatural, fantasy-horror edge to slashers that kept the sub-genre alive for another half-decade.

However, after a few cinematic outings from the Springwood slasher, even Freddy Krueger began to bore cinema audiences by the early ‘90s. At this stage, every slasher franchise from Friday the 13th to Halloween to Child’s Play had incorporated some form of paranormal elements into their plot to keep things fresh, and thus fans were once again tired of the slasher formula. Never one to rest on his laurels, Craven reignited interest in the sub-genre all over again by directing 1996’s Scream, an edgy meta-slasher with an ingenious premise—the stars of this thriller knew the rules of horror movies and was sure to avoid the familiar cliches.

However, not all of Craven’s ideas were this ingenious. Back in the late ‘80s, the helmer pitched Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master’s producers a potential story for the sequel that would have involved time travel. It was one the creators understandably balked at, leading them to go with another script draft instead. Evidently able to laugh at his missteps, Craven twisted the knife into his misguided pitch with one line in the later slasher sequel Scream 4. Early on in the action of this underrated franchise installment, one character notes the first few films in the fictional Stab franchise are worth watching, adding that “Stab 5 has time travel, which is by far the worst.” It’s a pithy dismissal of Craven’s pitch that, while ambitious, was likely an idea best left on the cutting room floor.

Fortunately, the Scream franchise never resorted to time travel in its fourth installment either, although the line does appear in the movie’s trippiest sequence, a nested movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie scene. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare featured a similar attempt at meta-horror, although Scream 4 wisely uses the movie-within-a-movie framework for laughs rather than scares. New Nightmare’s comparative box office underperformance may have been due to the ambitious movie’s premise alienating viewers, while the Scream franchise, in contrast, never allowed its self-referential nature to get in the way of scares and gore.

It remains to be seen whether the upcoming Scream 5 (or Scream, as it is confusingly titled) will be able to recapture the tone of the original series without the late Craven at the helm, but the director’s ability to laugh at his missteps should be encouraging for the directors taking over the franchise. The next Scream may not be able to bring back every fan-favorite character of the franchise, but provide the long-anticipated sequel doesn’t resort to time travel, it should be alright. And even if it does, the results will likely still be superior to A Nightmare On Elm Street’s worst outings.

About The Author

Cathal Gunning
(1448 Articles Published)

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.

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