Three years ago, on November 16, 2018, Shriekfest Film Festival screened Wes Craven’s NEW NIGHTMARE (1994) to a packed midnight crowd at Los Angeles’ Nuart Theatre. A special pre-show appearance and Q&A with the film’s star, actress Heather Langenkamp, had been scheduled, then canceled at the last minute; the Woolsey Fire had been raging through the area since early November and Heather had been forbidden by the authorities to leave her Malibu neighborhood to make the drive into Santa Monica. Theater patrons were treated to an entrance and lobby decorated with Wes Craven film posters and Freddy Krueger standees from the private collection of Shriekfest Presents host Armando Muñoz. They were also able to admire a display of three selected costumes that were worn by the actors during the production, all on loan from NEW NIGHTMARE producer Jeffrey Fenner.

The tops on display were two different versions of the Freddy Krueger look; “Freddy’s Sweater”, a ribbed knit sweater with the trademark red and green stripes, and the “Freeway Freddy” sweater, which has a darker red and green color combination. The left version shows off its uniqueness in that is the only version seen in the ANOES series that is actually two sweaters in one, and one that has a higher necked collar than the other sweaters in parts 1-6. Upon scrutiny, it would appear that the wooly red stripes come from a different sweater and have been sewn onto the mock-necked pea-green sweater, giving the red stripes a thicker, leavened appearance against the ribbing of the sweater underneath. The “Freeway Freddy” sweater doesn’t seem to be a sweater at all. It has the look of a heavy cotton sweatshirt, or rather two sweatshirts, sewn together to create one, like the sweater on the left. To be honest, after recently re-watching New Nightmare, I wasn’t able to spot this particular top on Freddy in the freeway scene.

The one other costume on display was Dylan’s cowboy PJs and they are, frankly, just plain adorable; a snug, eggshell yellow cotton onesie, patterned with twee ten-gallon hats, boots with spurs, golden lariats, iron horseshoes, and tin star badges.