After seeing the audience sodomization and forced salad-tossing that was VI, Wes Craven gets to writing the script for VII. It's his character, his story, his series, & it'll end his way, not the shit ride that 99.9% of horror sequels provide.
The script focuses on the folks involved in the making of the series. Craven himself is a character as are all the important caster members from I. That would be Heather Langenkamp as herself, John Saxon as himself, and Robert Englund as himself & the newest incarnation of Freddy.
In what may be a snub at V, Craven follows the plot of Freddy trying to get at someone's kid. Only he does it properly, throwing in the mental hysteria & panic he built so well in I and III. Freddy is written darker and more threatening and his comic one-liners have been expunged. There's no more comic violence and ill-thought-out 3D sequences. In a drippingly satirical plot, Freddy starts visiting the nightmares of each of the cast members and forcing them to churn out another sequel. All the psychlogical kicks that were missing from II and IV - VI are finally returned.
Craven ends the series w\ possibly the best sequel from all of the big three. What's more is that he manages to rub it in the face of everyone that fucked up his character.
Verdict : 3 stars, baby, for the best horror flick of the '90s till "Scream" came out a few years later.