Craven returns to the series he fathered, and this time the keyword is meta (pre-dating his other self-aware genre-riff 'Scream'). It's good to see Langenkamp back - she's adorable - and the often suspenseful film is the only one since 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' where I can almost take (most of) it seriously. It does, however, go characteristically bananas in an overblown finale.