A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master (1988)
- written October 2002
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Kristin Parker is having some bad dreams and she’s got only 2 other people in the world who believe her (joey & kinkaid) – but Freddy was very unhappy about the outcome of the prior film and find these 3 individuals as the last remaining kids of the parents who killed him. But once he disposes of those 3 he finds the need to kill ever so great. Kristen gives Alice her powers to pull people in her dreams for help and soon Freddy is using Alice as a doorway to more mayhem. Alice must get the courage to stop this before the entire town ends up as his victim.
Overall: There are some cute references in the movie: Kinkaid’s dog is named Jason and the dog is the one who awakens Freddy; Freddy says “You shouldn’t have buried me, I’m not dead.” – that’s a paraphrase in Wes Craven’s film “Serpent and the Rainbow” which was released 6 months earlier. After the film all I can say is “Don’t these kids ever go out?” Every kid basically just leaves form school, goes home and tries not to sleep – no one is partying, doing drugs, or getting into the usual mischief that young teens do. I liked the song” Anything” by “Dramarama” - nice touch. As to the overall series the fact that the victims die in their sleep means the killer’s methods of killing are very unique but it limits his abilities since he can’t touch them during their awake periods. Yet the big flaw with the franchise is that they tinker with the idea of Freddy escaping via their dreams...and that’s what begins the downward spiral into cheesiness. As for Alice’s preparing for Freddy and her brother’s karate fight with Freddy, the movie completely dropped into full cheese mood. What is this a sequel to “Rocky”? “Matrix” wanna-be? And that ending basically screams of “Shrek”! Given that the prior 3 films kept increasingly their box office profit (1 = $25M, 2 = $29M, 3 = $44M, 4 = $49M, 5 = $22M) you can see why parts 3, 4 and 5 got made but the receipts from part 5 should have ended this series for all-time. Comparison: Shrek meets Rambo |
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