Summary:
After the defeat of Freddy Krueger at the hands of the Dream Warriors, Freddy somehow returns to haunt the dreams of a girl named Alice, whom is a particularly strong dreamer.
My Thoughts:
You watch film series that has more than three entries, and chances are any franchise is going to have some less-than-stellar entries. I don’t care what series it is we’re talking about: Star Wars (“Episodes I-III” were dubious, and I, personally, think “Rogue One” is pointless, though I know I’m in the minority there), Harry Potter (“Chamber of Secrets” is a slog to get through), Marvel movies (“Thor The Dark World”, anyone?), even the Middle Earth franchise has been tainted now (Thanks, “The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug”). Here’s the thing, though: if you find a universe you really enjoy, you tend to keep watching through the bad entries to get to the ones that are a bit better again, right? If you’re watching through the Marvel movies, you wouldn’t stop at “Thor: The Dark World” because it was all over the place and write off the rest of Marvel movies as garbage, would you?
Each entry deserves a chance.
I bring that up because, at this point in my life, I’ve sort of found where my likes and dislikes fall, and Freddy Krueger’s character is certainly a horror character I enjoy. I find his character to be humorous, his weird dream sequences to be creative and entertaining, and even if his movies aren’t altogether great films, I generally find I get my time’s worth watching them. I can fully understand that, from a standalone standpoint, this particular film isn’t that great, but it has some really cool ideas that help to flush out the dream world, and it does help to set up the next entry (“The Dream Child”), which is, in my opinion, one of the more interesting sequels in the franchise.
One of the biggest problems of the fourth entry in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” has one of the lamest returns of Freddy. Honestly, Freddy’s return is something every preceding “Elm Street” movie has sort of struggled to explain. In the second movie- which is the most removed from the series, focusing on the kid that moved into Nancy’s house after Nancy’s family moves away- Freddy is just back for no apparent reason. The kids in “Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy’s Revenge” don’t really beat Freddy, so he stays alive through into the beginning of “III: Dream Warriors”, where Nancy Thompson makes her return. At the end of “III”, Freddy is defeated on two fronts: in the Dream by Nancy and the Dream Warriors, and in the dump by Nancy’s father, who is tasked to fetch Freddy’s bones from where he and the parents hid them to bury the bones in order to put Freddy’s soul to rest. So, with Freddy officially lain to rest at the end of “III” , the franchise had to work out a way to bring him back, and they decided on a dog digging up Freddy’s bones.
I feel like this series has one of the more creative villains in slasher history, yet the way they want to bring him back is by a dog digging up his bones? That’s pretty silly.
This film’s structure is also sort of bizarre, and only if you’ve seen all of the preceding entries will all of the things happening on the screen make any sort of sense. If you skipped entries II and III, you’re going to be very, very lost.
Anyways, “The Dream Master” starts with three of the Dream Warriors from the previous entry after they’ve been released from the mental institution (like I said, you’ll be very lost if you’ve skipped the other entries). Kristen (Tuesday Knight, “New Nightmare”) is the strongest of the Dream Warriors, and she believes that Freddy is returning, which, he soon does. Kristen convinces her new friends that she made at her school to help her try to fight Freddy, but no one seems to believe her. Kristen ends up dying, but as she does, she transfers her powers to her friend Alice (Lisa Wilcox, “A Nightmare on Elm Street V: The Dream Child”). Alice, not knowing what powers she now possesses, begins to unwittingly lure children to Freddy in the dream world, where he eagerly feasts upon their souls. Can Alice defeat Freddy before he uses her to kill more helpless teens?
So, there are some goods and bads about the dream sequences in this film. In general, I really enjoyed a fair amount of the dream sequences, though some of them were a bit more ridiculous than we’ve seen in the series (the bug arms coming out of Debbie were a little ridiculous), and some of the things Freddy does don’t quite seem to be in character for him (why is he wearing sunglasses on a beach?). However, there are some sequences that I actually really enjoyed, and there are some pretty great practical effects in this film that really elevate those sequences. I really liked the dream sequence in the diner, for instance, where Alice first starts to realize that Freddy is using her to lure in other souls, and Freddy shows her the souls she’s already brought him displayed as toppings on a pizza. It’s weird and stupid, and I can’t help but love it. It’s the bizarre moments like that that keep me coming back to the franchise.
I think what I liked most about this entry was the way that it expanded the world of the dream even more than it had been before in previous entries, and it does so without breaking the rules established in the first film (“Freddy’s Revenge” has a few moments that don’t make any sense at all because the rules are just tossed out the window). In this entry, we are given new rules about how dreamers, and in particular the Dream Warriors can interact with each other through their dreams. I like the idea that Freddy is gathering souls within himself as well, something that, up until this entry was sort of left unspoken. In the previous entries, we thought Freddy just killed people, but adding to the fact that Freddy then possesses the souls within himself after he’s killed them leads to some pretty cool visuals, and also adds to the character himself.
SPOILERS ABOUT THE END
Near the end of the film, Alice confronts Freddy in the dream world and beats him by reciting a nursery rhyme and using a piece of broken mirror to force Freddy to look at himself, and in doing so, it forces the souls inside him to revolt and tear him apart from the inside out. This scene half worked for me, and half didn’t. Visually, the sequence is pretty awesome. Freddy is tossed up against the wall and bloody limbs start to spew from his body; it looks as of demons are writhing about beneath his skin. From a story standpoint, the ending is pretty lackluster. We’ve built up Freddy’s newfound powers and our Dream Warriors’ powers only to have all that development tossed out the window for a quick practical effect. What would’ve easily been a 3/5 star film dropped a half a point because I felt I lost a lot of what I’d invested (though many of the events set up in this film do come back in the next movie).
Verdict:
This is an okay entry in the “Elm Street” franchise. It’s not as good as “I”, “III”, “V”, or “New Nightmare”, but it’s not terrible. For me, I find even the worst of the “Elm Street” movies to be entertaining, and this one isn’t bad or good, it’s right smack dab in the middle. The next entry, “The Dream Child”, is one of the more interesting in the series, but without this film, “Dream Child” would make little sense. You just have to bite the bullet if you’re watching through them all.
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