MY CALL: The kills remain creative, Freddy has replaced all menace with silly mania, the characters are as shallowly written as ever, yet the rewatchability remains high. Otherwise, this is the first NOES sequel to specifically not impress me. But let’s be honest. I still enjoy it. The death scenes and FX are great and we close out an excellent story arc (NOES3-5). MOVIES LIKE The Dream Child: First off, you should first see the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master (1988). For more recent horror with a similar sense of humor try Wishmaster (1997) and Hatchet (2006).
Franchise Timeline SIDEBAR: Dream Warriors ended with the unusual circumstance of three teen survivors: Joey, Kincaid and Kristen (replacing Patricia Arquette is Tuesday Knight)—instead of the standard “final girl” survivor theme. Contrary to the beginning of part 2 and part 3, both of which reference part 1 without really being “direct” sequels of the story, Dream Master continued with our three survivors back in high school to join an entirely new group of victims (including Alice and Dan). Over the course of the franchise Freddy began limited to affecting people in the dreams (NOES1) and later developed the ability to access reality through a human vessel (NOES2). In NOES3-4 the victims were able to pull each other into their dreams and Freddy’s reach continues to ebb into reality leaving the line between dream and reality ever more blurred.
Freddy (Robert Englund; Dead & Buried, Killer Tongue, A Nightmare on Elm Street 1-4, Galaxy of Terror, Hatchet II, The Phantom of the Opera) has fully embraced being a known entity rather than the mysterious boogeyman he was in NOES1-2. Not only has Freddy evolved, but so has Freddy’s dream world. Whereas Freddy once held all the power in his realm, with NOES3 the once defenseless teen dreamers became more empowered. Playing on that notion of power Kristen, the last of the Elm Street kids, dies and imbues Alice with her power not unlike a Highlander movie (1986, 1991). So now Alice can pull people into her dreams and, after Rick dies, she can use nunchucks, too!
By NOES4, Freddy’s menace has almost completely wicked away like his cindered flesh, leaving now the outwardly iconic sick sense humor we observe playfully eating pizza topped with teenage meatball souls, and feistily pelting out adages like “no pain, no gain,” “you can check in, but you can’t check out,” and “sayonara.” As for Freddy’s origins, NOES3 gave us Amanda Krueger, the ghostly nun who told the story of Freddy’s rape-conception in a mental hospital.
After their high school graduation, our now-pregnant Alice (Lisa Wilcox; A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master, Watchers Reborn) finds herself wandering into nightmares while she’s wide awake. And after the events of part 4 (which she and her boyfriend Dan survived), she takes no chances and calls Dan (Danny Hassel; A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master) to her aid right away. Rebirthed from the dreams of Alice’s unborn child, Freddy has returned to taunt Alice’s dreams. But as readily as we are reintroduced to Freddy Krueger, we likewise find his unwilling mother Amanda admonishing his dreamer.
As the franchise has evolved, Freddy has wandered into ever more touchy or challenging (at the time) aspects of society—capitalizing on parents with substance abuse problems (NOES1), homosexuality and identity crisis (NOES2), drug addiction and mental illness (NOES3), and now rape, disfigured newborn babies and eating disorders. Visions of Amanda Krueger (Beatrice Boepple; Quarantine) in the mental asylum are disturbing yet on the verge of slapstick, the birth scene of deformed baby Freddy was an uncomfortable sight, and baby Freddy wailing in the dilapidated church brings a new level of weirdness to the franchise. No, not weird. The word is bizarre.
Franchise themes SIDEBAR: This is the kind of sequel the franchise deserves! Not just for how it has evolved, but for what it retains. Like every sequel before it, Dream Child calls back to the paramount, iconic and perverse NOES themes. Parts 1-4 featured the steam-spewing boiler rooms, the power plant where Freddy worked, junkyard where his remains were hidden, all revisited in part 4, and now the insane asylum of his conception. Instead of face impressions on Nancy’s bedroom wall, Freddy’s form emerging through Jesse’s stomach, Freddy manifesting himself through a television set, or the impression of stolen souls trying to writhe free from Freddy’s body, we now find his face in the wiring of the motorcycle before he kills Dan. Where once the perverted Freddy licked Nancy through the phone, licked a young girls stomach, tongue-tethered a teenager’s limbs in a sick fantasy, or lecherously flicks his tongue and “sucks face” to kiss a teenager to death, now unborn Jacob unleashes some sort of projectile vomit soul tongue at Freddy. And rather than slicing off his own fingers, revealing his own brain, uncovering his soul-embedded chest, or revealing that he is literally filled with the souls of his victims, he’s now severing his own arm to fashion it into a seatbelt. Also continuing to flavor the franchise, we again revisit Nancy’s dilapidated house on 1428 Elm Street.
The special effects and death scenes truly serve FX and gorehounds in fine form. The motorcycle death scene boasts some cool effects as wires gruesomely embed themselves into Dan and transform him against his will into some macabre cyborg. During a bore of a dinner party, Freddy force-feeds teen model Greta (Erika Anderson; Twin Peaks) all manner of gross dinner wares as her cheeks distend to sickening comical degree. Mark (Joe Seely) follows the style of NOES3 and assumes his own fantasy as a comicbook hero to face Freddy; but Freddy returns in kind as Super Freddy. Yvonne (Kelly Jo Minter; The Lost Boys, Popcorn, The People Under the Stairs) is attacked by a stop-motion Freddy claw diving platform. Then the Escher-Labyrinth (1986) scene transitions into a Freddy’s Revenge playback as Freddy forms from within Alice, and tears himself from within her.
Thought that was enough wild and weird for one movie? Hold on, there’s more! Freddy’s ultimate demise is quite a gross spectacle as the souls collected (Mark, Greta, Dan) erupt from his back as twisted dollheads on eyeball stalks and drag his miscarried fetal form out into vulnerability so his purgatoried mother could reclaim him. However, the movie ends with the distinction that Freddy is defeated only for the moment.
Director Stephen Hopkins (The Reaping, The Ghost and the Darkness, Predator 2) undeniably made a worthy sequel to close out the rich storyline of NOES3-5 (discussed at length in our podcast episodes 311, 324 and 343). But this is the first Freddy movie (when viewed in order) that didn’t truly impress me. Oh, I enjoyed it! It’s entertaining, and the special effects make it highly rewatchable. But this sequel lacked the pizzazz that had me shocked me in NOES1-2 or yelling and laughing at the screen during NOES3-4. This movie probably had the richest potential, but it definitely didn’t make the most of it.
