HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare"

Well, the magical decade of the 1980s has ended. It's the 90s now. 1991 to be exact. 1990 became the first year since 1983 to have neither a Friday the 13th nor a Nightmare on Elm Street movie released in theaters. After eight Friday the 13th movies and five A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, things were pretty tired and stale. It was about time to wrap them up and let it all go. After all, you have to remember that Halloween made its slasher movie return in 1988 and 1989 as well with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers respectively. The theaters pretty stocked full with slasher movies, but it was time for them to end. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare became the sixth Nightmare movie released and much like Friday the 13th, it stuck "Final" into the movie to try and seal the deal, end it all, and it failed. BOY it failed.

"Hey kid, get your finger out of there."

More than a decade after the events of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) has since returned and killed nearly every child and teenager in the town of Springwood, Ohio. *Poof* Just like that. No warning whatsoever. The only surviving teenager, known only as "John Doe" (Shon Greenblatt), finds himself confronted by Freddy in a dream and wakes up just outside the Springwood City limits and does not remember who he is or why he is outside of Springwood. Confusing, but I'll let it slide.

At a shelter for troubled youth, Spencer (Breckin Meyer), Carlos (Ricky Dean Logan), and Tracy (Lezlie Dean) plot to run away from the shelter to California. Much like the special little boy from The Wizard, but we don't talk about that. Carlos was physically abused by his parents (dark), resulting in a hearing disability; Tracy was raped by her father (darker); and Spencer was a stoner (that's not bad). John, after being picked up by the police, becomes a resident of the shelter and a patient of Dr. Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane). Maggie notices a newspaper clipping in John's pocket from Springwood. To cure John's amnesia, she plans a road trip to Springwood. Tracy, Carlos, and Spencer stow away in the van to escape the shelter, but they are discovered when John has a hallucination and almost wrecks the van just outside Springwood. Boy, that was might not nice of him to try and kill everyone from the get go. Taking Freddy's job right off the bat.

This girl looks absolutely lost

Tracy, Spencer, and Carlos, after trying to leave Springwood, rest at a nearby abandoned house, which transforms into 1428 Elm Street, Freddy Krueger's former home and the home that both Nancy Thompson and Jesse from Nightmare 2 lived at, among (I'm sure) other people. John and Maggie visit Springwood Orphanage and discover that Freddy had a child. John believes he is the child because Freddy allowed him to live. Yeah movie, forget the fact that Freddy has let other people live in the past. Back on Elm Street, Carlos and Spencer fall asleep and are killed by Freddy. Tracy is almost killed, but she is awakened by Maggie. John, who went into the dream world with Tracy to try to help Spencer, is still asleep. Maggie and Tracy take him back to the shelter. On their way back, Krueger kills John in his dream, but not before revealing that Krueger's kid is a girl. As John dies, he reveals this information to Maggie. Tracy and Maggie return to the shelter, but they discover that no one remembers John, Spencer, or Carlos except for Doc (Yaphette Kotto), who has learned to control his dreams. Maggie remembers what John told her and discovers her own adoption papers, learning that she is Freddy's daughter. Her birth name was Katherine Krueger, and her name was later changed to Maggie Burroughs. Rightfully so, otherwise I feel like people would just not look at her correctly.

"No seriously, kid. Get your finger out of there."

Doc discovers Freddy's power comes from the "dream demons" who continually revive him, and that Freddy can be killed if he is pulled into the real world. So... it wasn't the stuff in the previous sequels that revived Freddy, it was ultimately the dream demons. That at least makes sense, but then why would they just show dream demons doing the work previously? Maggie decides that she will be the one to enter Freddy's mind and pull him into the real world. Once in the dream world, she puts on a pair of 3-D glasses and enters Freddy's mind. There, she discovers that Freddy was teased as a child, abused by his foster father (Alice motherfucking Cooper), inflicted self-abuse as a teenager, and murdered his wife. Freddy was given the power to become immortal from fiery demons. After some struggling, Maggie pulls Freddy into the real world.

Random big-actor cameo

Maggie and Freddy end up in hand-to-hand combat against one another, which seems a tad one-sided since because... you know... Freddy has finger knives. While Maggie continues to battle Freddy, she uses several weapons confiscated from patients at the shelter. Enraged by the knowledge of what he has done, she disarms him of his clawed glove... which seems disgustingly easy. Eventually, Maggie stabs Freddy in the stomach with his own glove while she is close to him. Tracy throws Maggie a pipe bomb. After she impales Freddy to a steel support beam she throws the bomb in his chest. She says "Happy Fathers Day", kisses him, and runs. The three dream demons fly out of Freddy after the pipe bomb kills him.... in probably one of the worst special effects shot in the entire franchise. I'm not kidding, it looks like shit. Maggie smiles at Tracy and Doc; she is confident that her father is dead... but he isn't.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare is both the most penultimate and yet the goofiest fucking entry in the entire franchise. Freddy has his puns back in full force, including making Wizard of Oz and Nintendo references in his kills. "Oh, NOW I'm playing with POWER!" kills me every time. Still, this was a pretty lame way to "end" Freddy. It didn't really seem definitive, at least not anymore definitive than the previous sequels felt. Certainly no more definitive than A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors and they found a way around that. I'd say skip this one, because the next one Freddy would give us would at least be pretty horrific. But first, we have to watch Jason try and beat a dead horse...