HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master"

Well, Jason didn't really deliver anything special in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. It was decent, but it wasn't spectacular like The Final Chapter or Part VI. So, now we know the bar is set lower for Freddy, who it turns out... could've succeeded even without the lowered bar. 1988 saw the release of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, the anticipated follow-up to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. Dream Warriors is pretty top-notch in how you make a Freddy movie, so it was going to be tough-as-balls to top. Plus, it had a pretty definitive ending. Freddy's bones were laid to rest and had Holy Water doused on them. How much more "dead" could he get? Well, it doesn't matter, because Freddy's back. Let's pile in and figure out if this one lives up to The Dream Warriors or not. This is A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.

"Take it from Freddy. The supreme pizza here is to die for."
Ba dum tss.

Since the events of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, Kristen (played originally by Patricia Arquette, now played by Tuesday Knight), Kincaid (Ken Sagoes), and Joey (Rodney Eastman) have been released from Westin Hills and are back living with their families as normal teenagers. However, Kristen believes Freddy (Robert Englund) is coming back and continues to summon Joey and Kincaid into her dreams. Funny why she would think that, because as I said, the ending to Nightmare 3 was pretty definitive. Like, that was an end-all, be-all ending. The dream brings her to Freddy’s old boiler where she instantly calls her two friends to help her. Kincaid and Joey are upset that she is reverting to her old ways back when they were at Westin Hills. To keep her calm, they take her to the boiler and show her that it is ice cold. Kristen, it turns out, also brought in Kincaid’s dog Jason into the dream for some reason because he jumps out of the boiler biting her, waking all three of them up in their rooms. See? You have to not do that. You bring the dog into the dreams, you're just fucking yourself over. The next day, Kristen meets up with her boyfriend, martial arts enthusiast Rick Johnson (Andras Jones), and their friends: Rick's sister Alice (Lisa Wilcox); Sheila (Toy Newkirk), an asthmatic genius; and Debbie (Brooke Theiss), a tough girl who doesn't like bugs. This will be our "gimmick-friendly kill gallery" for the movie. Kincaid and Joey confront Kristen at school about the dream in the boiler room and tell her to let it go and that their days of fighting in their dreams are over. Kristen is seen as popular and Kincaid and Joey are seen as outcasts which causes a rift between the three of them. Rick doesn’t care for Kincaid or Joey and calls them freaks but Kristen tells him she’s a freak too.

"Hi ya, Kincaid. Does my breath smell like strawberries?"

That night, Kristen stays awake to keep from dreaming, but Kincaid falls asleep and awakens in a junkyard, where Freddy is accidentally resurrected. Thanks Kinkaid, you've doomed your friends. The scene is pretty gnarly, Freddy coming back is purely badass stuff. I love Robert Englund. Kincaid puts up a good fight against Freddy, but Freddy overpowers him. He screams for Kristen but Freddy reaches him and kills him. Meanwhile, Joey is watching MTV and listening to music in his room. He begins falling asleep where he discovers a model is swimming in his waterbed. Freddy then jumps out of the waterbed, attempting to drown Joey. Joey screams for Kristen to help him but Freddy stabs and kills him. At school, Kristen panics when she notices Joey and Kincaid are missing and is knocked out. She is nearly attacked by Freddy when the school nurse wakes her up. Kristen learns Kincaid and Joey were found dead which she feels guilty for staying up the night before. She later tells Rick, Alice, and Alice's crush Dan Jordan (Danny Hassel) about Freddy. She vows revenge on Freddy for killing Kincaid and Joey. Kristen locks, loads and prepares for vengeance... in a metaphoric sense.

The unused footage from The Karate Kid, Part 4

At dinner, Kristen notices her mother Elaine (Brooke Bundy) had slipped her sleeping pills, and she falls asleep. In her dream, Freddy overcomes Kristen's attempts to repel him and forces her back to his home. Being the last of the Elm Street children, Freddy goads Kristen into calling on one of her friends, so that his fun can begin anew. She calls Alice into her dream, totally uninvited, and Freddy throws Kristen into his boiler but before she dies, Kristen gives Alice her dream powers. So just like that, all of the Nightmare on Elm Street 3 characters are dead. But we get us a whole new cast of victims. Seems like kind of a throwaway to me. I liked Kristen. Anywho, waking up and sensing something wrong, Alice takes Rick to Kristen's house, only to see her burning to death in her bedroom. Another pretty gnarly scene. Say what you want about this one but the special effects are top-notch.

After three consecutive Chipotle meals

Later, Alice falls asleep during class and inadvertently brings Sheila into her dream. People need to stop bringing people into their dreams to fight for their lives without, psh I don't know, WARNING someone first. Freddy kills Sheila and makes it look like an asthma attack. Another example of great special effects, watching Freddy literally suck the air out of her like a balloon. Rick starts to believe Alice, but the following day, he has a dream and is killed. With each death, Alice begins to change, gaining the abilities and personalities of her lost friends. Kind of like Kirby in Super Smash Bros and absorbing the other fighters' powers. She plans with Debbie and Dan to fight and kill Freddy together, but when her father Dennis keeps her in, Alice falls asleep. Through her, Freddy selects and stalks Debbie, transforming her into a cockroach and crushing her in a roach motel. Using Debbie's temper, Alice tries to ram Freddy but collides with a tree in reality. As Dan is rushed into surgery, Alice returns home and readies herself to join him and face Freddy.

Freddy's about to kill the unused cast of Saved by the Bell

Alice rescues Dan, and the two find themselves in an old church in their dream. Dan's injuries in the dream prompt his surgeons to wake him up, leaving Alice alone to face Freddy. He has the upper hand due to his experience, but she uses her friends' dream powers against him. When he is about to be victorious, she remembers a nursery rhyme called "The Dream Master" and forces Freddy to face his own reflection, causing the souls within him to revolt. The strain tears Freddy apart, releasing all of Alice's friends' spirits and leaving him a hollow husk. A truly phenomenal use of more special effects. You can tell this isn't really just a dumb sequel. They put some time and effort into this. Months later, Dan and Alice have begun dating, and as they approach a fountain, Dan tosses a coin in. For a moment, Alice sees Freddy's reflection in the water, but she ignores it. Dan asks her what she wished for, but Alice does not tell him as they walk away from the fountain.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a very worthy follow-up to The Dream Warriors. So far, Freddy's had better luck in terms of quality. While some of the acting can be a bit of that typical 80's cheesy overacting, the special effects are top-notch, the story is at least competent-sounding and the deaths are pretty creative. It's one edge Freddy has over Jason. Freddy can manipulate people's dreams into using their gimmicks to fight him. Friday the 13th character gimmicks don't really mean anything except for maybe how they behave. I'll give you a hint... they behave poorly. This was even the first A Nightmare on Elm Street movie that gave Freddy himself, Robert Englund, top billing over his co-stars. Everyone knows he's the man. Give this one a go. After Nightmare 4, 1988 would switch to 1989, the final year of the 80s and both man's entries in 1989 would be... pretty tame, lame and such a shame.