A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

It’s been a while since I last watched Dream Warriors but I’m not sure that matters too much. Dream Warriors seemed to end with a lot of finality, what with Freddy being defeated in both the dream world and the real world. Surely he’s dead for sure? Well, no, he is not. There’s still more films for him to be in. *sigh*

OK, to the film’s credit Dream Master is pretty enjoyable. The irritation I have with it comes from the way that Freddy comes back. Some dog just pisses on where Freddy was buried, but in the dream world, and now he is back. Not sure why, or how, but that happened.

Now that’s out of the way I need to get on with the rest of the film. The film starts off with the surviving cast from Dream Warriors and Kristine seems to be haunted in her dreams with omens of Freddy’s return. Turns out she is right, because Freddy isn’t giving up that easily and he proceeds, over the next 20 minutes or so, to kill off the final three Elm Street kids. That’s right, they all die. But that’s okay because within this time we’ve been introduced to our new protagonist, Alice, who starts off weak, but ends up kicking arse as the film goes on.

When Kristine is about to die she pulls Alice into her dream and, somehow through dying, she gives Alice her power of pulling people into her dreams. This works to Freddy’s advantage as he uses Alice, a chronic daydreamer, to pull other kids into her dreams so he can kill them too because... I don’t know, he’s psycho. The rest of the film consists of Alice dragging people into her dreams and trying to get them out, but to no avail.

The plot is great. It introduces a new element and utilises Freddy’s powers over dreams in a way you wouldn’t think them to be used. You could tell that the people making this film were looking at all avenues of sleep and dreams to try and make the story fresh and they did just that.

On top of that we have a constant element of threat. I’d be lying if I said I could tell when the characters were in a dream before it became overly clear. This created an air of suspense over the rest of the film. We’re never sure when people will die or who they will be. Sometimes it’s a side character and sometimes it’s the main cast, we are never sure. This is great because it’s shocking when people get killed, especially as Alice is often able to witness the deaths but is powerless to stop Freddy.

Lastly, I’ll have to say that Freddy in this film is probably at his best so far. He is genuinely creepy but also an absolute laugh at times. Even during a scene of great horror he would say something or do something comedic and would make me laugh, and though I’d laugh I would not be taken out of the horror element of the film. Compared to the other films he is astounding and Englund’s performance is perfect. This is the Freddy I had heard about: sinister and creepy, yet funny.

Though I did really like this film and thought it was far better than the first two films I have to say that I did prefer Dream Warriors. That film explored the dream aspect a lot more than Dream Master, but this film gets a lot of credit for trying to expand upon Freddy’s powers over dreams, unlike in the first two films. Sadly, the main issue I had with this film was how Freddy was brought back. Nonetheless, it was a seriously good film and had some good moments.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

Holy crap! This film... this is exactly what I was hoping for when I started watching the A Nightmare on Elm Street films. If you haven’t seen these films and but have heard about them then Dream Warriors is probably the closest that comes to what you were expecting.

Dream Warriors takes place in a psychiatric hospital with seven troubled teenagers. All of them have seen Freddy Krueger in their dreams, which the doctors think is some kind of group psychosis. But these are the last of the Elm Street kids, whose parents killed Freddy Krueger all those years ago.

We see the return of Nancy from the first film, who is now a psychiatrist and new staff member at the hospital. It turns out that the real ending of the first film was pretty much everything that happened before the actual end of the film. Good, this gives a clear cut point from which to build this film from. Over the years she has had to deal with the nightmares and takes a new experimental drug to suppress them. She now works at this hospital in order to help these teenagers against Freddy.

There’s a lot that makes this film more interesting. For one we learn more about Freddy. We learn about his tragic past as the child of a woman raped by mental patients. We also get to see Freddy’s powers more consistently. He is able to alter the dream world completely to his liking. What we see is quite frightening as he completely changes rooms and the buildings on a whim. We also see that he is able to control people in their sleep, so when one might think the person is sleepwalking he’s actually being controlled by Freddy.

But most of all it’s the title that brings the most interest. The so-called ‘Dream Warriors’. Though this might be a bit of a powerful term, it’s what these kids are. They all get brought into the same group dream and have their own powers based upon their own fantasies. So the nerd gets to be a wizard master whilst the quiet guy has a strong and powerful voice.

It’s fucking awesome! This is what should have happened in previous films: the kids getting together in the same dream to try and fight off Freddy. Sure, the dream powers might seem a little ridiculous, but this is the dream world, so they can try and use it to their own advantage. The fact that the kids are actively fighting back just makes everything so much better and so much more entertaining.

Freddy is also great in this film. This time he pretty much sticks in the dream world, where he belongs and where he is most powerful. He is fun and scary at the same time, delivering some great lines and being truly terrifying through his manipulation of both the world around him and the kids.

All of this comes together rather nicely during an exciting climax. Freddy must be defeated in the dream world as well as the real world, where his bones need to be buried on hallowed ground to stop him from having any powers, and so be put to rest. Characters commit acts of badassery and some die in their attempts to defeat Freddy, but they overcome all odds and defeat him. Though there was most probably no other way to end the film it is still intense and you are never too sure if they will actually win.

This is definitely the first of these films that I have liked. It has all the elements of a good horror film. If the previous two films were more similar to this in tone and made more sense then I probably would have liked them. This just did it all correctly and had fun whilst doing it. It’s now a question of whether or not the rest of these films will keep this standard.

Final Verdict: 8/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

I’ll be honest with you: I don’t quite understand the popularity of this film. Maybe it isn’t this film in and of itself, but rather the franchise. But A Nightmare on Elm Street holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, this seems to be mostly from horror reviewers, but the point still stands: this film is popular.

Maybe it’s the villain. Freddy Krueger, only really referred to as Fred Krueger in this film. Freddy is a pretty good villain. He is scary looking and pretty eerie. He doesn’t speak much, but when he does it’s either funny or creepy. The fact that he seems to toy with his some of his victims before killing them suits the character and the mere fact that he is a child murderer would be disturbing to some.

At first I was quite upset that Freddy didn’t actually seem to get much time on screen but that really works for his creepiness factor. The less you see him, the more you fear him. Sadly, when it comes to the climax he seems pretty useless and is comically taken down at one point by a sledgehammer (come on, he’s some supernatural being!), which takes away from his legitimacy as a fearsome villain.

The acting in this film is also another positive for this film. All of the actors are pretty good, especially the leading cast, such as Heather Langenkamp as Nancy, and Johnny Depp. Langenkamp is the heroin of the film and she carries off her role perfectly, unlike the girl who gets killed first, played by Amanda Wyss.

So we have two positives, but why does this film confuse me?

Well, it’s the execution of the plot. You see, Freddy is dead, killed by the parents on Elm Street because he was a child murderer and got off of prison on a technicality. So now he is getting back at the parents by killing their children in their dreams, where he has power. It's a very interesting a good basic plot to the film.

But I find that it all falls apart when we see Freddy affecting things outside of the dreams. One of the characters is killed off by being hanged by his bed sheets in a police station cell. How does he do this? Does he have control over anything to do with the bed? Depp’s character is clearly awake when he is killed, blood gushing up to the ceiling from a hole in his bed in a ridiculous manner. At the end of the film he gets out of the dream and tries to kill the main character.

By the end of the film we have all of the characters alive again, together in a convertible. Then the cover comes up and it’s in the design of Freddy’s shirt, the doors all lock, the windows all go up and the car drives away. The Nancy’s mum is then waving them off and suddenly Freddy’s clawed hand busts through the door and drags the mum in. The End!

What? What happened there?! Was this all a dream? I get the feeling that this is like some sort of Inception dream within a dream within a dream/which reality is reality and which is the dream stuff going on. I have no idea what happened at the end there, nor what happened before it. The movie has made no effort to explain these things and instead just leaves me sitting here feeling confused.

This is why the popularity of this film confuses me. Conceptually it's really good but it just fails in execution. Freddy’s powers are confusing and the events of the film are questionable. It’s such a shame because A Nightmare on Elm Street does a great job at building up tension and suspense, but this is all sadly taken over by confusion as the film goes on.

And when the better version of this film is the parody from The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror VI then there may be some issues with the source material.

But maybe when I think A Nightmare on Elm Street is popular I’m thinking of the franchise, and not the initial film in the series. I’m sure I’ll find out as this series continues.

Final Verdict: 4/10