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

“Wanna suck face?”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

The worst thing a horror franchise can do is jumping the shark by making the past irrelevant hoping to make the new special.


PLOT


1988’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master takes place one year after the events of the previous film. Kristen Parker is still having worry that the spirit of child killer Freddy Krueger will return, despite the denial by her remaining friends from Westin Hills, Kincaid and Joey (Ken Sagoes & Rodney Eastman). Sadly, they’re quickly wrong when he kills them both in their dreams. By the following day, she realizes it is too late as she doesn’t see them come to school, regretting that she couldn’t save them with her dream power like before. She does do her best in restraining herself from sleeping again, but she caves and Krueger is able to summon fire to burn her alive. Before she dies though, she passes on her power to a newer friend from school, Alice Johnson. When she falls asleep in school one day, she inadvertently pulls another friend of hers, Sheila Kopecky (Toy Newkirk), into it and Fred takes advantage of it by sucking her soul, causing her to die of an asthma attack. He then targets her brother Rick (Andras Jones) in his martial arts dojo and as these deaths start happening, Alice starts acquiring the personalities & abilities of the fallen. Krueger then kills another friend of hers, Debbie Stevens (Brooke Theiss), turning her into a cockroach and crushing her in a roach motel. He then places her into a time loop with her crush, Dan Jordan, and when she tries ramming the slasher with her car until unintentionally injuring Dan when crashing into a tree. When he gets rushed to the hospital, she must face Fred on her own in the dream world and successfully defeats him by making him face his reflection, where the souls of past victims revolt. The film ends with Alice later seeing him in a reflection of water before reuniting with Dan.


THOUGHTS


Going past a trilogy is always a challenge for the slasher genre because that’s when you pick up on it being a cash cow, which you can’t blame Hollywood these days. I can’t say exactly I have a soft spot for this one because due to the 1988 WGA Strike, because you can tell director Renny Harlin and the writing team of Brian Helgeland, Scott Pierce & William Kotzwinkle were winging so many ideas until they can land at some point. That is definitely not the appropriate way to make a movie compared to now and I wish it was done with more respect, despite the financial success it still achieved. With Kevin Yagher back leading the makeup/special effects team, it goes without saying it’s enough for Robert Englund to keep the lead antagonist creepy enough for the stakes to remain as is. I mean I did have chills with how he crushes Debbie’s hands mid workout before turning her into a roach, or drowning Joey from a waterbed. Even the visuals of seeing his chest of souls turn against him is quite compelling, but I just wish the pacing was worthwhile since they first keep you hooked recollecting what happened before, only to abandon it for something that didn’t need to happen immediately, which is rushing a new ensemble. I don’t connect with Debbie or Sheila at all because there is not enough time at all to spend with them, which only makes it hard to sympathize when they bite the dust. And it felt so dumb with killing off Joey with the same mistake that got him in comatose last time, the dream of a random blonde being attracted to him. That moment was easily dumber than having Freddy be invisible when killing Rick since not even that felt earned compared to when Tina died in the first movie. Choosing to replace Patricia Arquette with Tuesday Knight was a big pill to swallow because it felt hard to maintain a connection compared to other recasts mid franchise because you almost forget who we’re following before the new lead takes over. With that, I do think Lisa Wilcox was capable in her given time as Alice because she is able to go from the shy introvert (due to a verbally abusive dad) to the formidable protagonist thanks to Kristen being the friend that Lisa was, encouraged her to break out of her shell. It started out odd for me to see Alice use her friends’ belongings to shit up before the climax, but since they meant so much to her based on what we got to see, I can respect her wanting to honor them. Looking back, it seems to me she was so into Dan because Danny Hassel appropriately portrayed he was a patient guy willing to listen before taking action and he accepted her for being herself. He would end up liking her back because in typical high school fashion, he sees too how big her heart is, hence sticking around after the terror halts. While this movie makes sense half the time, there was still a half that made no sense. Like I don’t get why we don’t see who Kincaid lives with since there’s no hesitation seeing Joey had a mom. They could’ve implied he was living alone and it’s weird they don’t. And even if Kristen was right, it was too big of a leap to say her friends are already gone just because she didn’t see them go to school. While I do scratch my head on why Alice & Rick never tried running away from their dad if they couldn’t stand up to him, I was scratching my head harder over the fact Kristen’s mom was still drugging her after what she went through. Yes she doesn’t believe that Freddy’s spirit is real, but she should’ve left her alone off of the fact she was losing all her friends. If you can ignore all these flaws, then you can still respect The Dream Master for still remain entertaining with the slasher formula you’re expecting.