Review #111: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

This review was originally written in October 2020.

October Movie Review #28- A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

In every way this movie felt like a tacked-on sequel to a series that was already finished. I can't really call it BAD, exactly, but it's a very bizarre movie with some really weird writing choices, and nothing about it is consistent from scene to scene. The characters are all really bland and annoying when they do stand out, and it was hard to feel excited about anything in the movie because I could never quite grasp how any of the mechanics worked.

I liked the idea of a person being able to take on the traits and abilities of people that Freddy killed, but it felt like it was designed for a completely different movie and outside of a short action sequence at the end of this one it didn't even come into play in a meaningful way except to cue to the audience "It's okay, there will be stakes now". Also, the big climax comes from showing Freddy a mirror? That's literally all it took, showing him a mirror in a dream and that kills him? What about all of the scenes in previous films (heck, even in this film) where he was in the room with a mirror? What was special about the mirror in the final confrontation that was an okay mirror as opposed to a not-okay mirror?

There were some genuinely good sequences in this film (the scene with Kincaid in the junkyard felt really good and well-staged with appropriate weight, and the part where time kept looping was really cool and had the exact appropriate effect on me) but also lots and lots of extremely bad ones. Take, for example, the scene where Kristen goes to the Elm Street house. Here's how the sequence of events occurs:

1. Alice is at work, when Kristen and Rick run in because their friends just died. They're in a hurry for some reason, so Rick goes and gets Dan (also for some reason) and they all leave together.

2. They drive to the Elm Street house and just stand in front of it. Rick spouts off a bunch of exposition to clue in Dan (and any audience members who might not have seen the first film). With no prompting whatsoever, Alice spontaneously rattles off a nursery rhyme that will turn out to be the clue to defeating Freddy. (She says it like it's in response to something, but no, it's just out of nowhere.)

3. Kristen's mom appears in the street, somehow knowing that Kristen had gone to this random location, telling Kristen they need to leave immediately. (I guess the hurry Kristen was in was some commitment with her mom?) Mom then drives away without her daughter.

4. Kristen gets in her own car (?) and Rick, Dan, and Alice get into Rick's truck.

5. We then see the prior commitment Kristen and Mom were in a hurry to get to: dinner alone at their own house.

The whole sequence makes no sense and serves only to provide exposition and establish the rules of the previous films. It very much feels like they cobbled together two or three completely disparate scenes.

So, this one felt rushed and directionless and unnecessary. It wasn't boring (the cardinal sin of bad movies) but it did feel pointless, which is almost as bad.

Overall Rating: 3/10 Exploding Sharks

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