Harefooted Halloween: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master

What I Liked: The filmmakers pushed the visual look to another level.  Dream Warriors started down this path of giving Freddy’s world a dirty and hyperbolic motif but here they made everything filthier and with greater distortion.  There’s always wind blowing, it’s always storming outside, it’s always nighttime, there are lots of rags hanging from the ceiling and every single thing around you is decrepit.  The grime is inescapable.

By far the best parts of the film are any scenes with Freddy.  This usually means the deaths but there are a couple of times when he pops in just to say hi.  Since the Dream Warriors version of Freddy was an enormous hit they doubled down on that this time.  His humor is amped up to the point where almost every line out of his mouth is a joke.  I’m more ok with it in this because the rest of the picture matches better with that type of attitude.  The production on these has become so over the top that I’m more open to the film having a rowdy atmosphere.

Holy shit are the deaths creative.  The nastiest and craziest has got to be when Debbie (Brooke Theiss (Beverly Hills, 90210)) is bench pressing and Freddy pushes down on the bar crushing her elbows.  Awgh!  That would be horrible enough but then bug arms start growing out of her stumps, she gets stuck to the gooey floor and transforms completely into a cockroach.  Oh no, she’s trapped in a roach motel!  Freddy finishes her off by crushing the bug box in his hand causing roach juice to ooze out the end.  Yuck!  Not only is the idea utterly fucking bonkers but the effects are amazing.  I can’t help but think they may have been inspired by Cronenberg’s The Fly with this one.

And shoutout to the effects team once again for putting together the most incredible gags in the series to date.  The ending is particularly impressive that involves many different types of shots to pull off the rebelling souls trapped inside Freddy’s body.  Just a jaw dropping feast for the eyes.

Kinda split on the copious amount of pop tunes on the soundtrack.  Doesn’t totally fit but I sorta like the songs they chose.

What I Didn’t Like: The rules keep getting fuzzier.  Kristen from the previous installment (now played by Tuesday Knight (The Fan) who also performs the opening credits number) transfers her dream power to her new buddy Alice (Lisa Wilcox (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures)).  So now Alice can pull others into her dreams (ironic how this ability is a major part of this film and not really used in the previous one where it was introduced).  First of all, apparently you can transfer dream powers, like at will?  I think the person you’re pulling in needs to be asleep as well but that’s not clear.  So now that Alice has this power Freddy can only kill those that Alice pulls into her dreams?  This setup is confusing.

Like the stairs in The Exorcist franchise they fetishize the hell out of Nancy’s original Elm Street house by showing it off as a haunted hellscape every chance they get.  The notion that the house is the evil headquarters for Freddy began with Part 2 and has persisted ever since.  It’s never explained why the place is so damn important but the series is now fully committed to the idea.  I don’t really understand.

While the Freddy stuff is as good as you would expect the rest of the movie is pretty weak.  It took four pictures but we finally got a more traditional slasher type deal with a gang of obnoxious high school teens being picked off one at a time by a killer.  They try to lead their normal lives in between but to no avail.  Freddys’ always waiting for them.  You got your corny jokes, crushes, montages, disbelief, etc.  All of that isn’t anything you haven’t seen a zillion times before.

Overall Impressions: Growing up this is how I remember a Nightmare picture looking and feeling.  Grungy as fuck, exaggerated lighting and Freddy handing out one liners with each intricate kill.  This is definitely the most uneven film so far though.  The deaths are very entertaining but the high school friends scenes are very mundane.

My man Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, Cutthroat Island) directed and his passion for filmmaking is on full display.  He’s having fun (even though he was under immense pressure during production) bringing these insane images to life and giving you some bang for your buck.  However, it was only his second American film and he hadn’t gotten great at the dialogue exposition parts yet.  With that said I think you can pick up on the Harlin-esque vibes.  He likes to go big and somehow pull shit off that doesn’t seem possible like Freddy literally sucking the life out of his victim through their mouth until they wither into a hollow husk or having a dog piss fire (!?) onto Freddy’s grave to bring him back from the dead.

Look, the movie’s pretty stupid.  I can’t deny that.  The Dream Warriors version of Freddy and his deathtraps were a huge hit so this is the logical path to take.  But while Dream Warriors might be the better picture overall I’d rather watch Dream Master most of the time.  Take that for what you will.