A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
Directed by Renny Harlin
If you have read this blog long enough, you know that I love A Nightmare on Elm Street. It is my favorite horror movie of all time, and Freddy Krueger is probably my favorite slasher villain. The sequels I also love, but I do admit that they do drop in quality from the original. I can’t believe I have only reviewed one of these movies, it really is a shame since I’ve seen these so many times.
Nightmare 4 continues where Dream Warriors left off. We get the character of Kristen back, this time played by Tuesday Knight instead of Patricia Arquette. Knight does a fairly decent job but she’s just not as good as Arquette, which is disappointing. Along with Kristen we get Kincaid and Joey returning, again played by Ken Sagoes and Rodney Eastman. The returning characters are quickly killed off by the returning Freddy Krueger always played by Robert Englund. The new cast consists of Alice (Lisa Wilcox), Rick (Andras Jones), Dan (Danny Hassel), Debbie (Brooke Theiss) and Sheila (Toy Newkirk). They become Freddy’s new targets and with each character death, their abilities are given to Alice whom is the titular “Dream Master.” Alice with her new abilities has a show down with Freddy, in an effort to put the souls of his victims to rest.
I mentioned that Tuesday Knight plays Kristen this time and she also contributes to the soundtrack, which is definitely late 80s and cheesy fun. She isn’t as strong as an actress as Patricia Arquette. Arquette was fearful of being labeled as a horror actress so she refused the role in part 4. Dan is rather wooden and he’s just there as the cookie cutter jock hunk guy. Debbie is an interesting character, whom has a little depth compared to some of the others. She is clever, attractive and obsessed with staying in shape. Rick is Alice’s brother and Kristen’s boyfriend. He’s a smooth talking, wisecracker that does karate in his spare time. Rick is so incredibly late 80s that you have to laugh. Alice is the soft spoken, meek girl that is cute and wholesome. As Alice gains the abilities of her friends and brother, you see a change in her personality and man she just gets sexier. She has confidence and strength. Robert Englund is as amazing as he always is as Freddy. He just accepts the role, goes with it and gives 100% and he loves it. By this point Freddy is full on jokester that he continues through the series.
The dream sequences are handled well and we get a few really cool moments. There is a part in the film where Alice is watching an old black and white movie in a theater and she gets sucked in. That scene is pretty cool and the effect was well done for the time. Another memorable moment is when Alice and Dan attempt to save Debbie and they get caught in a time loop. When I first saw this, I thought my DVD was skipping or something. Well at the time it would have been my VHS tape haha, but still. It wasn’t until the third loop where I realized what was going on. That was handled really well and is one of my favorite parts of the whole series.
The kills as always are fun, which is an awkward thing to say. Kincaid is killed in a junkyard, Joey gets pulled into his waterbed a nod to Johnny Depp’s death in the original. Kristen gets thrown into a boiler and burned alive. Rick gets stabbed in the stomach after karate fighting with an invisible Freddy. Sheila gets the air sucked out of her and she deflates, which is a crazy special effect. Debbie gets turned into a cockroach and squashed in a roach motel, which is odd to say the least. The death of Freddy might be the weirdest of them all. Alice uses her newly gained abilities to fight him in a church. She recites a verse about the Dream Master and holds ups a mirror and the souls of Freddy’s victims push against the inside of his chest (with a topless cameo by Linnea Quigley, naturally). Small hands rip open Freddy’s mouth and the souls escape causing him to collapse and disappear.
For a fourth installment in a horror franchise, this movie is still pretty fun. The movie is taken seriously but at the same time there are some laughs. Lisa Wilcox was an excellent final girl and her character transformation added a nice layer of personality to an otherwise cliché genre. The quality isn’t anywhere near the first film, and there are no real scares. The special effects are fairly good but not as solid as Dream Warriors. It is a fun movie, that gets alittle flack, and I’m not sure why. I love all these movies but I realize the quality isn’t as high after the first film. I give part 4 a B. It is great within the series but started to get a little campy, which part 5 really shows.
