Census Bloodbath: O Is For Oh No

Today's Blogging From A to Z Challenge post is the next step in our exploration of the Freddy franchise, the final Nightmare film of the 80's!

Year: 1989

Director: Stephen Hopkins

Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Kelly Jo Minter

Run Time: 1 hour 29 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

It's not often that a film will immediately announce its inferiority to its predecessor, as A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child does during its opening credits. In a series that rarely if ever went the "boobs and guts" route of its slasher brethren (I'm fairly certain that the only breasts in the franchise are during Joey's wet dreams in Parts 3 and 4), they had the absence of mind to include a sex scene before the very first line of dialogue even began.

It's not even a good one, all shot with gender-obscuring blue light and extravagant close-ups that abstract the human form so much that you can't even tell what part you're looking at, just that it's writhing uncomfortably like it's trying not to drown in quicksand. Immediately following this scene we get a shower sequence because god forbid we think this film has even an iota of class before it commences in earnest.

As you can probably surmise, I do not like this film. It's not a good film. In fact, it's so bad that it actually retroactively ruins the quite stellar film that precedes it. The Dream Master Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox), one of my personal favorite Final Girls returns and is utterly wasted, having apparently forgotten how to actually be a master of dreams and dying the crap out of her lovely ginger hair.

With only one year left to go, the 80's finally claimed her.

All of this serves to blandify (Of course it's a word. I just wrote it, didn't I?) one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise next to Nancy Thompson. It's all just a waste, compounded by the fact that the other alumnus of The Dream Master, Alice's jock boyfriend Dan (Danny Hassel) returns to be super hot, but he dies early on and his torso is framed out of every scene he's in.

What a tease.

To rub salt in the wound, the platter of Meat this time around is a queasy array of less than prime cuts. Forgetting the charming characters of the last film or even the one-note human-shaped dialogue puppets that populated Dream Warriors, The Dream Child opted for paper-thin characters (some of whom are literally made of paper by the end) with hardly half a note between them all.

There's Yvonne (Kelly Jo Minter) who is ethnic and a swimmer and works at the hospital when it's convenient (As a nurse? This high school's extracurricular program's must be off the chain), and is kind of a douchebag; Greta (Erika Anderson) who is a model and although Anderson tries her hardest to make her likable, she's given absolutely nothing to work with; and Mark (Joe Seeley), who draws comics. That's it. The end. It's enough to make you sick.

And I haven't even gotten to Freddy yet. He made his full transition to chuckling prankster in the last film, but at least the heavy layer of 80's cheese and talented visual vocabulary kept that one going strong. In this film he pushes it even further, beyond the point of lovable huckster and into the dismal depths.

My face the entire time.

The death scenes are a rapid-fire MTV style deluge of hallucinogenic images accompanied by a machine gun clatter of nonsensical puns. Several of them are funny in a begrudging way like jokes your father makes (ie. when he turns into a car to kill Dan and says "Don't dream and drive!") but his nonstop patter eventually descends into lobbing out loosely related phrases like he's trying to beat his high score in charades. 

These "puns" are so far from threatening they might not even technically be in the script (in a continuation of the car sequence, Freddy begins to shout "Fuel injection! Power drive! Fast lane!" and I begin to cry). Perhaps they just appeared in the final cut movie as the result of some ill-advised tampering with a Lovecraftian alternate dimension of horrible jokes. And, when in doubt, the screenwriters have him end sentences with ", bitch!" like it's going out of style. Which, if this movie is any indication, was a pretty accurate assumption.

Englund is clearly hating his life in this film (Which he has subsequently claimed to be his least favorite. This is a man who was in C.H.U.D. II - Bud the Chud.) and the makeup is exceedingly subpar. Most of the time, he looks like a cross between Shrek and a particularly forlorn sock monkey. I question whether or not the visual effects artist actually watched any of the previous films. 

Or any films at all.

This is the first film where the complaints lodged against the franchise as character-less horror-less special effects extravaganzas really begin to reflect the truth. The plot is minimal and dull, so what keeps the film trucking along is a endless stream of effects setpieces that rush down the track like chocolates on the conveyor belt in that I Love Lucy episode.

By the end of the film I was too stunned into submission by the film's insipidity that it barely even registered when Freddy skateboarded across the room or uttered a line that tried so hard to be a pun that it strained itself and died or trapped Alice in an M. C. Escher room straight out of Labyrinth.

Although the film is an utter failure as horror or comedy cinema (or cinema in general - many important scenes are framed behind foreground objects and/or blatantly cross the 180 Degree line and their idea of exposition includes one character looking at her own name tag in the middle of work), it's so startlingly bad that it's a tremendous film to mock. So I wouldn't rate it down there with the dull muddy slashers that have absolutely zero merit, but this film is a disgusting pock on the remarkable legacy of Wes Craven's masterpiece.

Killer: Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund)

Final Girl: Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox)

Best Kill: Mark is killed inside what could only be the music video for "Take On Me."

Sign of the Times: This guy.

Scariest Moment: Freddy returns as a shrieking melty beaked mutant child.

Weirdest Moment: Freddy's arm is apparently made of teleporting spiders.

Champion Dialogue: "Time to die, you scar-faced limp dick!"

Body Count: 3; I'm just as surprised as you.

1. Dan is fused with a motorcycle and crashes into a truck.
2. Greta is force-fed dinner until she chokes to death.
3. Mark is turned into paper and slashed into pieces. 

TL;DR: A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is just the worst.

Rating: 4/10

Word Count: 1152

Reviews In This Series

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Sholder, 1985)

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

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

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (Hopkins, 1989)

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Talalay, 1991)

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Craven, 1994)

Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Bayer, 2010)

Census Bloodbath: I Is For Imagination

Welcome back to the Blogging From A to Z Challenge, which is not so slowly becoming my avenue for re-exploring the depths of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Next up is a pleasant surprise that certainly isn't as bad as it should have been.

Year: 1988

Director: Renny Harlin

Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Tuesday Knight

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

After Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street slashed onto the scene in 1984, the tides of the slasher genre changed forever. After a hasty and bizarre followup with Freddy's Revenge, Dream Warriors righted the franchise in 1987 and put it back on track. Coming just barely more than a year afterward, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master has every right to be a piece of idiotic tripe.

I'm fairly shocked and a little disappointed to say that The Dream Master is an all around tighter film than Dream Warriors, starting with a slightly more identifiable cast. Mind you, these are still as stock as 80's slasher characters can get, but you can sense that they have lives and personalities outside of the context of the film instead of merely being props helping to set up the next cool Freddy setpiece.

He doesn't need their help to be cool.

Along with the return of Dream Warriors veterans Kristen Parker (played not by Patricia Arquette, but Tuesday Knight, who manages the insurmountable feat of somehow being worse than the child actress she shares her first scene with), Joey (Rodney Eastman), and Kincaid (Ken Sagoes, who I still feel a roiling animosity toward), who all helpfully die within the first half hour (I cheered when Kincaid finally kicked the bucket. Good riddance. He could never say a sentence without mispronouncing a good 67% of the words.), we have a whole crop of new teens to play with.

First off there's Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox), a sweet redhead who has a tendency to daydream in an attempt to escape from the emotional abuse of her alcoholic father. Her gang includes her brother Rick (Andras Jones), a martial artist and Kristen's boyfriend; her best friend Debbie (Brooke Theiss), the living embodiment of the 80's with an obsession for lifting weights; Sheila (Toy Newkirk), a stereotype-busting character who happens to be female, black, a nerd, and almost universally beloved; and Dan (Danny Hassel), who is just the cutest patootie to ever patoot.

Well, hello there.

The trouble begins when Freddy (the ever-cooperative Robert Englund) rises from the grave to wreak havoc once again. After quickly and mercifully knocking off Joey and Kincaid, Freddy is down to his last victim, Kristen (the final child of the parents who murdered him so many years ago). Unfortunately, Kristen uses her dream powers to pull the hapless Alice into her dream before she is tossed the hell into a furnace in an extremely brave move on the screenwriters' part.

It seems that by dragging Alice into her dream and bestowing her power upon her in death, Kristen has provided Freddy an avenue into the dreams of Alice's friends, one which he exploits with gusto. This is the first film where it's clear that, despite Englund's still menacing performance, horror is definitively going to take a backseat in favor of darkly humorous gonzo setpieces.

We see Alice get sucked into a movie screen, a meatball pizza decorated with the souls of dead children, a nude pinup swimming in a waterbed, and puns galore.

Very cheesy puns.

But despite the more overtly comic tone, The Dream Master never loses its sense of itself as a piece of cinema. At least, in the way that effects-driven 80's slasher films can be considered cinematic. Utilizing dream logic in the best way possible, the film allows for an ecstatically creative series of scene transitions and camerawork that still manage to boggle the mind. 

The scene where Kristen is secretly dosed with sleeping pills is blessed with unforgettable whirling cinematography capturing the loopy desperation of the teen all in a single shot. And that's not the only visually stunning moment in the film, which is shockingly aesthetically literate for a horror flick released in 1988.

Not to mention, the whole thing is thematically tight.

Tight as these shades.

Lisa already lived in a world of dreams, so she can be considered a master of her domain. This gives her equal footing with Freddy and makes her a worthy adversary, especially once she begins collecting the talents and personalities of her friends as they are felled one by one. This idea is linked with Lisa taking off the photos that cover her bedroom mirror - one for each friend who dies - slowly revealing her entire face as she matures with time and becomes the Dream Master.

It sounds cheesy and it is. Especially during the final montage in which she dons leather, spikes, and a yin-yang headband to take on the dream demon. But within all of it is a heartfelt story of a teenage girl taking strength from her friends to fight back against the force that has claimed them.

The fact that it explores the sleep powers concept in a way that the clever but scattershot Dream Warriors never even could have dreamed of (pun intended) is just the cherry on top.

Shot through the heart! And you're to blame!

That last caption may have seemed like just another of my series of increasingly witty and impressive puns, but it also serves as an adequate transition to what is perhaps the films biggest weakness, depending on how you look at it.

Thanks to its wall to wall pop music, atrocious perms, deliriously colorful backgrounds, and John Hughes banter, the entire film is mired forever in the muck of 1988, inextricably tied with the decade that birthed it. For me, this will never be a problem, thanks to my love of the cheesy excesses of the time. But really, the whole thing plays out like a feature-length MTV hits show, complete with two stirring renditions of "Anything, Anything" by Dramarama.

But being full of 80's signifiers can't bring a movie this good down. With impeccable use of nightmare imagery, a surprisingly solid and consistent tonal register, and a villain who hasn't yet descended to the unbearably clownish depths that are soon in his future, The Dream Master is a darn excellent sequel, shocking me and everybody else by being more enjoyable that the general consensus pick, Dream Warriors.

I was just as surprised as you, hypothetical reader. But the numbers don't lie.

Assuming you can even see through the almost solid filter of 80's.

Although I will always hold Friday the 13th in my highest esteem among the slasher greats, A Nightmare on Elm Street has a surprising amount of pretty darn good entries in the franchise, certainly more than the notoriously inconsistent Jason flicks. I'm very grateful that I'm getting a chance to re-explore this journey through the evolution of Freddy, because I don't think I ever appreciated the amount of effort these films put into realizing their universe, however twisted and nonsensical it may have become.

Savor these precious positive comments. Because up next we have The Dream Child, a film seemingly edited by a pile of vomit.

But for now, we have The Dream Master and sweet, sweet, Alice. Happy thoughts!

Killer: Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund)

Final Girl: Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox)

Best Kill: Debbie has her arms broken by a barbell and slowly begins turning into a human-sized cockroach. It's intense.

Sign of the Times: The second Debbie walks onscreen you can taste the hairspray. It doesn't help that she immediately starts talking about Dynasty.
Scariest Moment: Freddy is torn apart by the released souls of his victims.
Weirdest Moment: Freddy is brought back to life by Jason, the Fire-Peeing Dog.

Champion Dialogue: "We have matching luggage again."
Body Count: 6

1. Kincaid is stabbed in the stomach.
2. Joey is drowned in his waterbed.
3. Kristen is thrown into a furnace.
4. Sheila has her bodily fluids sucked out during a test.
5. Rick has the glove launched into his stomach.
6. Debbie is turned into a cockroach and crushed inside a roach motel. 

TL;DR: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a shockingly good third entry in a solid franchise that manages to bring something new to the table four years and three movies after Freddy's introduction.
Rating: 9/10
Word Count: 1407
Reviews In This Series
A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Sholder, 1985)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Russell, 1987)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (Harlin, 1988)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (Hopkins, 1989)
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Talalay, 1991)
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Craven, 1994)
Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (Bayer, 2010)