Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
Starring Tuesday Knight, Ken Sagoes, Rodney
Eastman & Robert Englund
Directed by Renny Harlin
Written by Brian Helgeland, Jim Wheat & Ken Wheat

 

Along side the guidance of Renny Harlin, who went on to direct ‘Die Hard 2,” the film takes plus fresh after number three when Kristen (played previously by Patricia Arquette now Tuesday Knight), “accidentally” revives a thought-to-be-dead Freddy. The trick being that Kristen, as well as Joey and Kincaid, are the last three Elm Street kids whose parents torched Freddy back in the day. Now revived, Freddy needs fresh meat as he eloquently puts it in order to keep his dream slaying alive.

In comes Alice the daydreamer, played by Lisa Wilcox, a friend of Kristen’s who knows nothing of the Freddy “myth.” That is until of course she is pulled into a dream by Kristen and witnesses her demise, but not before Kristen transfers her “power of being able to bring anyone into her dream – power.”

Freddy then uses Alice’s gift against her and has Alice pull in new victims for him to slay through. The victims being her inner circle of friends including her brother all of whom match cliché high school clique’s like the nerdy girl with asthma, the jock with a huge heart, and the muscle head obsessed with exercise in female form.

At first the film looked as if the daydreaming aspect of Alice’s character would be a different break through for Freddy. However, the kids all seem to be falling asleep in class trying to avoid being the next victim, once it is agreed that Freddy indeed is back and plucking kids out one by one.

So what is there to say of Freddy, being played ever so brilliantly once again by Robert Englund? He brought a more comedic side to his famed character which seemed to lead to more comedy in future sequels. One scene in particular with Kristen is when Kristen is enjoying the beach when Freddy’s claw comes from the water and races towards the beach like a shark fin. He then dawns a pair of horrible 80s sunglasses before pushing Kristen through the sand back into his house and out of the sun. If you haven’t seen it you will laugh, trust me.

What really can be said about this particular sequel despite the few cheesy moments is that it went back towards the original film. Elm Street kids getting whacked in their sleep, the parents in denial of the whole thing, the main female character getting killed relatively early and passing on the torch of lead actress to the one you wouldn’t think of being the lead, and last but not least, a kick ass death by bed scene ala’ Johnny Depp but sadly with less blood.

Does it reach the heights of the original? Hell no. Does it come closer than any of the other sequels? Yes it does. The filmmakers could have toned down the comedy a bit and made it a little more creepy-comedy, such as Freddy cutting off his fingers and then giggling about it in the first one or maybe even the killing of the puppet kid from Freddy 3, now that was creepy-funny.

Hopefully when the remake of “Nightmare” comes out next year they at least twist up the original storylines by Wes Craven to make it a little more fresh but still keep to the same Freddy traditions like the first one and the fourth one.