Sunday, October 16, 2016

Horror Countdown 2016: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) dir. Renny Harlin, Heron Communications/Smart Egg Pictures



Now we move into the realm of the slasher and diminishing returns. When we last saw Mr. Kruger, he had been slain by the surviving Dream Warriors. So he must be dead and the world safe, right?

Kristen (Tuesday Weld) is still plagued by vision of a certain house on Elm Street. Drawing Joey (Rodney Eastman) and Kincaid (Ken Sagoes) into her dreams, all she succeeds in doing is annoying her friends. After all, they kill Freddy (Robert Englund) so it's perfectly fine to let their guard down.

Kristen is working on getting other friends though and the cast is broken down as such:

Sheila (Toy Newkirk)-she's a nerd with asthma
Debbie (Brooke Theiss)-she likes to hit the gym and hates roaches
Rick (Andras Jones)-Kristen's boyfriend and marital artist
Alice (Lisa Wilcox)-Rick's sister
Dan (Danny Hassel)-new guy, the jock of the group

While Kristen is letting her guard down, Kincaid dreams of a certain junkyard. When his dog urinates fire onto a certain spot, Freddy is back. Dispatching Kincaid and later Joey (similar to how he almost killed him in the last film), Kristen feels she might have been unwise in not keeping her defenses up. Telling Rick and Alice her whole backstory, she is unaware that Freddy has slightly bigger plans that simple revenge of his killer's children.

Kristen's particular dream power allows her drag anyone into her dreams. Freddy believes if he can kill her and take her power, he can finally branch away from Elm Street and kill whoever he wants. He does get Kristen, thanks to some doped lemonade, but he didn't count on her dragging Alice into her dreams and passing her power onto her.

An annoying thing to be sure, but thanks to Alice's lack of skill she ends up dragging her friends into the dream world every time she nods off. Freddy isn't about to pass up a free kill, so he starts whittling the cast down. There is a catch that he didn't count on though, as every time he kills the victim's soul the power ends up going to Alice. While his soul collection grows, Alice grows more powerful. But will it be enough to stop the bastard son of a 1000 maniacs?

Good special effects, but (and I haven't reviewed it yet, but slight spoilers) Freddy goes on about how he can only kill the children of the people who killed him. Ok, but he succeeded without getting Kristen's power. Would he cease to exist? Since Kristen was the last, was her power the only thing keeping him around? And if he can only haunt the Elm Street kids, how did he start haunting the kid from Part 2? Jesse had just moved to the old house and had no connection.

Plus this is when Freddy really amps up the puns. Guy can't seem to just kill someone without making a joke, which is setting a rather bad tone for the rest of the series.







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