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Monday, September 10, 2012

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master Review


Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: Freddy is back to finish his work from part three and start killing a new group of kids.

Review: Despite Freddy's defeat being definitive in part three, he returns in the most ridiculous manner possible to keep on killing; a dog pisses fire and he comes back! From the get go, this film seems like it will be really dumb, but it's one of the better Nightmare movies. I did love the death of Freddy in part three, but I kind of envision a trilogy between part 1, 3 and 4. At this point in history, Freddy was exactly the icon the world had come to know and a far cry from the horror of the first Nightmare, but I still have a place in my mind for this joker incarnation of Freddy. Once again, the scale has been increased with more imagination and creativity with the dream world. There are quite a few memorable moments and some of the best highlights of the franchise are from this movie; for example, the movie theater scene is amazing! On the other hand, this was the beginning of the gimmicky deaths as each dream had to have some lame connection to the character rather than just a creepy dream world. The survivors from part three are back and get killed early on; it did kind of annoy me they got a new actress to play Kristen as I hate messing with my sense of continuity. The new lead, Alice, has a sort of mastery of her dreams, and she gains the traits of her fallen friends; it is similar to the dream powers in the previous movie but with a slight tweak. I do like their approach to this as most of Alice's friends have a trait that can enhance her ability to fight Freddy (even if they are cliched as hell) such as intelligence, strength, martial arts, etc. There is a nice touch in the fact that Alice is very shy and lacks confidence, and she becomes stronger to avenge the deaths of her friends while also discovering who she really is deep inside. The final fight against Freddy is immensely entertaining as we see Alice fight him head to head using all the abilities she has gained. Unfortunately, we have yet another stupid death of Freddy; I like to just tell people he looks in a mirror and dies! The defeat has something to do with a nursery rhyme about the "Dream Master," and I suppose Alice's willpower is what defeats Freddy combined with the spirits of her friends ripping Freddy apart from the inside. It still feels lackluster to me. For those who only ever saw this franchise in passing, this tends to be the one a lot of people remember scenes from so even if it was bad, it sure was memorable. This is one of the best entries so I'd recommend this one highly despite some flaws, the ridiculous nature of many of the scenes, and the transformation of Freddy from scary to the one you root for.

Notable Moment: When Alice removes all the photos that had been covering her mirror and sees the real her.

Final Rating: 7/10

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