Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm taking a look at the fourth entry in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series which came out in 1988. That movie is "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master".
Now, as has been the case with the previous films in this series, I really don't know a whole lot about it, aside from the fact that Robert Englund is still playing Freddy Krueger. I don't really know anything about the plot to this one, though I'm gonna take a guess here and say that Freddy is back doing his usual shtick. Now I'm not saying that as a bad thing, because I really have been enjoying these movies so far. And even though Nightmare 2 was definitely the weakest entry in the entire series so far, I still kinda enjoyed it for what it tried to do. Mind you, it didn't do it very well, but again, I still somewhat enjoyed that movie.
So now, I'm curious to see what this fourth movie is going to do here. I'm not sure if it's going to be any good, but I'm hoping for this one to be at least decent. Now I am also aware that when it comes to the 4th entry in a horror movie franchise, it's usually where the quality of the series will start to go downhill. But hey, you know what? If this one is at least better than "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge", then this movie has already accomplished what it needs to do. Still though, I really want to see if this movie is any good at all. And the only way I'm gonna find that out is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master".
9 minutes later
OK, I have sort of a big question here. Well, two technically, but I'm gonna ask them anyway. Why was this guy hanging on top of the smaller roof to begin with? And also, how long was he waiting there? Was he there before dawn, or was it shortly after? I know it's a really trivial thing to be asking, but I really am curious as to how long that guy was hiding in wait there. It just seems really odd to me, you know what I mean?
8 minutes later
OK, you know, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, a dog pissing on the grave site where Freddy was buried, and is also opening to show the remains of his body, is not something I was quite expecting. Mind you, I have seen far weirder in this series, but that one is definitely new to me.
9 minutes later
All right, guys, I'm just gonna go ahead and say this right now. The acting from our two leading ladies here is fucking terrible. Mind you, Kristen was one of the main characters from the previous movie, but she's played by a completely different actress, and she sounds even worse here! I'll get a little more into that once I start covering this movie, but I'm just gonna let you guys know now that the acting from these two women really fucking suck.
14 minutes later
Well, guys, I believe I can say this much. Whether or not it was intentional, Kristen was right. Her mother is a fucking murderer. And I hope by the end of this movie that she dies a really painful death by Freddy Krueger. And if she somehow survives this, then I'm gonna be a little bit pissed. Just thought I'd let you guys know.
6 minutes later
OK, that was probably one of the more disturbing things I've seen from Krueger throughout these movies. Just kissing someone and sucking their air dry was, uh...definitely something, I'll say that much. But still, that was fucking disturbing as hell.
10 minutes later
All right, I have a big question here that's probably a bit late to be asking, but I'm still gonna ask it anyway. So, all of these kids from Kristen and her friends, to Alice's friend and brother, how the fuck has anyone not reported on any of this yet? You would think, by this point, that the media would've probably commented on these "mysterious deaths". My only reasoning as to why this hasn't happened yet is because the media is keeping silent about what happened during and after Freddy's trial. But even then, I still have to wonder why these deaths, which all have been occurring within probably the last few days, haven't been covered yet? Unless they have been reporting it off screen, then it's still kinda puzzling me as to why no one has been noticing all these recent deaths that have been going on at the high school that Alice has been attending. I don't know, *maybe* I'm just putting a little too much thought into this, but I'm still very curious about it.
14 minutes later
So, not only was the bad editing probably intentional, but also Deb apparently grew some bug arms after Freddy broke hers. I admit, I'm a little confused, but still, at least those new arms of her look sorta cool. Oh, and now we're looping the same scene of Alice coming around the diner and getting into Dan's truck. OK, so at least the obvious bad editing was intentional. Which, I gotta say, that's actually sorta creative to use bad editing like that. I'm actually kind of impressed.
1 minute later
Wait, so Alice and Dan finally realize that they're repeating the same events over and over again. But instead of coming up with a new plan of action, they're gonna do the exact same thing by getting in the car and driving to Deb's house! Oh my fucking god...you guys have no idea how stupid this movie is becoming. And yet, I still find it to be more interesting than Nightmare 2. Which I know will probably sound surprising, but I'm gonna get more into why later once I start reviewing this movie.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So, as I said earlier on, this movie had become stupid as shit the moment that Alice and Dan started to do the same thing again in their dreams. And yes, I still stand by that this movie is incredibly stupid. But also, I still find it to be more interesting than "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge", which I still stand as the weakest film in the entire series so far.
Now with that, let's talk about this movie some more and explain why that is. Let's start with the writing. Now, without repeating myself about what I said in my review of Nightmare 3 about why Nightmare 2 was a worse movie in comparison, the reason why I find this 4th entry to be more interesting than the second movie revolves around a couple of things. For one, the creativity of all the kills in this movie is far more interesting than was shown in Freddy's Revenge, which barely had much of anything, outside of maybe one or two interesting moments in creativity. But aside from that, there really isn't much else there that I could say about that movie that was creative with it's kills. At least here, we have more of that. However, I'll get more into that later when I cover special effects.
The other reason why I find this movie to be more interesting is that, in a way, the plot is very similar to Nightmare 2 in which Freddy is using someone to help get him to his next victims. In Nightmare 2, Freddy used Jesse's body to get into the real world to kill his victims, which made no fucking sense because if he was able to pull that kind of shit off, then why didn't he do any of that in the first movie? It's stuff like that which makes Nightmare 2's story even more convoluted and stupid the more you try to think about it. As for this movie, well, admittedly, it's not really all that better because shortly before Freddy kills Kristen, Alice was able to get into the dreamworld because she apparently has a fascination for dreams herself. And after Freddy killed Kristen, her spirit, somehow, was able to transfer into Alice's body, which is somehow giving more of an awareness of sorts in regards to Freddy being nearby or something. Trust me, the explanation makes absolutely no sense at all, but even so, I still think the made up explanation is more plausible than how Nightmare 2 did it, even if it may not be saying very much.
And as for our characters, well, in regards to Freddy Krueger, he's starting to spew out cheesy one-liners which makes him sound more comical than frightening. Which, I understand may sound like something of a downgrade to his character, but I thought it actually added a lot of charm to it because, unlike Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, he's not the silent killer type. He will say whatever's on his mind before or after he kills his victims, and I honestly would prefer that over just being a silent killer like Michael or Jason. But as for other characters, well, Kristen and her two friends from the previous movie carry on over here, though they're not in it for that long. Instead, we focus on Alice and her friends. While her friends are nothing to write home about, Alice is the one who gets the most focus on, and she actually has quite a bit of development in this movie. Granted, I wish her actress put in more effort, but I'll talk about her acting in a second. But anyway, Alice actually has some pretty good character development, especially when she starts to lose more of her friends to Freddy Krueger. It's pretty good stuff, and I'd say she stands out a little bit more than Kristen did in the previous movie. Not that Kristen wasn't likable or anything, I just feel like her character wasn't as strong as either Nancy or even Alice in this movie.
So yeah, Alice is actually pretty likable here, and also has some pretty good character development. The only other one I can think of that comes kinda close to it is her brother, Rick, because Rick was actually Kristen's girlfriend in this movie. And also, I didn't mention this beforehand, but Kristen and her friends were able to go to school again, so I'm going to guess that their therapy went well there. Not that it really matters in this movie for obvious reasons that I kinda already spoiled earlier. Whoops. Well, anyway, going back to Rick for a moment, as I was saying, he was Kristen's girlfriend, and he's sorta on the flipside on whether or not he believes Alice's story about how Freddy has actually come back and started killing everyone. And part of me thought that he was going to survive until the very end before he gets killed. Well, I was a bit off the mark there because, a bit of a spoiler here, he's one of the many victims Freddy gets in this movie. And they also sorta telegraphed it a little bit past the halfway mark of the film where he mentions to Dan that if he gets killed, then he better watch out next. So I guess I should've seen it coming sooner rather than later.
So, writing in this movie is definitely a step down from the third movie. Mind you, it's still leaps and bounds better than the 2nd film, though that's not saying very much considering there is a lot of stupidity in this movie. But still, the writing here is still decent for what it was trying to do. It's just, again, really fucking stupid at times. Now as for the acting, I am gonna say this much. The acting from most of this cast is still really good, the obvious being Robert Englund, especially now that he has more lines to work with than he did in the previous movies. However, that does bring me into talking about the two worst actresses in this film, both of which who play Alice and Kristen. I'm gonna start with Kristen's actress. To start with, as I mentioned a little while ago, she is played by a completely different actress in this movie, when in the last one, she was played by Patricia Arquette, who did a really good job playing Kristen there. In this one, however, she is played by, and I'm *not* kidding when I say this person's name, Tuesday Knight. I *wish* was kidding, guys, because that name sounds so fucking stupid that I almost laughed. And I could probably overlook all that if not for the fact that, again, her acting in this movie is completely terrible. She sounds very robotic and doesn't put in a whole lot of effort into emoting her lines.
The same can be said also for Alice's actress, who goes by the name of Lisa Wilcox, who does it much worse here because at least with Kristen, she wasn't in the movie for very long and you could kinda stomach it. You can't do that, however, with Lisa Wilcox, because you have to put up with her toneless robotic voice throughout the entire movie. It is *really* bad, and it's probably some of the worst acting I've heard from a lead actress, at least from a horror movie anyways. If I were to expand my horizons, I would say she's just as bad as Melanie Griffith was in "Cherry 2000". But in terms of just horror movies, this is easily one of the worst performances I have heard in quite a while. Mind you, physically, she can act. But in terms of her vocal work, it is fucking horrible. And if she's somehow in the next movie, I hope that she has at least improved on it. I mean, if Nancy Thompson's actress, and the actors from the third movie could make a return, then why not Alice as well? I don't know, but I'll find that out whenever I get to covering the fifth movie, which won't be anytime soon, mind you, but still, I'll hopefully be able to cover it at some point. But anyway, minus our two leading actresses, the rest of the acting here is fine enough.
Special effects in this movie are absolutely amazing for low budget standards. In fact, I will go on record and say that, for the most part, the special effects in these movies have been amazing. They have always been consistent with each film, and even though the kills in Freddy's Revenge weren't really that great, the effects in that movie were still top notch. So, even though the quality of the movie's writing may vary, the effects have, so far, been consistently great. The blood effects here are awesome, the makeup effects are also really good, too. The best effect happens during the final battle between Alice and Freddy, and at one point, you get to see all of the heads that are kinda sorta meshed together on Freddy's stomach. It's pretty nasty to look at, but effects wise, it's great. So yeah, I can definitely say all the special effects here are fantastic.
Camerawork here is really good. Lighting is lit very well. The sound-mixing here is good. The music in this movie is also really good, too. One thing I didn't notice until I just looked it up is that one of the songs of this movie, mainly the opening song, was sung by Kristen's actress Tuesday Knight. And it actually is really good. Which makes me wonder why someone thought she would make a good actress in this movie despite the fact that she can't act here. My only theory is that they couldn't get back Patricia Arquette to reprise her role and, conveniently enough, Tuesday Knight looked a lot like her to take over her spot. Mind you, I'm just theorizing there, but that's my only explanation that I have for it. Anyway, while she can't act in this movie, she's a pretty good singer and I think she should stick to what she actually knows. Though that's just my own personal advice. But setting aside all that, the music here is really good, both in score and soundtrack.
So ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master". Yes, I can mostly certainly recommend this one to you guys. While it's nowhere near as good as the first and third movie, it's still a pretty good film on it's own standards. While there are some stupid moments that happen in this movie, it's not something that's going to ultimately effect your viewing experience. It's still pretty good overall, and it's certainly much better than "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge", which I know will sound like I'm beginning to hate that movie, which I still don't, but so far, I can definitely say that it's the weakest film in the entire series so far. I've heard the sequels after 4 go down in quality, but I'll find that out for myself the next time I end up covering the rest of these movies. Which probably won't be anytime soon, but I can at least say that if you can find these movies anywhere on DVD, preferably the 4 movie combo pack has the first 4 movies, or if there's another combo pack on Blu-ray that might hold the rest of the movies, then go ahead and pick them up somewhere, as long as it's for cheap. But yeah, I can say that I certainly enjoyed the first 4 movies, some to varying degree, but I won't dwell on that any further. For now, I'm gonna go and do something else. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, I still have my copy of "Bye Sweet Carole" that I own on my Nintendo Switch. I'm gonna go back and play more of it because I've had a bit of a backlog in my gaming library that I haven't gotten back around to in a while, so I'm gonna go do that next and this 4 pack will definitely have a nice spot on my DVD shelf somewhere.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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