Review #1143: A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child.
Cast:
Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), Lisa Wilcox (Alice Johnson), Kelly Jo Minter (Yvonne Miller), Erika Anderson (Greta Gibson), Danny Hassel (Dan Jordan), Beatrice Boepple (Amanda Krueger), Whit Hertford (Jacob Johnson), Joe Seely (Mark Grey), and Nicholas Mele (Dennis Johnson) Directed by Stephen Hopkins (#548 - Predator 2)
Review:
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, much like its horror counterpart Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, was released one year after its fourth installment in 1989, and it shares the similarity of looking like a rushed product. It was shot and edited in a span of eight weeks on a eight million budget, and there were a group of edits made afterwards to avoid an X rating by the MPAA, but the real problems with the movie lie in its execution. The story was credited to John Skipp, Craig Spector, and Leslie Bohem, while its screenplay was credited to Bohem, although there were significant re-writes from William Wisher & David J. Schow along with Michael De Luca (who would later write and co-produce the sequel). With all of these writing influences, it's also notable to mention that the premise has similarities to a rejected pitch by producer Sara Raisher for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, which involved Freddy "clawing his way out of the womb." With all of this mind, how do things play out? It definitely feels lacking in some ways when compared to the previous one, which from what I remember was just a decent follow-up that didn't go too much off the rails. This one lingers in mediocrity from the onset and never really leaves that realm, with occasional highlights.
The production design certainly has a decent touch to it, trying to go for a sort of Gothic feel, made especially clear with the parts tinted blue, which is certainly weird when contrasted with the gory effects sequences - along with cutting remarks from Englund. The puns aren't awful, but after a while they certainly test one's patience, although I do appreciate seeing Englund play the role as only he could. It is nice to see some returning characters such as Wilcox, Hassel, and Hertford, even if only the former has real prominent time on screen. Wilcox does for a decent lead to follow along with for the most part. The new characters don't have too much personality to them, only showing bare characteristics to be used against them (which isn't new to this franchise), but I didn't find any of them too interesting to go along with, especially with the initial skeptic played by Minter, but I suppose the movie would've had a part giving off exposition with or without a skeptic. The plot is okay, but nothing too inspired, and it certainly has a weird time trying to hold itself together between its decent gore parts and its occasional groaners to follow it. It it especially is amusing that one part of the climax involves Krueger's mother (who we already saw in the third film) and having to find her remains in an abandoned asylum to release her soul or something to that extent. With these films, it's just better to let them play out their weird ideas (gory or not) and let them play out. It's not hard to say this isn't anything good, but being critical is hard for something that is at least occasionally watchable, even if it isn't too scary. It is possible that the franchise was becoming a bit tired, since this franchise had five films in five years, along with a television series called Freddy's Nightmares, complete with Freddy Krueger as presenter that ran from 1988 to 1990. For 90 minutes, it's not a completely terrible experience for something that definitely needed some sort of energy to get the creativity going.
Clearly the franchise would think of something more original for the next film...or perhaps not. Next time.
Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.
