A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) feels like where Freddy Krueger graduated to pop culture mascot status (I mean, he’s rapping with The Fat Boys over the closing credits). From what I gather, this was the highest grossing of the series at the box office, and it vibes with franchise confidence. I wanted to watch it for the spooky movie season because I’d never seen it before and because its success helped director Renny Harlin step up into the blockbuster moviemaking big leagues, going on to make Die Hard 2: Die Harder right after it. Harlin and his crew make The Dream Master highly visual and packed with special effects. There are some strong MTV-era images: Freddy with the Ray-bans on the dream beach, the Playboy model in the waterbed, the infamous nightmare pizza with screaming teen souls for toppings. But for me, nothing topped the eerie feeling of when a character is at a cinema in their dreams and there’s a close up of their soda and popcorn flying in slow motion into the screen. Robert Englund is great value as Freddy once again, though seems to mainly pop up with a one liner for each spectacular set piece. With Patricia Arquette not returning as Kristen, there’s not the strong link or story arc from the protagonist to the monster here, even if the character is there (played by Tuesday Knight). And it has that horror franchise sequel thing that annoys me – spoiler – where they kill off the characters from the previous movie (the much better The Dream Warriors) just to replace them with not as interesting characters (though the brother and sister characters are sweet, and the pre-climax dress-up montage-in-the-mirror was great). Also: love it at this point where they introduce new teen characters and you know that whatever quirk or character bit they have is what Freddy will use to kill them (oh, they don’t like cockroaches, wonder what will happen to them?). Not to mention naming your heroine “Alice” so Freddy can reference “Wonderland” at some point. Still, a slick piece of horror fun. Now I’ve only got Part 5: The Dream Child left to see. Streamed on Stan in Australia.
VHS Tracking 