Review of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) by Cannot T — 30 Apr 2010

Dream demon Freddy Krueger is resurrected from his apparent demise, and rapidly tracks down and kills the remainder of the Elm Street kids. However, Kristen (who can draw others into her dreams) wills her special ability to her friend Alice. Alice soon realizes that Freddy is taking advantage of that unknown power to pull a new group of children into his foul domain.

Apart from WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (ANOES 7), I believe ANOES 4 is the most superior sequel in the entire franchise and I say this with zeal. Why is that? I can't help but say this film is the most imaginative, clever, and ingenious in the franchise. After all, this is the film that made the most money in the box office, but I'm not saying money equals how good a film is.

The first 20 minutes of this film is quite frustrating to me. I will not spoil it, but it does an ALIEN 3 on you. As the film continued, I stopped getting angry and went along with it. To my surprise, it started to get good. Really good. I believe this sequel focuses the most on characters. It's an ensemble film where the group of teenagers mattered rather than seeing how they will die. I was rather touched in some parts of it because I was not in for some personal scenes dealing with characters and dialogue rather than a dream killer slashing up kids in creative ways.

Even though the franchise is at its fourth film, it's the most creative. There are some really ingenious death scenes here, and one of it is the best in the franchise, in my opinion. You can also tell the budget is bigger because there are more visual effects and more elaborate nightmare sequences. Lisa Wilcox is a newcomer to the franchise among the cast and she does a fine job as the new heroine. Andras Jones, Danny Hassle, and Brooke Theiss are all pretty good in their role. However, Toy Newkirk has to be my favorite character in the entire franchise. She's just so lovable.

I think director Renny Harlin gets a bad rap these days, but I find his movies to be entertaining. I certainly think this film is one of Harlin's better works. ANOES 4 is great because it has the most fleshed out characters in the franchise and because everything is just so well made. If you're a fan of the franchise, this would probably be the last good sequel you'll ever see (apart from ANOES 7).