Review of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) by Everett J — 22 Mar 2009

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master.

Directed by Renny Harlin.

Written by William Kotzwinkle, Brian Helgeland, Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat.

Starring Robert Englund, Tuesday Knight, Ken Sagoes, Rodney Eastman, Lisa Wilcox, Andras Jones, Danny Hassel, Brooke Theiss, Toy Newkirk, Nicholas Mele.

The three remaining Elm Street children from the last installment are singled out and butchered one by one as Fred Krueger (Englund) seeks to broaden his horizons on the flesh of a new batch of kids.

Kristen (Knight) survived a previous bout with Krueger as depicted in the third film in the series. Along with her friends Kincaid (Sagoes) and Joey (Eastman) she was able to help defeat Krueger ostensibly sending him to hell. This time around however, Krueger returns to life and kills all three in quick succession. During Kristen?s death scene she pulls Alice (Wilcox) into her dream and subsequently marks Alice as the girl Krueger wants to use to pull other kids into her dream. Alice gains this power from Kristen and subsequently uses it to pull in Sheila (Newkirk) who dies from an apparent extreme asthma attack.

Sweet virginal Alice becomes the focus of the film while her friends continue to die around her. She is pure and innocent and must make for a terribly appetizing treat for the lecherous Krueger. He has always proven himself to be a sexual maniac and in this film his predilections are more subtlety conveyed. Still, his lewd behavior around young girls clearly suggests that his intentions with the poor things are just a tad bit obscene.

The idea of the Dream Master is explored in this film. The Dream Master guards the gates into good dreams and Alice uses a chant her mother taught her in her effort to defeat Freddy in the end. She is able to force Freddy into a specific action that compromises him leaving him vulnerable and open to assault.

Once Krueger has eliminated the three remaining children a new cycle begins, allowing for myriad possibilities for the film. The film makers decide to keep Krueger on point and have him committing murders the next day.

The murder of Joey has some intriguing elements. A naked woman begins to swim beneath his waterbed. She is painfully alluring and the hormonal teen can hardly stand the agony of not having her. But before he has a chance to unleash her he is attacked from within by Krueger who once again has lured poor Joey with the promise of sex (as in the third film) except this time he takes the next step and kills Joey for his curiosity. It is the tried and true motif of all slasher films. If someone is interested in sex in any way there is a high if not absolute chance they will be obliterated by the killer before film?s end. Joey had a hot nurse tease him in the third film and she turned out to be Krueger.

In this film after she faints Kristen sees the nurse as Krueger in drag, which is far more disturbing than anything else in the film as well as the funniest.

Krueger comes to life via the wonderful elixir dog urine. Kincaid?s dog comes into the dream with him and starts digging at Krueger?s grave in the junkyard from the previous film. He unleashes his liquid sunshine onto the grave and a tremendous jolt of electricity erupts and jacks Krueger?s body and brain into animation.. Krueger?s flesh begins to form over his bones and quickly he is whole and ready to roam.

Krueger does not waste any time getting back at those nasty little children who contributed to his most recent death. He haunts their dreams and finds exceedingly easy ways to reduce them to a sack of bones and a thin veneer of flesh. The film is most thrilling when Krueger is off on his killing spree. It loses its ability to jar the senses once only the last one is left and in this case she must gather up all her strength and skills to defeat the mighty enemy. It?s way too Karate Kid for me at this point and it drags the film considerably down. There is actually a scene where Rick is doing karate maneuvers in a room replete with a Japanese Flag on the wall. There is talk about balance and other typical aspects of martial arts. It looks and feels like every cliched film based around any one of the Asian disciplines and it is further exploited in the final scene where Alice takes on Rick?s abilities and suddenly becomes a fighting machine.

Alice is the typical example of the obvious sexually inactive teen who is terribly far removed from sex in every way. She is presented as the classic virgin whose role it is to defeat the monster after all previous measures against him have failed. Alice is queen-like in that she is capable of casting the monster out of her realm (her dreams) through the violence of war. The virgin Queen must risk sacrificing herself to him in order to draw him out and conquer him permanently, barring the door on his return. Of course we know that Krueger never stays dead long and that there will be some clever mechanism employed in the next film that will bring him back to life.

Fred Kreuger drops a litany of hackneyed phrases throughout the film. It seems as if the franchise has finally settled on a specific manner in which Krueger communicates to his audience. He speaks mostly in terms of advice, statements that are so familiar and so old that they cannot be traced to any one time or place. They are seemingly immortal phrases and they fit in nicely with what we perceive Krueger to be. He himself has led us to believe that he is immortal as nobody can kill him for very long. Like Jason he is always fortunate enough to gain the benefit of extraordinary circumstances that conspire to bring him back to life. This time, the great event of his resurrection is handled rather comically with the dog.

The performances in this film are all decent for the material. Robert Englund is as steady as ever playing a role that essentially plays itself. He puts on the makeup, the glove and the sweater and it can?t be terribly difficult from there to transform himself into Fred Krueger. Still, he?s dynamic, funny and playful throughout. Lisa Wilcox?s body movements suggest a character who has not begun to explore the myriad aspects of her sexuality. Alice remains disinterested in exploring the various avenues of the flesh and this perspective is demonstrated with gestures and how she walks in and out of a room. She?s exceedingly reserved and seems cut off from the machinations of her body. She doesn?t want to admit ownership of it so she hides her sexuality someplace dingy and dark where her active mind is not likely to find it without an extensive search.

Overall, this film explores the nature of dreams a bit further. It touches on the concept of the Dream Master and the mechanism that determines whether or not we have good or bad dreams. Again, this film sticks to the formula that has made it so successful. It explores issues of high school drama, fear, menace and anguish through the character of a creature of darkness who has garnered the truly coveted power of causing death through dreams. This power puts him in very exclusive company and it gives him tremendous joy until an uppity teen ager confronts him with ugly truths he cannot ignore. Ultimately, Fred Krueger here is a jokester and his grab bag of familiar sayings lend a 1950's quality to the film. He unreels them with precision and great care. He speaks in cliches that go round and round with no promise of release through death.