Review of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) by Kyle L — 26 Aug 2015

A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is just as good as its predecessor and when compared to its mighty predecessor there are some differences between this film and part 3 but it still works really well in terms of its execution, style and storytelling.

This film takes place after the events of Nightmare 3 where the last Elm Street kids are now released from the psychiatric hospital and the hospital is no longer active and the teens are now back in their normal life and live like regular people again.

But soon Freddy returns again and this time after he kills Kristen, Kincaid and Joey he sets his eyes on a new set of victims and a young day dreamer Alice must learn how to conquer the abilities of the Dream Master in order to beat the burned face night stalking killer and send him straight to hell once and for all.

Like I said I really enjoyed watching this film as much as I enjoyed watching its predecessor and there are so many reasons why I love this movie and I am willing to tell you why I love this film as much as I love its predecessor.

What makes A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master an outstanding film is that it stays true to the source material of its predecessors even though it is really different from the first three films.

The reason why I said this movie is different from part 3 its because this film has a completely different tone than part 3. While its execution is good and remains the same the tone of this film is what really made it look like a different type of Horror film.

If Nightmare 3 retained the style and execution of the original while combining it with new ideas that worked really well. Nightmare 4 was much more different because it has the special effects that made part 3 memorable but the overall tone is light instead of dark.

As you can see from several scenes there are some parts that are scary but there are also some parts that are more action like and everything done in this film was radically different from part 3. The things I like about this movie is that this film has a lot of scenes that are so memorable and very cool at the same time(Freddy coming back from the dead, the suspenceful water bed kill sequence, the gritty death of Kristen, the scary classroom scene where Freddy sucks the air out of Sheila, The movie theater sequence where Alice hits the screen and becomes part of the movie and we get to see her dead friends after she becomes part of the movie clapping while Alice is in the film, the hypnotic looping scene, the surreal and scary cockroach sequence where Freddy kills Debbie and the over the top action packed finale between Freddy and Alice).

One of the other things I like about Nightmare 4 is the dream sequences in certain scenes. While Nightmare 3 has a lot of dark and scary yet gruesome dream sequences. Nightmare 4 has a lot of imaginative and more fantasy like dream scenes where it feels like you are in a fantasy world where wizards and magicians exists because every dream sequence in this film is so fantasy looking.

One of the other highlights of this movie is the film's pacing. While its Nightmare 1-3 has a very brooding and dark pace. Nightmare 4 is more fast on pacing and there are loads of scenes that are very quick and very fast at the same time.

I love how the pacing gets faster in every scene combined with Steven Fierberg's extremely cool camera tricks with lots of very fast and super cool slow camera movements in several scenes and it made the movie look more like a Fantasy Action Horror film.

While I like how this film returned to the creepy suburbs from the first two Nightmare On Elm Street films even though the tone of this film is light. I also love how the film has the feel of MTV and this movie felt as if MTV and New Line Cinema produced the movie and made it look more energetic than part 1-3 and it made the execution even better than ever.

The other things I also enjoy about this movie is the special effects. Almost all of the special effects in this movie is amazing and very imaginative and creative as well. You get to see lots of crazy over the top special effects and lots of intense and graphic moments that are in times nauseating but very scary at the same time an example is the crazy cockroach scene where Debbie becomes a cockroach after her face lands on the roach goo trap including the one in the finale where Freddy gets ripped apart.

But the best thing about this film is the strong character development and Freddy Krueger himself. I love how the characters are well developed and you can see that Renny Harlin focused heavily on strong character development and all that stuff and he made them a bit more likable than ever even the new characters.

Freddy himself on the other hand is just as scary in the first three Nightmare On Elm Street films even though he cracks jokes(in a good way) in several parts of the movie(check out the epic fail and fun scene where Rick is fighting an invisible Fred Krueger) and I'm glad that Freddy Krueger is still scary in this film because if you watch Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare that's where Freddy became less interesting and not scary anymore and I was surprised and glad that Fred Krueger is still scary in this movie despite the film's change of tone from dark to light.

Now the acting is really good. In times nowhere as good as in part 3 but the acting is still great in this film. Its nice to see both Ken Sagoes and Rodney Eastman reprise their roles as Kincaid and Joey respectively even though their characters died at the beginning of this film and its also nice to see the actress who portrayed Kristen's mother from Dream Warriors reprise her role for this movie even though she had less screen time in the movie.

While the new casts deliver impressive performances as much as the returning casts from part 3 like the beautiful and gorgeous plus cute Lisa Wilcox as the day dreamer Alice and she is just as gorgeous as Heather Langenkamp who portrayed Nancy Thompson in both Nightmare 1 and 3 and I love how Lisa Wilcox's character changes from your ordinary day dreaming cute lady to a Female like version of Bruce Lee where she kicks a lot butt and I love the way she fought Freddy in the finale because that is so cool yet it is so over the top as well the same can be said to the other new casts.

But I truly loved the performance of Robert Englund in his fourth time to portray the burned face night stalking killer Freddy Krueger and he is the main highlight of this film. Freddy this time is more menacing and a bit comical in a few parts(which worked quite well) and I love how Robert Englund gets better with his performance in each film and I find that pretty amazing and pure awesome at the same time.

Director Renny Harlin did an amazing job with his work on this movie and he turned Brian Helgeland's(Mystic River) screenplay into an imaginative, fantasy like, surreal, scary and MTV movie that delivers both loads of action packed and thrilling scenes and from what I can tell this film also felt as a Hong Kong like Action Horror film and it felt as if the script of Brian Helgeland was rewritten by Ronny Yu since this film has lots of entertaining and fun action scenes in several parts of the film.

Overall A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is an entertaining and fun Horror movie that has all the right elements and is packed with lots of over the top Hong Kong like action scenes combined with quirky humor and wit plus it is also thrilling, imaginative and surreal and scary at the same time and of course filled with lots of magical effects at the same time.

This movie gets a 10/10.