IMDb Link: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Year: 1988
Directed by: Renny Harlin
Writing credits: Wes Craven (Characters), William Kotzwinkle

Weasel Rating: {>>–} (So-So)

Please note that this review is laden with spoilers.

Freddy Injury Count: A car is dropped on Freddy’s head, kicked in the head, punched 4 times, is kung-fu’d (punch/kick combo) 14 times, punched 4 times, kicked once, and electrocuted with one of those stun-gun thingies. He is then banged on the head 6 times before his face explodes by looking in the mirror. Remember that, kids: You can always kill freddy if you can just convince him to look in a mirror. Note that it did not work several other times in the movie…

Body count: Only 6. Freddy is making a name for himself as the guy who threatens but doesn’t deliver. He does do a good job in the terror department, however.

Plot Outline: In this installment of the Freddy series, we actually get to see a claymation (woot!) skeletal Freddy. You see, it is required of our heros to track down Freddy’s bones and bury him! This will (obviously) destroy him forever*!

You know, I don’t think there’s much more plot than that. Freddy’s bones are hidden in some junkyard and the heros have to track it down, dig it up, battle the skeletal claymation freddy, and give him a proper, christian burial. This seems to make Freddy… You guessed it… Dissapear in a sparkle of special effects.

My Opinion: Gah, I can hardly remember this movie even after just watching it. Though I did like Freddy himself, the plot was a bit lacking and the show went on for a bit too long. There was more claymation too - I like that in a movie. In any case, this movie is definately better than Part 2, and I would give it a 5 out of 10. This is definately a forgettable movie.

Interesting Notes:

• This is the first movie of the series to sport previews on it’s VHS tape.
• This is the first movie of the series to feature kung-fu action.
• A voodoo dog pees fire. ‘nuf said.
• Freddy has way-cool sunglasses.

Fun Quotes!

• Freddy: “Wanna suck face?”
  Girl: “No.”
• “Fuckin’ A!” - Several people

Lead roles:

Tuesday Knight - Kristen Parker
Ken Sagoes - Roland Kincaid
Rodney Eastman - Joey Crusel
Lisa Wilcox - Alice Johnson
Andras Jones - Rick Johnson
Danny Hassel - Dan Jordan
Brooke Theiss - Debbie Stevens
Toy Newkirk - Sheila Kopecky
Robert Englund - Freddy Krueger
Nicholas Mele - Mr. Dennis Johnson
Brooke Bundy - Elaine Parker
Jacquelyn Masche - Joey’s Mom
Hope Marie Carlton - Pin Up Girl
Richard Garrison - Doctor
John Beckman (II) - Coach

Tagline: Terror Beyond Your Wildest Dreams.

IMDb Link: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Year: 1987
Directed by: Chuck Russell
Writing credits: Wes Craven

Weasel Rating: {>>–} (So-So)

Please note that this review is laden with spoilers.

Freddy Injury Count: Freddy, as a giant rubber-neck or snake-like being, is stabbed in the eye, stabbed in the armpit, zapped with elf-powered-magic, kicked in the neck, clubbed twice, and impaled. But wait, there’s more. He then proceeded to have his ears nearly burst by a woman’s scream, he is stabbed with his own glove, then dies in a dazzle of special effects. Apparantly his own glove is the worst injury he incurred.

Body count: 5, with 1 implied death. Freddy can’t seem to achieve Jason’s level. If one were to add up all three of his first movies, he would come close. There were, however, dozens and dozens of supposedly dead bodies hanging from the rafters in one of the dream sequences. It is implied that these are Freddy’s kills.

Plot Outline: Freddy is back! And no, not some kid-posessed with Freddy… But Freddy himself! This is the first movie where he is actually called “Freddy” instead of “Fred.” It’s about time!

In this movie, Freddy is back to tormenting kids in their dreams. All the kids on Elm Street are sent to a “dream hospital” for therapy - but they seem to be sharing group hallucinations. Freddy slowly starts killing them off one by one!

It turns out that each kid has a magical superpower in their dreams. These on their own are funny enough to qualify the watching of the movie. Things like turning into a magician and zapping people, becomming an 80’s punk ass-kicker, or even being supra-strong.

The star and sole survivor of the first movie, Nancy, is back too - being the kid’s helping hand in their dreams.

The ghost of Freddy’s mom (as is revealed at the end of the movie) revealed Freddy’s origins to the audience as well. In the same dream-institution, in the abandoned wing, they had a certain cell block devoted to the world’s worst criminally insane. No maximum security prison, just a communal room behind a locked door. One night, a young nurse was accidentally locked in the cell, and she was found nearly dead the next morning, being raped by over 100 criminals. She was pregnant… and Freddy turned out to be “the bastard son of 100 maniacs.”

My Opinion: Other than this whole movie and the kids powers reminding me of the Care Bears, this movie wasn’t half bad. It was only one quarter bad. I recommend this over all other movies in the first 4 of the series.

Interesting Notes:

• This is the first movie where Freddy got some “cheezy” lines, making his kills more humorous - and Robert Englund was given chances to improv in almost every kill scene.
• This movie sports a claymation Freddy! Go claymation, go!
• The origional VHS version of this movie sports a pre-show music video! In all of it’s hardcore 80’s video glory! Some scenes of the movie are very comically spliced in. I loved it.
• This movie was Banned twice in Sweden (running time 93 and 92 min). Finally passed at 90 min in 1988.

Fun Quotes!

• “Welcome to Prime Time, Bitch!” - Freddy’s first Improv line, spoken just before shoving a girl’s head into a television. The original line was (sadly) “You’re on TV now, girl!”
• “Let’s go kick the motherfuckers ass all over dreamland!” - This is just too funny.
• “I said, ‘Where’s the fucking bourbon?’” - Looks like Freddy’s turning into a heavy drinker. I hope he doesn’t get more messed up than he already is.

Lead roles:

Heather Langenkamp - Nancy Thompson
Craig Wasson - Dr. Neil Gordan
Patricia Arquette - Kristen Parker
Robert Englund - Freddy Krueger
Ken Sagoes - Roland Kincaid
Rodney Eastman - Joey Crusel
Jennifer Rubin (I) - Taryn White
Bradley Gregg - Phillip Anderson
Ira Heiden - Will Stanton
Laurence Fishburne - Max
Penelope Sudrow - Jennifer Caulfield
John Saxon - Donald Thompson
Priscilla Pointer - Dr. Elizabeth Simms
Clayton Landey - Lorenzo
Brooke Bundy - Elaine Parker

Tagline: Sleep. Those little slices of death. How I loathe them. - Edgar Allen Poe

IMDb Link: A Nightmare on Elm Street Part Two: Freddy’s Revenge
Year: 1985
Directed by: Jack Sholder
Writing credits: David Chaskin

Weasel Rating: {—-} (Dear God No)

Please note that this review is laden with spoilers.

Freddy Injury Count: Freddy himself doesn’t appear in this movie. He does, in some wavy dream-like-image, but throughout the movie he is puppeteering a regular person to kill others. On screen he appears to burst out of the skin of the poor kid, but it seems to be all in his head as everyone else just sees the kid with Freddy’s glove on. Freddy does manage to tear off his own scalp in his tiny amount of screen time, as well as getting hit on the head with a tablecloth (dear god!) and a lamp, kicked in the head, and burned alive.

Body count: 10! Freddy is stepping up in the world. He has a while to go until he reaches Jason’s skill level though.

Plot Outline: Freddy comes “back to life” with no explanation from the last movie (he is considered a constant in the movie world, I suppose) and proceeds to have more limited abilities and somehow more strange powers than last time around. He appears to have gained the ability to posess a young boy and make him go kill people randomly. The other movies surrounding this (A nightmare on Elm Street 1, 3, and 4) all have a killing theme - children that lived, or who’s ancestors lived, on Elm street. In this movie, however, “Freddy” goes ahead and kills all willy-nilly like his contract was about to expire.

I’m trying really hard to think of any other plot, but really, that’s about it.

Freddy is eventually killed by some girl that loves the boy he’s posessing. She says “I love you Jesse” about 5 times, which (somehow) mortally wounds Freddy and makes him bleed out of every possible orifice (and some new ones). Eventually Freddy melts away revealing the poor posessed young boy. Huzzah!

My Opinion: I am suprised they decided to make some sequels after this. Wes Craven is surely rolling over in his grave. This movie is a disgrace to the Freddy name - not only that, but it doesn’t have a place in the series. One could (and should) watch every movie in this series without seeing this one at all. It is a waste of time, and a waste of money.

Some movies are bad, and that makes them funny. Not this one. It is so on the verge of bad baddedness that noone could laugh at this bad. Unless you are drunk.

Heck, Freddy doesn’t even have his classic “cheezy” lines in this movie.

Do not see this movie. It will shave 2 hours off your life.

Interesting Notes:

• Wes Craven had nothing to do with this movie.
• The original glove from A Nightmare on Elm Street was stolen during filming. A new glove was made for the sequels… However, in 1986 (a year or more after filming this movie), Freddy’s origional glove appears in The Evil Dead. Hmm, who could’ve stolen it?
• Planning on watching this in Germany? It seems the censors cut out almost every special effect and gore scene, thereby rendering the movie a horrible horrible pile of horridness. It was bad enough as it was, because of the plot, but now they’ve gone and taken away all the other entertaining bits. People in Germany should pay to not see this movie.
• The begining of this movie, a bus being taken over by Freddy, was origionally intended to be the ending of the first movie.
• There is a certain scene where a woman is doing dishes. A bolt of lightning shoots through her window and strikes her pile of clean dishes, but the woman merely jumps a little bit and goes on washing. !!!!
• YET! in the next scene, the same woman’s toaster starts going crazy and hopping around… the woman is absolutely HORRIFIED and backs into the corner screaming! WHO IS THIS WOMAN!?

Fun Quotes!

• “Shh! The bird is sleeping!” - Little boy talking about his pet parrot, just before it takes off and wildly flaps around the room and spontaneously combusts for no reason whatsoever. I’m telling you, this movie makes no sense.

Lead roles:

Mark Patton - Jesse Walsh
Kim Myers (I) - Lisa Webber
Robert Rusler - Ron Grady
Clu Gulager - Ken Walsh
Hope Lange - Cheryl Walsh
Marshall Bell - Coach Schneider
Melinda O. Fee - Mrs. Webber
Tom McFadden (I) - Mr. Webber
Sydney Walsh - Kerry
Robert Englund - Freddy Krueger
Edward Blackoff - Biology Teacher
Christie Clark - Angela Walsh
Lyman Ward - Mr. Grady
Donna Bruce - Mrs. Grady
Hart Sprager - Teacher

Tagline: He’s back, but he’s not happy. (Fire the guy who wrote this!)

IMDB Link: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Year: 1984
Directed by: Wes Craven
Writing credits: Wes Craven

Weasel Rating: {>>>>} (woop! there it is!)

Please note that this review is laden with spoilers, and I won’t be using the spoiler tags!

Freddy Injury Count: As Freddy is a supernatural being only existing in the dream world, some of his injuries are self-inflicted and of no consequence. For instance, Freddy cuts off his own finger, has his face ripped off, and cut open his own chest. After being brought into the real world, he is struck on the head with a vase, sledge-hammered in the chest, fell down some stairs, was set alight and in the midst of an explosion, burned a bit more, had a door slammed in his face, fell down more stairs, and hit with a chair. He was finally done in because the girl he was tormenting stopped beleiving in him, and he faded out in a dazzle of special effects.

Body count: Suprsingly, a mere 4. Freddy did, however, kill 20 children before the movie took place.

Plot Outline: A bunch of kids on Elm Street start sharing a recurring nightmare, and end up being hunted in their sleep! Only one person can figure out how to defeat freddy, and does.

Freddy, long ago when he was alive, was a brutal serial-child-killer, and killed 20 kids before he was caught by police. But on a paperwork error, there was a mistrial, and Freddy was set free. The disgruntled parents of Elm Street banded together and tracked Mr. Kreuger down to his school-boiler-room hideout, and burned him alive in the boiler.

Now, 10 years later, Freddy is back on his anniversary of death and is haunting the kids of Elm street once again.

My opinion: The special effects are pretty amazing considering the 1984 timeframe, and the acting isn’t half bad. After all, this does star Johnny Depp! I would say everyone should watch this if they are a fan of the genre, just to pay homage to one of the founding fathers of modern horror.

Interesting Notes:

• “Fred Kreuger” is never referred to as “Freddy” in this movie, except for the song the kids sing (”One, two, Freddy’s coming for you”)! It’s strange seeing people go “AAAUGH IT’S FRED”
• There is a torn poster of The Evil Dead in this movie, and it is also the movie that the main character watches to try to stay awake.
• Jason’s mask can be seen in this movie.
• The inept police officer in this film goes on to later stardom in Wes Craven’s Scream as the boss of inept Deputy Dewey.
• Hot on the heels of Friday the 13th (1980), Wes Craven had Nightmare’s script ready in 1981. It wasn’t picked up until 1984 by New Line Cinema - Their first real movie. Before this time, New Line was simply a movie distributor for college campuses.
• Freddy’s glove was used in Evil Dead II (1986).
• Wes Craven wrote Freddy’s part to be a “silent serial killer” type, much like Jason is. It isn’t until the later movies that he gets his great lines.
• Freddy’s famous red-and-green sweater had (only in this movie) solid-red sleeves.
• Oddly enough, there is a payphone in the “STUDENTS NOT ALLOWED” boiler-room area of the school. Oh…. kaaaay….

Fun Quotes!

• “Up yours with a twirling lawn mower!” - Victim (Now my insult of choice.)
• “I’m your girlfriend now, Nancy.” - Fred

Lead roles:

John Saxon - Lieutenant Donald Thompson
Ronee Blakley - Marge Thompson
Heather Langenkamp - Nancy Thompson
Amanda Wyss - Tina Gray
Jsu Garcia - Rod Lane
Johnny Depp - Glen Lantz
Charles Fleischer - Dr. King
Joseph Whipp - Sergeant Parker
Robert Englund - Fred Krueger
Lin Shaye - Teacher
Joe Unger - Sergeant Garcia
Mimi Craven - Nurse
Jack Shea (II) - Minister
Ed Call - Mr. Lantz
Sandy Lipton - Mrs. Lantz