A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD (1989)

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD (1989)

Tagline: Freddy delivers.

(Horror, Nightmares, Kids With Crazy Faces) [R]

Why don't you shut up and let her talk? I mean two of us have died in the past two days. Does that just strike you as particularly normal?

After surviving Freddy, Alice has moved on with her boyfriend Dan. She has a new set of friends in the headstrong Yvonne, the starlet Greta, and the comic artist Mark. However, when Freddy begins to show up again, Yvonne rides her off. Dan gets in an accident and Alice finds out she’s pregnant. Not long after Yvonne sees the truth and now it’s up to Alice, Yvonne, and a few unlikely allies to take down Freddy and save Alice’s son, once and for all.

First off, this one has a markedly darker tone than the previous installment. I am not sure if that is why it fell flat for most people, but that certainly could have been part of it. We kind of get a new final girl in this movie, but the plot is still almost completely based around Alice. As far as her new set of friends, Yvonne is a cool character, but I couldn’t stand Greta or Mark. Alice seems weaker in this movie for the most part, but Lisa Wilcox rounded into the role much better this time around. The character is also written as far less flakey which helped a lot.

As far as the good stuff, there are some pretty cool visuals. The comic book scene with Mark was pretty cool. The opening “dream and drive” scene with Danny is crazy. I did like some of the concepts and the effects were largely practical, so props for that. I also loved that it had a strong pro-life message, but I can only guess that some people were turned off by that.

When it comes to acting, again this is a stronger outing for Lisa Wilcox (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER). Danny Hassel is solid as Dan. I think he might have been just a little better in the last installment. Erika Anderson (OCTOBER 22ND) is decent as Greta, but she definitely comes across as a throwaway character. This was only her second project at the time. She continued acting until 2000. Kelly Jo Minter (POPCORN) was good as Yvonne, but they almost pushed her confrontations with Mark and Alice to the point of making her an unlikable character. Robert Englund as always stole the show as Freddy Kruger. He does have some one-liners in this, but it’s not nearly as cheese as THE DREAM MASTER. Then rounding out the main cast we have Joe Seely as Mark. To be honest, this movie could have done without him. If you are going to put him in this, at the very least make him likable. If they had written the character more on the Will level from DREAM WARRIORS, then we would have been on to something.

As far as what went wrong here, I think the storyline was just kind of a grasping-at-straws move. The soundtrack overall was the weakest yet. The Amanda Kruger storyline seemed to be almost retconned. I don’t recall them ever saying she was part of some religious cult in the other films. In this movie, they straight up just say that. In my personal opinion, it’s fine, but I thought the line was completely out of left field. The concepts we just okay. I think this is the second film in the series where the ideas were just kind of starting to dry up. Clearly, they weren’t done yet, but I think fans really wanted to get back to the look and feel of DREAM WARRIORS. Me, I am one of those fans.

Overall this one has its moments but never reaches what it could have been if they had gone in a different direction. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD gets a 3 out of 7. A few minor changes to the script would have bumped it up to a 4. There are also too many scenes where it just looks like Jim Heson's workshop exploded.