User:CarltheToonMan42/sandbox/A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

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{{DISPLAYTITLE: A Nightmare on El. Street 4: The Dream Master]]

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
"Now I lay me down to sleep The Master of Dreams, my soul will keep..." — The Dream Master poem
Genre: Horror Slasher Directed by: Renny Harlin Produced by: Robert Shaye Rachel Talalay Written by: William Kotzwinkle Brian Helgeland Starring: Robert Englund Lisa Wilcox Danny Hassel Tuesday Knight Rodney Eastman Ken Sagoes Andras Jones Brooke Theiss Toy Newkirk Cinematography: Steven Fierberg Editing: Michael N. Knue Chuck Weiss Music by: Craig Safan Production company: New Line Cinema Heron Communication Smart Egg Productions Distributed by: New Line Cinema Release date: August 19, 1988 Runtime: 93 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $6.5 million (USD) Box office: $49.4 million (USD) Franchise: A Nightmare on Elm Street Prequel: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors Sequel: A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a 1988 horror movie directed by Renny Harlin, and the fourth in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Despite its mixed reviews from critics, it is considered a fan-favorite movie in the series alongside its predecessor.

Good Qualities

1. The movie, just like its predecessor, provides just the right balance between horror and comedy, as while it is much darker than the next two films, it still has several comedic moments, such as Alice's daydream of seeing her older brother Rick faking his death and the "soul pizza" scene.
2. Excellent soundtrack, including Tuesday Knight's "Running From This Nightmare" (the very first song in the movie), Vinnie Vincent Invasion's "Love Kills", Dramarama's "Anything, Anything" (which is Rick's de facto theme), Go West's "Don't Be Afraid of Your Dreams" (played at the tail end of the movie), and "Are You Ready for Freddy?" (a rap by The Fat Boys that features Robert Englund playing Freddy himself).
3. Kristen, Joey, and Kincaid all return from the previous movie and are still their usual likable selves, while the movie also introduces many new characters who are just as good as the returnees, including Alice Johnson (the protagonist for this movie and the next one, her older brother Rick (who is also Kristen's boyfriend), Sheila Kopecky, Dan Jordan (Alice's boyfriend), and Debbie Stevens.
4. The way Freddy kills the victims in this movie are creative, such as Kincaid being surrounded by automobiles while yelling "FREDDY'S BACK!!!" to Kristin, Debbie being turned into a cockroach and squashed in a roach motel while Alice and Dan are stuck in a time loop, and Rick fighting an invisible Freddy in a dojo after exiting an elevator (despite being cheap-looking and somewhat corny).
5. The ending is heartwarming and epic: upon completing the "Master of Dreams" poems, Alice shows Freddy his own reflection and releases the souls of his victims from all of the movies. This has an air of finality, and would have been a decent way to end the franchise had it not continued.
6. Many quotable moments, as is to be expected for a fan-favorite film in a series of them, including:
   • "Welcome to Wonderland, Alice!"
   • "F---in' A."
   • "Heeeey, baaaaby! They think I'm dead!"
   • "I had a conflict...homework or Dynasty. And Dynasty won.
   • "You wanna suck face?" (Freddy to Sheila before he kills her. This scene is parodied in the Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror VI's segment "Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace")

Bad Qualities

1. After Kristen is killed, Freddy now kills people just for the hell of it, starting with Sheila. While this isn't too bad, it defeats Freddy's purpose and will later reduce him to what he is in the next two movies.
2. The movie has a lot of plot holes in it, which may have been due to the rushed production.
3. As before stated, while Rick's death is creative, it still looks cheap by today's standards. The reason for this is because the filmmakers used up their entire budget when they were ready to film his original death scene (where Rick's elevator got stuck and later crashed, then Rick would fall into an endless abyss), so they had to think of something else to do that was cheaper.

Reception

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 received largely mixed reviews from critics (scoring 56/100 on Metacritic), but more positive reception from viewers and the franchise's fan base (scoring 7.0/10), though not to the same extent as Dream Warriors.

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