Dream monster Freddy Krueger has finally killed all the children of his hometown, and seeks to escape its confines to hunt fresh prey.
As the title suggests, this film was supposed to be Freddy’s bow out (Although we know it wasn’t). The film may have had many famous cameos but it’s easily one of, if not the worst Freddy film.
By now audiences had grew very tired of this series, you cant blame them really. With “A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child” being the lowest grossing film of the franchise New Line decided it was time to put Freddy to rest. They tried to make him go out with a bang, it was more like a pop, by the time they decided to end the franchise the audience just weren’t bothered anymore and it seemed like the studio had no interest either.
As I said earlier, the film had a-lot of star studded cameos. We have Alice Cooper playing Freddy’s father, we see Johnny Depp pop up once again, we see Robert Shaye selling bus tickets and we also see Roseanne and Tom Arnold. To be honest the cameos don’t do the film any favours, out of all of them I personally feel like Alice Cooper was the best, playing the drunk & abusive father.
The acting in this film is plain simply awful, only Robert Englund who is a consistently great actor seems to be the saving grace of the film. He appears to be lavishing the role, most possibly trying to enjoy what he thought would be his last appearance as Freddy but even the Freddy character is too much like an evil jester in this film, which really is a shame, he went from being a dark and scary child killer out for revenge to a highly comical character that left the scares for laughs.
One thing that the studio used to grab the audiences attention was the 3D gimmick, they hoped that this gimmick would put more bums on seats in theaters and it worked, problem is the 3D effects are awful, alongside the great practical effects used in the film it just looks so out of place, but the gimmick worked profit wise.
This is a film that shouldn’t have been made, the script is awful, the story is awful (Freddy has a daughter that were only just finding out about?!) and the acting is horiffic! Even worse is the fact we know this won’t be the final Freddy film.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
- On 12 September 1991 a day before the U.S. release of the movie, Los Angeles declared it Freddy Krueger Day.
- Peter Jackson was originally hired to write the screenplay for this film. He wrote a draft, but it wasn’t used.
- Breckin Meyer’s first theatrical role.
- When shown theatrically audience members were given one pair of red cardboard 3-D glasses with movie taglines printed on it. The inside arms had adhesives for attaching to standard glasses. There was also an advertisement for House Party 2 printed on the outside of one arm.
- When released to home video the 3D sequence was shown in standard format, excluding the UK rental version. However, the Laserdisc version had the full 3D sequence along with the regular version. 2 pairs of 3D glasses were included with the disc. The glasses were similar to the ones given out in theaters, minus the adverts, adhesives and taglines. They were also printed on a thinner cardstock. This was the only way to view the 3D sequence prior to the DVD release in the US.
- A 16-year-old Jacob Johnson, the son that was born to Alice Johnson in the previous installment, A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, was a major character in the original script written for the movie by Michael Almereyda. In this first draft of the film, Alice, now in her thirties, was killed by Freddy. Taryn, Joey, and Kincaid from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors also returned as the “Dream Police.” In the script, Taryn was the “Blade Cop,” Joey was the “Sound Cop,” and Kincaid was the “Power Cop.” Director Rachel Talalay has stated that she greatly disliked original script and that the replacement script by Michael De Luca “saved the day.” De Luca also said that he was surprised he wasn’t asked to write the screenplay in the first place, since he had done a similar last-minute rewrite on ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street: The Dream Child’.
- Rachel Talalay is the only female to direct a film in the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
- Said to take place “10 years from now”. The official NOES website’s timeline opted for 1999 in place of 2001, despite the release date of the film in 1991, taking ten years from now to refer to the conclusion of A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child. This actually impacts the placement of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, since Freddy Krueger’s claw emerged from the portal to Hell at the end of that film to seize Jason’s hockey mask. This indicates that the defeat of Freddy in his film preceded the events of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
- “John Doe” comes to think he may be Freddy’s son. As noted earlier, this film takes place 10 years in the future circa 1999. The NOES official website’s time line notes that Freddy Krueger’s death at the hands of the Springwood parents took place in 1968 (based on the fact that in ‘The Dream Child’, Freddy’s mother is said to have died soon after Freddy’s trial). This film notes that Freddy’s child was taken away from him in 1966 (see the chalkboard scene at Springwood High School). Therefore, John Doe would have to be in his thirties to be Freddy’s son – which he obviously was not.
- During the scene at Springwood High School, several newspaper clippings and other references to Freddy victims appear. Also, written on the chalkboard is “1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki attempts fail”.
- This is the second movie in the series that Freddy drives a bus.
- Peter Jackson’s original screenplay for Freddy’s Dead saw Freddy aging and growing weak within the dream world. The teens of Springwood would have drug-fuelled slumber parties for kicks, and enter the dream world to beat him up.
- New Line’s first film in 3D.
- The highest opening weekend for the series until the release of Freddy vs. Jason 12 years later.
- The fourth highest grossing film in the series.
