Friday, November 01, 2013

A Nightmare On Elm Street Week Day Five : The Dream Master

Welcome to day five of A Nightmare on Elm Street week. A week where I am on a mission to watch all of the Nightmare on Elm Street films for the first time in over twenty years.

I'm getting though these films well. Today's movie is the fourth installment of the franchise - The Dream Master.

In today's post, and for the remaining movies, I'll be going back to doing what I've done for the first two movies and write some thoughts before re-watching the film. I will then return with a follow-up upon the movie finishing.

Pre-thoughts

I returned to Germany in the summer of 1988 and one of the hopes I had was to go and see A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 in the cinema.

Unfortunately, the film wasn't released during my stay.

I bought an issue of Fangoria horror magazine to read on the plane home. In it was a feature on the movie so that didn't help with my annoyance that I couldn't go to see it in the cinema.

If I recall correctly, Freddy was on the cover of that magazine. He had a child's arm coming out of the top of his head, I think.

I didn't get to see A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 for quite a while afterwards. I remember this because - in the summer of 1989 - I went on holiday to Malta and was desperately trying to get my father to buy a pirate copy of it in the shops and markets that sold ripped-off videos throughout the island.

To cut a long story short - I had a choice to make and I ended up getting Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade.

It must have been somewhere in late 1989 or 1990 when I did get to see Nightmare 4.

As I sit here, the only things I can recall from it are three of the deaths. I know Kincaid and Joey from the third film are in it and they die early on (Joey falls for a woman only for it to be Freddy. You'd have thought this guy learned his lesson from Dream Warriors!).

I seem to recall there is a different actress playing the role of Kristen.

Oh, and I also remember Freddy kills a girl after she falls asleep while taking an exam at school. She suffers from asthma and that is played into her death.

That's all I can remember.

After thoughts

Just like with the other films, there were scenes that I remembered vividly. This time, however, there were moments that I had totally forgotten.

Incredibly, I hadn't remembered how Freddy is killed off at the end. This is surprising considering I can still remember the front cover of that issue of Fangoria I mentioned earlier in the post.

The end sees the souls of Freddy's victims leave his body. So, the hands, arms and faces tear away and release themselves.

As for the film itself? It was a fall from the third film. I probably felt the same when I was younger as it was around the time where things started to cool off and I started to develop interests in other movies.

It did have a few inventive kills, but these were not as clever as the ones that occur in Nightmare 3.

What Nightmare on Elm Street 4 does have that makes it stand out from the others I have seen is the great soundtrack. I popped big when 'Anything, Anything' by Dramarama was played.

The song has been a personal favourite of mine for quite a few years. I knew that it was used in this movie but had forgotten all about it until today.

That's a positive, right?

Check back tomorrow where I'll be re-watching A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 : The Dream Child.

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