Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
"Do you know the terror of he who falls asleep? To the very toes he is
terrified, because the ground gives way under him, And the dream
begins... " - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Welcome to prime time, bitch!" - Freddy Kreuger
With the box office disappointment of The Dream Child, Bob Shaye, producer of the series decided it was time to be done with Freddy. And everyone who'd been affiliated with the films agreed. The question was, since all the Elm Street kids are dead now, what would be the story? I mean, The Dream Child didn't have Elm Street kids, obviously, as they'd all been killed half-way through the fourth film, The Dream Master. However, The Dream Child was a continuation of Alice's story from the fourth film. The sixth film would not include any characters from the not well liked fifth film... except Freddy of course. So who could come up with an idea for this, the final Nightmare film? Enter Peter Jackson. Yes. That Peter Jackson. Now, at the time, Peter Jackson was known only for his first film, the low budget alien splatter film, Bad Taste. He had also just finished a perverted, violent Muppet-style movie called Meet the Feebles. Yep, not even Dead Alive had been made yet. However, those two first violent films, which Jackson also wrote, got him noticed by someone at New Line and he was asked to draft a script.
The first draft would have kept Alice and her son Jacob from the fifth film in it. It would have been set 17 years after The Dream Child and would have had Taryn, Joey, and Kincaid back from the third film. (Yes, still dead.) They would be the "dream police" trying to stop Freddy. My God, I am so happy they thought that was crap. Peter Jackson's idea for the sixth film (which was co-written by Danny Mulheron), which he called The Dream Lover, had Freddy as a decrepit old man in his dream world with no strength left. He's considered a joke to teenagers now and kids actually take sleeping pills in order to go to the dream world and beat up on Freddy. Well, Freddy eventually manages to kill one of these kids, which gives him just enough power to torment a cop that's now in a coma and trapped in Freddy's dream world. I so wish they'd gone with this script. It sounds very, very interesting and does sort of foreshadow the seventh film, Wes Craven's New Nightmare. However, New Line decided to go with a rather lame idea sort of turning the first draft's idea on it's head. This new draft was written by Mike DeLuca, writer of several episodes of the Freddy's Nightmares tv show.
The film is set 10 years after the fifth film. So apparently it's 1999, yet people use early 90s slang and the early 90s horrible fashion sense. Every child in Springwood (where Elm Street is) has been killed, but rumors are that one got away. Shon Greenblatt plays John Doe, so named because he has amnesia from the very beginning of the film when, after he's found on the side of the road unconscious, he wakes up in a home for troubled teens with only a newspaper clipping about a missing person. Working at this home is a woman named Maggie Burroughs, who helps the wayward teens. The other teens there include a stoner named Spencer (Breckin Meyer in his first film role), a teen with a hearing impairment named Carlos (Ricky Dean Logan), and a feisty angry girl named Tracy (Lezlie Dean). And of course there's the mysterious psychiatrist that runs the place who goes by Doc (Yaphet Kotto). Both Maggie and John Doe are having dreams about Springwood, so they decide to go there. When they get there they discover the other three teens have stowed away in the van too. And man, has Springwood gone crazy. There are no kids there, and the adults have all gone quite loony, talking to themselves, seeing things.... turning into Roseanne and Tom Arnold. (Yeah, not kidding. They are in this movie.)
Yep, and then things get really trippy. Really crazy. This movie is not horror in the least. It's full out comedy. And there's no gore either. I'd be comfortable letting a 12 year old see it, it's so tame. Not even any nudity! The body count? 3. Yes, you read that right. 3 people die in this movie. And two of them border on hilarious. One gets killed by getting high (and seeing an anti-drug commercial starring Johnny Depp, who was in the first film) and getting sucked into the TV only for Freddy to turn him into a video game character. (And Freddy is playing the game as the bad guys.) He even uses, get this, a Power Glove! And whammo, the film is dated really badly just right there! What's worse is after his friends get him out of video game land, his character is still asleep, so his real body is reacting as it would in the game doing high hops, getting punched in the chest repeatedly, punching through walls... It's just about the most ridiculous thing I've seen in a mainstream film. It's also one of the reasons the film is so hated by fans of the series. Frankly, I think it's both horrible and amusing at the same time.
Another death is done by Freddy changing the hearing aid of one of the teens so that the sound is amplified way louder. He plays with him by dropping pins from high above... then he scratches his glove's blades across a chalkboard... which causes the teen's head to explode. Yes, the Nightmare films had officially jumped the shark. However, New Line was playing this right in my opinion. When I was in kindergarten, we knew who Freddy Kreuger was despite most of us never having seen a film. He was the ugly guy with the cool glove. And he was funny. We even played Freddy Kreuger during recess. And I think New Line was trying to cater to teens and younger despite the R rating. As I said, there's little blood here, it's really wacky, there's no sex or nudity... I think the worst you get is some pot smoking and probably a few F bombs. In fact, even though I didn't know it at the time, the first scene of a Nightmare on Elm Street film I saw was from this one. (Actually it was the one really serious scene in the film where Freddy is disguised as the father of a teen that sexually abused her and she repeatedly hits him in the head with a toaster... Which you never see impact because as I said, little violence here.) Apparently director Rachel Talalay had been watching a lot of Twin Peaks at the time and she got her ideas for the Springwood portion of the film from that. I didn't notice, because I've never been a fan of Twin Peaks and I'm not sure her idea came out well either.
The best part of this film is of course the nightmare sequences. John Doe's nightmares in this film are quite funny too. Freddy makes his house fall from the sky with John in it, forcing him to jump out. And it's a recurring dream so he has to do it at least twice during the film. Freddy even appears outside the window on a broomstick pretending to be the Wicked Witch at one point. (Told you the film doesn't take itself seriously!) There's of course the two death scenes mentioned earlier. And then there's the last ten minutes of the film. When the film first came out, those last 10 minutes were in 3D. They take place in Freddy's world as Maggie delves into Freddy's memories. (In this portion we see Alice Cooper as Freddy's abusive father and Freddy's death by fire at the hands of Elm Street parents.) This culminates in a feisty battle between a glove-less Freddy and Maggie. (He ends up getting blown up by a pipe bomb. Pretty weak ending.) The series' strong point has always been it's imagery though, and it's no different here. The special effects, though dated now, are quite cool to look at.
(Did I mention the makeup in this one is absolutely horrible?)
Anyway, despite the lesser box office of the fifth film in 1989, Freddy's Dead opened with almost $13 million on the first weekend of September 13, 1991, which was $2 million more than its budget! It was the best opening for a Elm Street film (until Freddy Vs. Jason 12 years later). It would go on to make almost $35 million at the domestic box office, making it the fourth highest grossing in the series (not including the remake). Despite the commercial success of the film, the film got the worst critical reviews of the series (again, not including the remake) stating that Freddy had become a joke. (Which apparently they were 4 years or so behind on noticing?) Yes, apparently Freddy's death was a success. The critics were glad he was gone, and the film was a financial success. But oh wait! Wes Craven's got a new idea!
