A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

A tremendous step backwards from its appealing predecessor, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master follows Lisa Wilcox’s Alice Johnson as she attempts to prevent Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) from slaughtering all of her friends (including Andras Jones’ Rick and Brooke Theiss’ Debbie). It’s clear almost immediately that the Nightmare on Elm Street series has run out of steam with this hopelessly lackluster entry, as the film’s dearth of compelling elements ensures that the viewer is simply unable to work up any enthusiasm or interest in the protagonists’ ongoing efforts at defeating Freddy. The less-than-enthralling atmosphere is compounded by the assortment of bland characters offered up by screenwriters William Kotzwinkle and Brian Helgeland, while director Renny Harlin infuses the dream sequences, generally the highlight in these movies, with as routine and utterly tedious a sensibility as one could envision (and this is to say nothing of the filmmaker’s reliance on hopelessly dated stylistic elements). It’s consequently not surprising to note that although it remains relatively watchable from start to finish, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master marks an obvious low point within this incredibly uneven series.

*1/2 out of ****