Retrospective Film Review

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) • 35 Years Later

Freddy Krueger returns to haunt the dreams of the remaining Dream Warriors, as well as those of a young woman who may be able to defeat him for good.

New Line Cinema is the house that Freddy built. But Wes Craven built Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and the first sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), had no idea what to do with the property without him. Wes was kind enough to come back for the acclaimed A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) to show them how it’s done. Freddy’s formula was thus perfected, so all New Line had to do was colour within the lines to earn enough green to make sequel after sequel. Incoming director Renny Harlin uses every crayon in the pack to give us the MTV generation’s Nightmare on Elm Street.

Craven pitched an Elm Street 4 but producers Robert Shaye and Sara Risher turned it down, explaining “It was about time travel within dreams that broke all the rules of dreams. We decided to go with…