Nightmare Nights V - The Rebirth

 This was a fresh look at "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child" (1989), and while I do find a few scenes and character elements I like, this 80s slasher Freddy sequel before the 1991 sixth film was supposed to finally finish the burned face bastard son of 100 maniacs for good just never really has done much for me. I recognize the extreme difficulty Director Stephen Hopkins struggled with because of New Line's Robert Shaye's obsessive quest to get these films out as soon as possible. The strain Shaye put young directors under, between filming so many elaborate, complex, creative nightmare sequences and getting them edited, not to mention, the stage of editing that had to have been just murder under the pressing time constraints and conditions; it is impressive that Hopkins squeezed out anything remotely coherent and interesting.

All that said, this just wasn't for me. I do think the theme on protecting your child and the threat against the baby will resonate and hit home with some viewers. And Freddy was known for preying on children and killing them so the perspective of Alice's struggle will also land for some viewers. I think despite the comic book Super Freddy shtick and Freddy on a skateboard slicing through a warehouse, force-feeding an anorexic her own guts and speaking through a motorcycle's wiring to Dan (who has been fused into the ride) about dreaming and driving that maybe the angle of Alice trying to protect her baby Jacob against Fred, using his dreams while developing in the womb will still be taken somewhat seriously. It's just hard for me to swim through the shit to find the little treasures.

Wilcox is probably the saving grace of this film for me. I think she's very good in this film, perhaps even better than the previous sequel, even though I prefer "The Dream Master" (1988) in terms of the fun factor. "The Dream Child" does allow Alice to grow as a character and Wilcox gets that point across in terms of a soon-to-be mommy going full Mama Bear, while her claims about Freddy fall on deaf ears, especially Yvonne (Kelly Jo Minter), who has an obviously hard time taking a dream killer seriously. Yet no matter how everyone else might respond to her supposed hysteria, Alice won't let their unbelief and skepticism deter her from going right for Freddy. And Jacob appears to her as Whit Hertford, a boy being manipulated by Freddy even while Alice is awake. So even if she has Kristen's powers, they are null and void when Krueger is using her unborn baby as a conduit to get to her friends. Wilcox has good scenes, such as when Dan's parents, quite grief-stricken, talk about adopting her baby, dealing with fear for her baby, the sonogram visit, her fierce approach towards conquering Freddy, and the love for Dan. I think what's unfortunate, though, is that Alice never gets to truly grieve because the film moves so fast without taking a breath or letting the film breathe at all.

Where the film loses me is in how Freddy once again emerges, this time as a baby growing in the discarded wardrobe inside the decaying nightmare cathedral. Birthed from Amanda (at first Alice is her) and crawling into the cathedral, soon the structure is under attack and Freddy resurrects. There is a powerful visual of Alice as Amanda in the damned asylum, in nun garb and habit, with Englund absent make-up among the 100 maniacs. Another has Freddy pressed by the mass of maniacs against the asylum wall and pulled apart. There is the nightmare labyrinth of disheveled stairs, a topsy-turvy setpiece where Alice coordinates Jacob's escape from Freddy. What threw me for a loop was Alice and Freddy "separating", a bizarre make-up effects pull-apart that bends the burn latex. 

Hopkins takes the nightmare aesthetically darker. Lots of steam, dirty water, chains, rusty doors, grimy corridors, and grinding metal. Freddy is still a bit too corny and his make-up rubbery...when Englund is scarier out of the make-up as a lunatic from the asylum than as Freddy, something has clearly gone wrong.

When Yvonne locates Amanda and she rejoins with Freddy to hold him at bay, a reinforced dream door concealing him, it makes me feel as deflated as his resurrection. But, the first four films were a fun ride so at some point I was expecting the thrill to go. I reckon that was how audiences probably felt in 1989. The ride was quite exhilarating and all of that imagination and ingenuity in the storytelling left a residue still activating fans 30 so years later. I will say that this franchise is very attached to the decade, and the next film couldn't sever that umbilical cord. I don't personally mind that myself as this decade meant a lot to me, but if you consider a franchise needing to be timeless and less tethered to a specific era the Freddy films suffer from remaining very much that. They are very much of their time.

So I appreciate this for Wilcox and like that unlike Dan she is a survivor.