And it was the end (sort of) of an era. Past the 80s into 1991, the bloom was already off the rose and the comic touches that brought child killer Freddy Krueger popularity most assuredly turned him into a cartoon and wrung all the menace that once made him such a bonafide creep that made your skin crawl. I guess somehow Robert Shaye and Rachel Talalay thought the reason behind the fifth film's lack of success wasn't because of access humor but that Fred needed to totally be a comedian nourished by more setpieces that again killed teens (and erase them from existence) except this go-around none of them leave any real impact or terror.
|
Yaphet Kotto, bringing some cred to this |
|
Freddy's daughter, Lisa Zane |
|
He once shredded a victim up a wall |
|
Family |
|
Ugh, power glove |
|
Dream demons |
|
Fresh meat for Fred |
|
John Doe learns he's not Fred's boy |
|
Fred, the cartoon |
Can't help but think of broken promises much like "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" (1984) with "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" (1991). How could a franchise that started off so well come to this kind of conclusion? Freddy playing a video game with a controller and power glove as Breckin Meyer's stoner ping-pongs about the ole Elm Street house complete with cartoon sound effects, or Freddy as the Old Wicked Witch of the West on broomstick flying as Shon Greenblat is carried into the sky inside a house or Freddy using his glove knives for scratching down a chalkboard he unfolds so Ricky Dean Logan's head explodes thanks to a monstrous hearing aid; the setpieces no longer emphasized Freddy as a serious creature to strike fear and really cause nightmares. He was a shell of his former self.
Zane, as a clinic psychiatrist for disregarded and discarded youth, as his daughter is revealed, with Kotto her fellow psychologist, studying dream theory as a means for learning about trauma, helps her discover the weaknesses of Freddy, including legitimately pulling him out of his supernatural world into the land of the living. Lezlie Dean as the recovering abuse victim equipping herself with defense martial arts training actually surviving the film surprised me...despite Fred using her hideous Dad as a tool to provoke, she combats it and uses burners on a stove to awaken herself. And Kotto rips sweater fabric away from Fred when his timer goes off awakening him. And Zane literally jerks Fred away from his playground. The film really does overexplain everything. The kids who mocked Fred, the dad (Alice Cooper) beating him with a belt, the wife finding out about his killing extracurricular activities, and the parents tossing Molotov cocktails into a room as the dream demons offer him quite an opportunity suited to his deviance.
But I'll use a separate post to tell of how this film, the worst of the franchise, did inspire my eventual love for the Nightmare films.
I dropped a separate user comments as an Archive post last December.
Comments
Post a Comment