The Dream Child [SYFY edit]

 A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989), I keep giving it a chance, I admit. I keep hoping I will change my mind. Because there are people whose opinion I respect that like it. But I just think it falls apart by the end. How these souls pop out of Freddy's back, drawing towards Amanda Krueger, right after Freddy "freed" himself (or perhaps vice versa) from Alice. Or how the Jacob of the dreamworld is in burn makeup talking in Freddy speak, challenging him to "teach him". It's good to see Alice's dad is not a tool in this film, that he's given up booze and strives to be a decent human being. And Alice building in strength despite all the obstacles when it would seem to others she's losing her mind and could lose her child when he is born. I noticed many on Letterboxd were critical of the film's "pro life message". I never viewed the film as pro-life as much as Alice herself wanting to keep the baby because he would be of her and Dan, a memory of him. Obviously Dan's parents are worried about Alice, as Yvonne was, with the ravings about Freddy and using her baby's dreams to kill her friends. I just don't think this story fits a Freddy series. And I still feel the director, Hopkins, needed more time to "flesh" the film out more. I think these studio rush-jobs were seriously damaging to franchise sequels. Getting most of the films in the can considering the setpieces involved, many of them quite elaborate and effects-driven, just seemed to impact the effectiveness of what could have been. What we were left with are messes, and the productions behind them come off as often inept and disappointing. If just a little more time had been provided to shoring up the screenplays, sealing logic holes, and nailing down what might not work; the latter series films might have had a better chance. I'm just not sure a film about a "dream child" would have ever worked no matter how hard they tried, though.