The Dream Master [SYFY Edit]

 In a rather big surprise after watching A Nightmare on Elm Street IV: The Dream Master (1988), I asked my daughter--who I am introducing the Elm Street films to this month--which is her favorite of the two she watched so far, this or "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984), and she actually chose "The Dream Master". She told me she liked how the death scenes were in the fourth film and that "Freddy wasn't as scary" in it. I laughed out loud. Being a dad and horror fan, my passion for the genre either rubs off or not on my children. My son doesn't like horror at all but my daughter has taken to the genre. One day while working in my kitchen--I currently work from home due to the fucking pandemic--at my desk I could hear the score to "Halloween II" (1981) where Michael chases after a struggling Laurie after she escapes from a service elevator and out a window before Myers could catch her. Then passing by her room, the score to "Friday the 13th" or one of the sequels caught my ear. You can see when your kid gets that bug. She's got it. But who you are as a horror fan at 16 (nearly 17 in one month) isn't who you will be at 43. 

When I was probably ten I could remember hearing a noise from the living room. I was sleeping in the den and could hear "The Dream Master" in the living room at my grandmother's house around 1989. I was a curious kid and it was the closing setpiece involving Alice doing battle with Freddy. He wasn't scary to me. My stepbrother was recording it on a VHS tape for his collection. I had always heard from the schoolyard scuttlebutt that Freddy was really scary. But here he was more of a supervillain. So I took to the ending as Alice was flipping around pews, cracking Fred with kicks and punches while he laughed back, and standing up to him while he claimed this dream domain as all his. No matter what she threw at him, Fred wouldn't go down. Now a mirror reflection causing his demise is as asinine as any other "kill" that had temporarily vanquished him until the next sequel commissioned the character's return. But while kid me really didn't feel intimidated by Part 4's Fred Krueger, adult me realized that scary Freddy of the first and second film is most effective. So my 16 year old daughter telling me she liked the forth film's Freddy better (and she dug the kills, such as the infamous "cockroach" kill setpiece) isn't a surprise. I imagine she'll return to the series twenty years from now (hopefully, if America isn't a dystopian nightmare that even Fred would fear living in) and perhaps find the first three films far more substantial than "Fred, reawakened by dog piss fire and killed by his reflection in a mirror" sequel. While I admit that the fourth film has a soft spot with me--I watched this one a bunch of times as a teenager, and Alice remains a character I love from the series--but I also recognize it's quite silly even if Harlin put a lot of his creative energy and hard work into it as a starving director. 

***My daughter asked a lot of questions, such as what the deal was with the auto junkyard with Kincaid's death and we had a long conversation about waterbeds regarding Joey's death, haha. My daughter really was fascinated and captivated by Kristen's death and how the whole "dream master" concept worked.**