Pre-Natal Nightmares

 

Baby talk in Freddy film...I am always on record in loving Lisa Wilcox as Alice, but, as her two films suggest, she seems to be an acquired taste. I think I wish Wilcox's second of two films in the Nightmare franchise was better. I think Wilcox does what she can -- and did it well, to me -- with a film that has a final nightmare sequence that reminds me of how far any franchise can fall when the studio puts release date before making a fleshed-out, well-thought-out quality horror film. Jacob vomits souls into Fred and those very souls pull his baby self towards his discovered mother, Amanda...that alone tells you that somewhere along the way the convoluted means behind Fred's returns and "deaths" further sent the franchise on a downward spiral.

I watch A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989) every time, and that final nightmare setpiece where Freddy aims to use Alice's child to ... do something...I practically zone out. I guess the baby is Freddy's way back to killing a lot of teenagers and young adults while holding a place inside Alice. If Alice gives birth, Freddy, I think, can go after others through the use of Alice's boy, Jacob. That is what I was able to glean from the messy script/story. I have always felt that all those re-writes and Bob Shaye's pressure on Director Hopkins, the fucking MPAA bludgeoning the effects team's work, to get this done in like a month, was detrimental to the overall product put on screen. I figure I've offered this talking points over and over again on the blog. Multiple viewings every since I rented this or watched it on cable as a teen in the early 90s just haven't produced any different feelings than I still have today at nearly 44 years old. I feel dissatisfied, as if something was there trying to get out but just never could...as if the talent is there, Hopkins didn't seem to be a total failure, but what we get is just such a stockpile of bad murder sequences, weaker characters around Alice (except, Yvonne, played with conviction and realism by Kelly Jo Minter), the sidebar of baby drama which might trigger the abortion debate, and use of Amanda Krueger that I personally thought undermined what made her introduction and development as a type of specter in "Dream Warriors" so special. Even Freddy's "birth" and ability to kill Alice's friends through the use of her fetus (babies can dream and have nightmares we learn in this film) just never has really appealed to me. Now, in saying that, to each his or her (or they, if gender identity is important to you) own, because I have been (or have tried to be) cognizant of what others from different walks of life (and generations before and especially after me) might think about "The Dream Child". I have noticed that even when they admit that "The Dream Child" isn't any great shakes, they find some value in the film. I asked my daughter to just tell me what she liked about the film and she struggled to come up with much. Same, Steph, same.

I've noticed some praise for the nightmare aesthetic chosen by Hopkins, with praise for some of the makeup effects. To tell you the truth, even there I go back and forth on what is actually worthwhile when Alice keeps trying to figure out how to stop Fred and keep her baby safe, visiting her in the form of Whit Hertford.

Unlike Part 4, this film doesn't have the nostalgia card that can be pulled as an excuse for liking it. From the very first viewing of it, there just wasn't a whole lot that grabbed me back then in my past so even a sort of nudging towards liking it because it offered a strong memory while watching it doesn't exist. I can say that I always watch it in connection with Part 4 due to Alice and because I love Wilcox and her character is beloved by me. But while I could pop in my DVD copy of "The Dream Master" in the player right now and watch it easily, when my daughter was pushing me to watch "The Dream Child", I battled that hesitation ugh but relented. I think after this go-around, I'm done for a while. There are just only so many times you can go to the well and simply accept a particular film just doesn't have anything of real substance to draw. For me, that is...I've found enough evidence that Part 5 isn't without its fans. 

Alice has been the magnet towards the film at all. Even Englund, emerging as an inmate in a "memory" Alice is able to dream about (even sometimes in Amanda's place), as Freddy, doesn't really factor much at all as a lure towards the film. In fact, besides his popping out of water spitting some out like a water fountain in Yvonne's nightmare, and getting pulled apart by the 100 maniacs (mentioned in a previous "report" of the film during my "Nightmare Nights" series for the blog), Freddy's presence was becoming less of a draw. There were times -- Super Freddy in a comic book nightmare and dressed as a cook with "Bon appétit bitch" -- Freddy was even so cringe I had to try and replace how far the character had fallen even by Part 4 standards with where he is at in "The Dream Child".

I have a podcast YouTuber with a Freddy baby by his side and a big Dream Child poster behind him talking about horror films he loves. I appreciate his enthusiasm, and when he talks up "Dream Child", even as he acknowledges that it isn't particularly a quality picture, it does influence me to try and try again. But, at some point, I just have to move on. That is a great poster for the film, though. That is something the Nightmare franchise can claim above other franchises...those posters are killer.