A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) review

(3/10)

   This is perhaps the strangest and weirdest addition to the famous horror franchise. A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is a mix of hit-and-miss performances, terrible effects, and a weird, overly-cheesy tone. It was as if the filmmakers decided to make a fan film rather than an actual installment.

PLOT: Alice (Lisa Wilcox) has been living her life peacefully with a loving boyfriend, Dan (Danny Hassel), and also has a baby on the way. Until recently, notorious nightmare-killer, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) had been destroyed and cut off from the real world. However, Krueger eventually finds a new way, using her baby's dreams to access the real world and kill more teenagers. Even worse, Krueger is "feeding" these souls to Alice's baby in the womb, brainwashing him to be Krueger's apprentice. Krueger has a more obvious weak spot this time, as he's afraid of his mother, Sister Amanda Krueger (Beatrice Boepple), who appears in the nightmares as well. Sister Krueger wants to capture her son back and keep him from killing anyone else. Somehow, Alice has to get Krueger away from her kid and quite possibly in the hands of Sister Krueger. The plot in itself is preposterous and executed in an illegible, illogical (at least in terms of the series) way. I'm starting to think the series should have ended with the previous installment. Because of this execution, nothing can even be taken seriously, for one would just laugh and queston how any of this makes any sense at all.

ACTING: The performances in this strange installment were mainly hit-and-miss, with Englund and Wilcox being the lead performances. They both did decent job, but in truth, all performances were rather messed up due to an awkward, unfunny script. Most people laughed at Krueger's cheesy kill jokes in the previous movies; however, the script is so bad in this addition that Krueger's lines couldn't even inspire a chuckle. A couple of other performances were decent, including Nick Mele as Dennis Johnson and Danny Hassel as Dan. They weren't exceptional, but definitely tolerable.

SCORE: The score in this one is way over-dramatic and unnecessary. It makes the movie feel like it's taking itself way too serious.

EFFECTS: The special effects in this movie, for the most part, were complete garbage. Everything looked goofy, fake, and just plain embarrassing for any horror movie in general to have. The only effects that were fairly decent would be the few claymation and digital effects. They were cool, but buried beneath the stinking heap of effects preceded by them. If you laugh at anything in this movie, laugh at how bad the effects are.

OTHER CONTENT: Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is just a strange, unnecessary installment to a franchise that would have been better left alone. Everything feels weird, preposterous, and exhausted, as no variety is added to the franchise. If Krueger even fails to satisfy, the movie shouldn't have existed. The only emotions one could leave this movie with are embarrassment and confusion, for that's what this attempt at a horror movie is: a confusing embarrassment.

   A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child should not exist. There was no reason to make the movie except the possibility of making money off of trash. Terrible script, goofy special effects, and a preposterous plot pull this movie down to the bottom of the barrel. I suggest if anyone's a Freddy fan, skip this installment. None of it is even necessary.