Rating of
3/4
Review - The Dream Master (1988)
Delorted - wrote on 03/25/08
After Kristen Parker (Tuesday Knight) and her friends are killed by the newly resurrected Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox) unwillingly begins aiding Krueger in more killings. Now she must find the power to stand up to the evil spirit and put him to rest in “A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.”
I don't get this series. The quality from one to the next, as well as the mood, is so vastly different that the only things keeping them together are the characters and the basic premise. After the terrible “Dream Warriors,” I was really expecting “The Dream Master” to be a nightmare (no pun intended), but it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable flick. I hate that it took them four movies to find what worked best, but I'm glad that they found it.
The story is a little sloppy and the facts are far from sensible, but the deaths are done in a much more pleasing way than “Dream Warriors” and Freddy is a lot more entertaining. The music of the series is getting repetitive and more and more pop-oriented, but at least it didn't have the CASIO sound of “Dream Warriors.”
As I said, some of it is a bit off-key, particularly the fact that there is no explanation for why Freddy came back. I guess it doesn't matter since the rest of the movie was so pleasing, but it would have been nice of them to at least come up with a logical reason for making it. The ending, however, is the best of the series so far. It doesn't end in the generic way the rest do, which is good, and really helps you feel less annoyed afterwards.
“The Dream Master” can be thoroughly enjoyed by any fan of the series. I would suggest just skipping “Dream Warriors” and going right on to this if characters didn't come back.
Acting: 7/10
Writing: 7/10
Video/Editing: 8/10
Audio/Music: 7/10
Entertainment: 9/10
Final Score: 7.6/10
