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

After the last two movies tried to class it up with Poe and Bible quotes, this entry has a purely perfunctory opening. Producer, director, Robert Englund, title, that’s all you need, right audience? We pump these out, you show up. Even the title font feels blah. I am also not a fan of non-sexy sex montages that are just random close-ups of backs and elbows, so this was not a promising start.

Things don’t improve from there with the first nightmare. I got a sinking feeling as I realized the movie starred my least favorite Elm Street protagonist (Alice returning from part 4) AND was inserting her into my least favorite part of Elm Street lore (the story of Freddy’s conception from part 3). I know Freddy was originally supposed to be a child molester, but they decided to just make him a child killer. Apparently, it was to avoid being seen as exploitative because of the whole Satanic Panic/day care child molestation hysteria in the 1980s. I guess they had no such concerns about adult sex crimes, because here Lisa relives the moments before Freddy’s mother is assaulted for days by a hundred men. It felt too dark in part 3, and after part 4 turned Freddy into a full-on cartoon character it feels an even worse fit for the series.

I guess it fits the tone of THIS movie a little more, as most of the movie is darker and more serious than the last entry. It’s a queasy concept, but that nastiness does at least make me uncomfortable or tense during those particular nightmares. The problem is when Freddy appears, he is still mostly the pun-happy goofball from the last movie, and all the other nightmares are still ridiculous themed kills. Director Stephen Hopkins seems an uncomfortable fit for the latter. Anything church/asylum related looks good, but the gothic fantasy imagery feels out of place in a series that has always been about terror in the suburbs. The other nightmares lack the energy and verve of part 4. I think Hopkins’ compositions are too “epic” for this material, and he doesn’t use a lot of the odd angles or camera moves, so the visual language of his dream sequences feel at odds with what we expect. I recently watched Predator 2, another Hopkins-helmed sequel, and his style worked a lot better in that action-based movie.

The standout sequence is Dan fusing with his motorcycle, but the amazing and gnarly effects work is undercut by CONSTANT Freddy riffing dubbed over it. I was 100% sure this biomechanical fusion was inspired by the Japanese cult film Tetsuo, the Iron Man. Then I looked up the dates and found out this was released just a month after Tetsuo’s small Japan-only premiere, so there is no way they could have seen it. Big props to whoever came up with this Tetsuo, the Ghost Rider sequence, I was already impressed when I thought you were just doing an imitation. Shame the editing/dubbing sabotaged your good work. The comic/animation nightmare is also a cool concept, but there are just too many shots that look silly or mess up the effects (color visible in “black and white” parts, shots where someone is just jostling/cutting some paper). After part 4 spent more time with Freddy and in dreams than ever before, this one spends too much time in reality and has far fewer set pieces or effects sequences.

The script is also noticeably weaker this time. How did Freddy start this resurrection process? “He must have dreamt himself up, I dunno.” says Alice (and the writers). Inexplicable flaming dog piss somehow worked better for me than that. Our teen characters are less believable, less likable, and leaning in the direction of one of my least favorite horror tropes: “friends” who have nothing in common and spend all their time insulting, arguing, or not believing each other. The series had done a pretty good job of avoiding that up to this point. Dialogue also suffers, this might be the most cringe exchange in an Elm Street:

“Mark’s gonna be wiggin’ out!”

“We just gotta keep tight, ok?”

Even part 4, “the MTV nightmare” was smart enough to try and avoid forced “teen” speak like that.

Another horror trope I’m not fond of also shows up, the “creepy kid.” He represents Alice’s unborn child, and it is hilarious that after meeting this little weirdo Alice has all of a sudden decided on a name for her baby and won’t even consider getting rid of it since she has already “met” her son. This is the weirdest pro-life movie I have ever seen (I joke, but an abortion would have literally saved multiple lives here!). I thought the actor (Whit Herford) looked familiar, turns out he is the same kid who Sam Neill hilariously traumatizes with a raptor claw at the beginning of Jurassic Park!

This thing is a mess. For the first time I was getting bored or frustrated during an Elm Street movie. The more serious elements feel at odds with the cartoon character Freddy has become at this point. We get multiple scenes evoking a horrific sexual assault, but we also get Freddy on a skateboard. Reviewing part 4 I said that Lisa Wilcox was not bad as Alice, she just couldn’t elevate a weak/contrived character. This time around the character is still poorly written but requires a lot more from Wilcox as an actress, and I don’t think she was up to the task.

My favorite moments other than the motorcycle scene are pure silliness: after Freddy pulls Greta into Alice’s fridge, the door closes and there is a handwritten note stuck to the fridge that says, “Die Bitch!” And while Freddy is in Dan’s truck, he rips his own arm off and uses it as a seatbelt. That reminded me of part 1 when Freddy says, “Check this out!” and randomly cuts off his own finger, or when he cuts his head open in part 2. I wish we got more weirdness like that instead of just the constant puns and jokes. I know part 6 has a terrible reputation, but I actually watched that one as a kid and vaguely remember enjoying it. We will see how it holds up to adult eyes, I am hoping that part 5 is the real nadir of this franchise.

Recurring series elements:

Trope reversal: Alice’s dad quit drinking and is a loving father now, but Greta’s cartoonishly awful mother picks up the slack

Rap song on end credits (feels really odd at the end of this particular entry, unlike part 4)

Bitches- see refrigerator note

If there was any menace left in Freddy I think the sight of him wobbling on a skateboard puts the final nail in that coffin.

After Kevin Yagher did Freddy’s make-up on part 3 and 4, David Miller takes over for this entry and Freddy’s face looks less nasty and more mask-like