Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

I saw this movie 30 years ago when I was 8 years old. Unlike some other horror movies I was too young to be watching, I don’t remember being particularly scared of Freddy. Watching this movie now, I can see why.

After part 5’s spare opening, part 6 opens with a Nietzsche quote… followed by a Freddy quote. With “bitch” in it, of course. This sets the tone for a movie that seems to be mocking its own franchise, or at least fully leaning into the joke Freddy had become through overexposure and increasingly silly sequels. This is also the first time we have ever had an opening text to explain the situation, because this has a surprisingly high concept for a late-in-the-game sequel. “10 years from now,” Freddy has managed to kill off all but one teenager in Springwood, and all the remaining adults have gone insane. I thought this was a genuinely interesting and chilling premise, but the movie squanders it completely.

Freddy first appears dressed as the Wicked Witch, just in case you were worried this might be a scary movie. Over the last few movies I noted that Freddy was becoming a cartoon character. Freddy isn’t just cartoonish in this outing, he straight up acts like Bugs Bunny. He creeps behind a kid and looks directly at the camera to shush the audience. When he takes the time to torture his victims, it is more playful and less violent. Imagine the pin drop scene or Freddy cutting the parachute cords and replace Freddy/victim with Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam and they play exactly the same. And the movie matches that tone down to the music and sound effects. When John Doe, the last kid in Springwood, gets hit by a bus I realized this was Looney Tunes shit. Then in a plot right out of The Flintstones, John bonks his head on a rock and gets amnesia (later they even bonk someone unconscious and right into the dream world!).

The kills are all so goofy and bloodless that you could cut a second here or there and this could be PG-13. There is a head explosion that seems like an empty plaster mold, not a drop of blood or chunks in sight. Scenes like the videogame kill feel like the sanitized Saturday morning version of Freddy (they did it with Rambo and Robocop after all!). It is no wonder this didn’t scare me as a kid. I enjoyed it then, and I have to say it still has moments that I liked. I have vividly remembered the video game scene my entire life (“Powerglove!”), and I am a simple man because the sight of Spencer (Breckin Meyer) bouncing through the ceiling still made me laugh. They were real fucking lazy with the fake video game, though. It looks like they stole a clip of a fake video game from a Simpsons episode, it is so far removed from the graphics of the time.

What I did NOT remember is that Breckin Meyer has possibly the worst haircut in the history of civilization, and I say that as someone who grew up in this era. A wavy long bowl cut with a ponytail, my god. Let me apologize to undercuts and man-buns everywhere, this is so much worse. Meyer’s character is as contrived as that haircut, a rich kid stoner who makes plot convenient pipe bombs. The other characters are: the aforementioned John Doe, Carlos (who looks like if Steve Gutenberg had a teen-heartthrob phase), Tracy, a stereotypical “tough girl” who gets 2(TWO!) scenes practicing kickboxing to sub-C&C Music Factory tunes (a year before Buffy the Vampire Slayer did it), therapist Maggie (Lisa “Billy’s sister” Zane), and therapist/dream expert Doc (Yaphet Kotto, being paid to deliver absolute nonsense lines with conviction).

Thanks to an unwitting John Doe, Maggie and the other kids end up in Springwood. This is the most frustrating aspect of the movie for me. The idea of a town where all the kids are dead and the adults are crazy is potent and creepy. The movie has no interest in that, and all the crazies act even sillier than Freddy does (even making up more nonsense Freddy rhymes). The only-in-1991-could-it-happen Roseanne/Tom Arnold cameo is baffling and distracting. The high concept ends up just feeling like an excuse to make a cheaper movie with a sparsely populated world. No one outside of Springwood seemed to notice, and outside of having strangers spout nonsense at them it doesn’t affect the characters once they are in Springwood either.

We also get more Freddy backstory, always a negative for me. He was a weirdo kid who tortured animals in school and got mocked for the whole “bastard son of a hundred maniacs” thing. Then he was a self-harming teen who killed his abusive dad (stepdad?), inexplicably played by Alice Cooper (he and the actor playing teen Freddy were very funny to me). Then we see Freddy as a seemingly typical suburban family man who only kills his wife after she discovers his child killing hobby. I am sorry, but 1+1 does not equal 2 here. What woman was willing to date, marry, and start a family with infamous bastard and mouse-squasher Fred Krueger? What was that courting process like? Maybe if he moved across the country and started a new life away from his reputation, but it seems like he never left Springwood.

This is nothing compared to the reveal that Freddy’s powers and immortality were supplied by “dream demons” that manifest as flying slug or snake things with goofy faces. They look like shittier versions of Blade from Puppet Master. Jim Towler gets a prominent credit for these unimpressive creatures; I would have left it anonymous myself. The dream demons are a half-assed and stupid idea in both writing (“The dream people gave me this job.” WTF?) and execution. Combined with the other backstory it serves to completely remove any of the menace or mystery in Freddy. The first movie left things unsaid and unseen, knowing that the unknown gives fear room to thrive. That had the scariest scene in the whole franchise with the invisible attack on Tina. I can only imagine how much more effective it was for first time viewers before Freddy was a known quantity. This movie is all brightly lit bullshit with exposition for unnecessary backstory and mythology that somehow further defang a character who was already being sold as a talking doll.

The whole climax is nonsense, and I can’t imagine it was much more fun in 3D. The end credits should be an easy layup as they play clips from previous, better movies. But the assembly of that clip montage feels just as haphazard and half-assed as the rest of this movie. There is no logic or flow to the clips, and they aren’t even just a collection of the coolest moments. I think most fans of the franchise could easily put together a better montage than this. I’m glad I watched, though, because the “RIP Freddy” card at the end made me laugh.

This movie is obviously a goddamn mess, and I get why Freddy fans who watched the movies as they came out hated it. It definitely played a lot better when I was 8 years old, which is not what you want from your R-rated "horror" movie. Yet there were still moments that I found fun or funny. The messy, underdeveloped plot meant I was frequently frustrated, but I wasn’t bored. I cannot in good faith argue that this is a better movie than part 5 (Dream Child), but I found it to be a more entertaining bad movie than part 5. That said, I could easily wait another 30 years before watching this slop again. If I want to watch a bad movie directed by Rachel Talalay that I have a weird soft spot for then I am going with Tank Girl again instead.

Recurring series elements:

Bitches: the opening quote and “Kung fu this, bitch!” stood out the most

Bad parents: Almost completely absent for the teens this time (saves money on casting!).

We see Breckin Meyer fight briefly with his yuppie dad. Freddy puts Tracy in a nightmare with her abusive father (played by Peter Spellos, the creepy not-killer Orville from Sorority House Massacre 2!).

B-movie creep and prolific voice actor Peter Spellos

Instead, we get a little of Freddy being a creepy (but seemingly loving to his daughter) dad, and his father or stepfather being a drunken abusive caricature.

Freddy’s appearance takes another drop in quality, we have gone fully from cool, gross make-up to cheap mask look.