ANOES 5: The Dream Child (1989)

"It's a Boy." - Freddy Krueger 

"...Picture Time! Come get immortalized, parents and brats."

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) brings back survives Alice (Lisa Wilcox) and Dan (Danny Hassel). This movie is a horse of a different color. I'm going to try to explain the plot as best I can, but I'm warning you, it's going to sound comical. Alright, Alice gets pregnant, she starts having nightmares about Freddy again and she finds out that Freddy is an entity that lives inside her. As each of her friends are murder, Freddy feeds the souls to Alice's unborn baby so he can reborn again? Yeah, like I said, it's bizarre. I get all the symbolism of motherhood, and the fear of being a new mother, but I mean come on. This is taking it a little too fair, in my opinion.

"Hey it's just a little blood, guy." 

Now let's talk about the characters. There are a few new faces in this film for Freddy to slaughter. Speaking of, his death toll sucks in this one. He only kills 3 people; which is significantly less than the previous films. You're slacking, Krueger. Anyway, all the characters appear to be stereotypical characters. There is the model Greta (Erik Anderson), the nerd/comic relief Mark (Joe Seely), and the very level headed/rational Yvonne (Kelly Jo Minter). Once again, they are all disposable, aside from Yvonne. She is the only one who actually makes sense in this movie. She is a strong character, much like Alice. I am glad that she survives until the end, simply because of her strength and unwillingness to let Freddy get to her. With that being said, my fans have expressed that too many people survive in this movie and i'm going to say that yes it is true; however, there is also a very limited about of characters in this film regardless.

"It's a Boy!!"

Now onto the special effects. Each death scene was amazing, however, the NPAA, was constantly taking a hatchet to each graphic/gory scene. I believe this was around the time that Friday the 13th franchise was suffering the same fate with the NPAA and needing to create a substantial amount of edits. Yeah this was an ongoing trend in the 80s. There was just a huge shift where they couldn't show  too much gore/graphic violence in horror films; due to the fact that so many horror movies were coming out during this time. Yeah the NPAA had a huge issue with graphic violence during the 80s; but they didn't have an issue with nudity. You could have as much of that as possible, but once you start decapitating the nude people thats where they drew the line.

I mean check out the baby Freddy puppet to the left; that is freaking terrifying and really well made. This was a puppet that they created for the beginning sequence while Alice was, I want to say, day-dreaming. Because this was a dream but she was awake heading to work while it was happening. This leads into Dan's death sequence.

"Yee Haw. This boy feels the need for speed." 

It's probably one of the coolest deaths in the whole franchises. He’s trying to reach Alice at the diner, and he finds a motorcycle. Not to go blow by blow for the scene, but basically he’s driving the bike, and soon he starts morphing with it. The one thing I hate about this scene is that every frame cuts right before anything happens. I’ve seen the cut and uncut version. The uncut version is not even as bad as they made it out to be. It would be considered TAME by today’s standards. However, it’s still regarded as one of the best scenes in the Nightmare franchise, in my opinion. Also while they were filming this scene, bystanders actually stopped to see what was going on during Dan’s crash scene; on a count that his make effect looked so real.

"Bon appetiti...Bitch" 

They go from there to Greta’s which is downright disgusting. Backstory, Greta is a model, and she is constantly getting badgered from her mother on what she can and can’t do; which also applies to her food. She is a sort of trapped in a never-ending hell. So how do you think Freddy kills her? With food and it’s as stupid as it sounds. Freddy feeds her to death. This scene also went on longer, as towards the end Freddy feeds herself to herself. I’ve seen the uncut version and it’s best that it was cut out; because it was absolutely disgusting. The scene is already graphic and gross enough. 

"Told ya comic books was bad for ya!!"

Finally, Mark, whose death was fitting yet abrupt. He’s a comic book nerd and he dies in a comic book. This scene is visually amazing, simply because they scaled back the background, and put the actor in very bright clothing. This made it look colorized and it was very fitting since it gave it a retro comic book view. They even turned Freddy into a comic book villain named “Super Freddy.” It was just a very interesting scene and a lot of the effects were done in camera. This scene really reminds me of like a modern day DC or Marvel movie. I swear if either of those companies made this movie, this is what it would look like. No joke. 

"Put your pedal to the metal, Dan."

Aside from the amazing special effects, there were so many problems with this film. The first being that they had a movie release day before they had a script. The movie got off the ground in November/December 1988 and was to be released in August 1989. Scenes were being filmed while other sets were being built. Scripts were different everyday, so the actors stopped memorizing their lines. This is the reason the movie has so many plot holes and it hardly makes sense. However, it gives a tiny bit more backstory of Freddy; but it’s something that could have expressed more in either parts 3 or 4. Also the LAST line of official dialogue was “It’s a boy” and that was said at the BEGINNING of the film. So, you can imagine how tough it was for cast and crew to create this film. Another interesting fact is that the Mark character was supposed to survive, however decided at the last minute to kill him off; which the actor didn’t know until the next day. His death was done in camera and in post, so he didn't really need to be present for the death. He walked into the set, sees the other actors crying and he asked what was going on; and a producer said he died last night. 

"Kids...always a disappointment."

Thankfully director Stephen Hopkins (Lost in Space, The Ghost and the Darkness) was able to make this film very visual to substitute for the fact that they were lacking a strong script. He had a great vision when it came to the architectural aspects. It is disorienting at times with the different angles, spinning rooms and even the multiple staircases at the end. He made you feel like this was an actual nightmare. This film was actually a nightmare to film, director, and just to work on. It put the cast and crew under a lot of pressure; which is why I believe it was a tremendous failure.

I do enjoy the visual aspects of this movie, like at the end when they are in this weird funhouse. There were a bunch of stairs that were twisted every which way and even upside. It made the whole room feel very disoriented. Similar to how you feel when you are waking up from a bizarre dream, like stuff stops making sense and there is no logic. This is how I felt about the ending of the movie.

Now the good thing about this film is that in recent years more people have taken a closer look at it. They, like myself, appreciate it for its visual aspects rather than just a horror movie. Thinking back on it, it's not bad by any means and it's fitting for the franchise. As someone who has seen this franchise on more than 10 occasions, I can tell you that it’s a good movie and I recommend it!! Aside from the plot holes and confusing backstories, the special effects are pretty good for 1989. It was after this movie that they realized, Freddy’s Dead. They have exhausted every possible idea for the franchise, so they knew they had to kill him off one final time. I’m glad that we got a final nightmare and they didn’t just end it, like so many movie series these days.

IMDB: 5.2/10 || Rotten Tomatoes: 32% 

Anyway, next time we will explore Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare; which to be honest is my personal favorite and the FIRST nightmare I saw back in the late-late 90s.


Sleep Tight,
A Nightmare on Movie Night

ANOES 4: The Dream Master (1988)

"How sweet, fresh meat." - Freddy

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) is another interesting installment in the series. It brings back three recurring characters, Kristen (Tuesday Knight), Kincaid (Ken Sagoes) and Joey (Rodney Easemen). Now if you're going into this movie to see Patricia Arquette, you're out of luck. There has been an actress change for the Kristen character. They had to recast her, because according to rumor, the studio would not pay Patricia Arquette the money that her agent asked for. Honestly, I think it mostly had to do with the intense working environment she had endured during the last film. Regardless, we have new characters. There is the main protagonist, Alice (Lisa Wilcox), her "supposed to be" twin brother Rick (Andras Jones), the hot jock Dan (Danny Hassel), the nerd Sheila (Toy Newark) and the tough girl Debbie (Brook Theiss). They are an interesting cast and are pretty convincing in their perspective roles. It seems a little awkward with the OG cast returning, because it's not the same actress playing Kristen as the last film; however it does seem fitting. Now to get a bit of the plot out of the way, Kristen is still stuck in Freddy's Universe waiting his return. She refuses to believe that he's gone for good; mean while Kincaid and Joey are trying to move on with their lives instead of living in the past. As you you slowly see that she was right, and Freddy was going to make his return.

As mentioned in the previous installment, each character has a different type of skill. Kincaid has strength, Joey finds his voice (still bizarre) and Kristen has the ability to pull people into her dreams. The new "Final Girl," Alice, begins to obtain this power along with the others from her friends as Freddy takes them away one by one. This is both an interesting concept and a bizarre one to grasp. For this one, it appears they tried to take a supernatural approach which works yet it doesn’t work at the same time.

Each death is set up in such a way that you know how each character will die. Debbie is afraid of bugs. So later in the film, she gets turned into a bug. Sheila has chronic/severe asthma, so Freddy gives her an asthma attack. And finally, Rick, who you see practicing karate earlier in the film, and that’s exactly how he dies, via Karate Kid style.

Now Rick's death is pretty interesting as it went through many different phases. 

First he was supposed to survive the movie; which would have made a lot more sense. However, they already filmed his "death set up" scene and his funeral  so they had to kill off. Personally, I think they should have just cut that scene all together and had three survives, but I digress. So they have to kill Rick. Now in the early days of filming, Rick was supposed to be in an elevator, where the floor drops and he just falls into the depths of hell. However, they didn’t feel it was a fitting enough, because they already set up that he was a "karate master". So he was sent to Karate School, but in the end, they just had him fake which looks really cheesy. Also interesting little fact about his death scene. The actor who plays Rick, had appendix surgery a week prior to shooting that fight with shadow Freddy. Well, he ended up ripping his stitches during the scene, he was bleeding and had to go to the hospital. So yeah. This goes to show hard this actor went to make the scene look real and legit. A final interesting fact is that Rick is the ONLY character who gets killed by "invisible Freddy" so it's just Freddy's glove that kills him. The reason for this is because it's supposed to be the whole Karate thing and being so quick to fight, or something like that. I just find it fascinating that so much information could be found on just one scene. It makes you think that they put a lot of thought and time into creating this scene, because it is iconic and symbolistic due to the fact that it is Alice's "Twin" brother. 


While these characters are fitting for their roles and there is a sort of sympathy for them; I still I believe that they should have had at least one of the 3 OG characters survive until the end, like Nancy in Part 3. But nope, they were killed off within the first 25 minutes of the movie. Also you don’t get to time fully understanding the new characters and see them develop; which makes no sense. The reason Dream Warriors was so successful is because they brought back a main character from the original film, Nancy Thompson. Like for example, it would have made sense for Kristen to be the soul surviver and have the final showdown with Freddy instead of Alice. The whole point of these kids from the 3rd installment was due to the fact that their parents were the reason Freddy was burned. But then again, wasn't it Nancy's mother who was involved in killing Freddy back in the first film? Anyway, so without those kids, Freddy has no reason to get revenge or anything like that; but regardless, Alice is a good foe for Freddy. She does has the same aspects as Nancy and refuses to let him take her down.

Now Renny Harlin is a really great director. After this film, he went on to director Die Hard 2 and a few other famous films. He did a great job directing, I just felt this movie had a few plot holes as well as some minor issues. The characters are disposal, and no original characters from the 3rd film survive until the end. However, the special effects in this movie are phenomenal. My favorite is the pizza with all the faces on it, simply because it’s it just works. Also Debbie’s transformation to a bug is probably one of the grossest scenes I’ve seen. I thought The Thing was gross, until I saw this scene!! It's always shocking to see how many different sequences it took to make this happen. Each time a body part fell off her was a different effect and sequence. Crazy.

This movie does have some cheesy moments and some of the special effects don’t really look good, but regardless for an 80s horror film, it works. This movie does NOT take itself too seriously, because Freddy’s one liners are hilarious. He’s nothing like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. He just messes with your mind on a psychological level before he kills you. This is why I love Freddy.

All in all, this was a good installment in the series. It was a financial success and a success with the fans. It is regarded as one of the best sequels. I give it a stamp of approval and I recommend you check it out!!

IMDB: 5.7/10 || Rotten Tomatoes: 55%

Coming up next is The Dream Child; which is not my favorite. It’s probably going to be a very short blog, because there is literally nothing to say about it.




Sleep Tight,
A Nightmare on Movie Night

Friday the 13th (1980)

** This blog may contain spoilers, reader discretion is advised. However this movie has been out for almost 30 years, so my statue on that is, you had time to see it; don't lie!! ** 

"They were warned...they are doomed...and on Friday the 13th, nothing will save them."

Happy Friday the 13th!! Today we are going to EXPLORE the movie that made you afraid of the woods. I hope you all enjoy. Once again this blog will contain spoilers, however this movie has been out for almost 30 years so you had plenty of time to see it. Also it's been in pop culture for a really long time now. Everyone who knows Jason Voorhees is. So without further ado, here's my thoughts on Friday the 13th (1980).

Friday the 13th (1980) was a low budget horror movie with a mysterious killer at Camp Crystal Lake directed by Sean S. Cunningham (The Last House on the Left).  It begins with a murder of two teens in 1958 and then flashes forward to 1980 with a new group of camp counselors who are trying to get the camp ready for the summer. The group of counselors include, Alice (Adrienne King), Bill (Harry Crosby), Brenda (Laurie Bertram), Ned (Mark Nelson), Marci (Jeannine Taylor), Annie (Robbi Morgan), and Jack (Kevin Bacon). Each character has their own traits. Alice is rational, Bill is the "leader", Marci is a party girl, Ned is the comic relief, Brenda is the health nut and Jack is the rugged(?) guy. This was probably Kevin Bacon's first major role before his success in Footloose.

Now of course, each character is murdered one by one until there is a "Final Girl", Alice. She finds out, (SPOILER ALERT) that the killer is indeed Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) aka Jason's mother. Mrs. Voorhees explains that her son, Jason, drowned in the lake like in the 50s. She blamed the counselors for being more involved with themselves rather than watching the kids. It was almost like she had grieving mother syndrome. Now that I think about she reminds me of La Lorna. Let me explain. La Lorna was a woman who went crazy, drowned her children in the river and now it's said that her ghost haunts river banks looking for her children. Regardless each time the camp would try to reopen, she would start murdering the counselors, who had nothing to do with Jason's drowning mind you.

Anyway,  it follows one of the camp counselors, Annie (Robbi Morgan), as she attempts to make the journey to Crystal Lake. The other counselors are already there prepping and setting up for the summer season. This is a false lead. It makes you think, oh this will be our protagonist. This will be around final girl. Nope, you're wrong. Now the local townspeople warn Annie not to go to, what they refer it was, Camp Blood (1), due to the murders that occur there every time they try to reopen the camp. She thinks the town is crazy; like the town crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney). Now, when I first saw this movie, I thought Ralph would have had a more of a roll instead of being a background character. It would have made sense if he was a counselors who survived the murders in the 50s or something like that instead of just being the town drunk. Whoa I just had a thought, what if Ralph was Jason's father!!!!???? It would explain so much!! It would explain why he doesn't want anyone going to Crystal Lake and why he kept telling everyone they are doomed. He knew. Insane!!

Moving on. After Annie got a ride from another stranger and she stated that she was going to Crystal Lake, the tone rapidly changed. Annie eventually escapes, and starts running away. She is chased down and gets a knife to the throat. One down.

I mean what else can I say about this movie? It's about a bunch of counselors that get murdered until one is left who fights her hardest to stay alive. What I do have to say is that this movie made it so no one would want go in the woods ever again. He found a way to make camping scary, which I really liked. Also what banks it is the special effects.

(1) FACT: This was supposed to be the title of the movie, before it was changed to Friday the 13th. 

Now there were three effects in the film that really impressed me. These effects were done flawlessly by legend Tom Savini (Night of the Living Dead, From Dusk til Dawn). He is one of my favorite special effects artists, because of his use of practical effects.

Now there are Jack's death, Mrs. Voorhees death, and finally the ending scene with zombie Jason. There are other minor effects like one girl gets an axe in her face. Another gets slit in the throat. All in all, the effects were amazing.

REGARDLESS, the first special effect involves Jack's death. The reason being is that it's so sudden and unexpected. He's just laying in bed and all of a sudden a hand comes up, spear comes through the bed stabbing him in the heck. Insane. The second special effect is probably when Alice decapitates Mrs. Voorhees. It happens in slow motion, and she cuts her head CLEAN off with the machete. DAMN.

Finally, we have the calm scene turned deadly. Alice gets on the boat, wakes up in the morning, there is gentle music playing, the police show up and then ZOMBIE Jason jumps out of the water. He pulls her under the lake with him. It's very brief, but the make effects are incredible. Also it's an amazing jump scene that leaves you feeling uneasy. Well almost.

This brings me to the ending. The movie should have ended when Jason pops up and pulls her under the water. Instead they had her waking up in the hospital as a sole survivor. In all seriousness, no one should have survived this movie. All the characters should have met their demise. It would have given the audience a very uneasy feeling and leaving with a whole bunch of questions. Also I believe they should have created a sort of "Black Christmas" vibe it; meaning they should have left the murderer a mystery and had zero survivors. I don't know thats the one thing I don't like about this movie. They had the perfect ending, but just ruined it with her waking up in the hospital. If they didn't have alice in the hospital, and ended the movie at the Lake, they would still have a hook for a sequel. It was just extra stuff that shouldn't have been filmed. Period.


I don't know. I know they wanted to create another horror icon like Michael Myers and try to make something different; which they did. If it wasn't for Friday the 13th, we wouldn't have movies like Sleep Away Camp, Cabin in the Woods or any of those other horror films. Now one final thing I have about this movie is that I wish they would have made Mrs. Voorhees a more predominate character rather than just sticking her at the end, because it would have been more a shocker. She just shows up at the end and you're just expected to know who she is. Like my biggest thing is why does she even come by and explain the who situation to Alice? She could have killed her, escaped and then we would have been left with "who's the killer?" In my opinion, leaving the audience feeling uneasy is better than having an awkward character come in at the end.

But I digress.

This movie, however, was a financial success when it was first released on May 9th, 1980. It made $59.8 million at the box office on a $550,000 budget. This is incredible for a low budge film. As with anything, it did have it's fare share of critics; which was divided. Now this is to be expected, especially in the horror genre. Some praise it for it's cinematography, score and performances; which I agree with. I mean there are some things here and there that kind of drive me crazy, but overall the movie was good. However, on the other side, there were critics who judged it for it's graphic violence. Compared to other films, I didn't find it all that graphic, but whatever. Due to the success of this film, it spawned 9 sequels, one cross over with A Nightmare on Elm Street and a remake in 2009.

Buzz around the rumorsphere is that they are trying to remake this movie again possibly for the 30th anniversary; which I believe is due to the massive success Halloween had with their 40th anniversary remake/sequel. Who knows. I am beginning to notice that a lot of movies that came out in the 80s and 90s are starting to resurface with their own remakes/sequels. I mean if they got the right actors, setting, writer and director, I think they could make it happen. If they can make Michael Myers and Pennywise scary again, I'm sure someone out there can make Jason scary again.

IMDB: 6.5/10 || Rotten Tomatoes: 62%

Anyway, I hope you all check out this film; which I'm almost 100% sure it's going to be playing on the SyFy channel all day. Now I do play on doing ONE blog for all the sequels possibly on the next Friday the 13th; which will be in March 2020. I am trying to movie blog a lot more, but with work its a challenge. So hopefully I can get some more done over my break!!

Coming soon: A Nightmare on Elm Street Series. Yes it's true!! I almost have all of these blogs finished. I just need to do the New Nightmare and the 2010 remake!!


Now I hope all have a happy Friday the 13th!!



Sleep Tight, 
A Nightmare on Elm Street.