A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

    A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
    1988

    Synopsis

    Freddy Krueger is resurrected from his apparent demise, and rapidly tracks down and kills the remainder of the Elm Street kids. However, Kristen, who can draw others into her dreams, wills her special ability to her new friend, Alice.

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    Cast

    • Robert EnglundFreddy Krueger
    • Lisa WilcoxAlice Johnson
    • Tuesday KnightKristen
    • Andras JonesRick
    • Danny HasselDan
    • Ken SagoesKincaid
    • Rodney EastmanJoey
    • Brooke TheissDebbie
    • Toy NewkirkSheila
    • Nicholas MeleJohnson

    Recommendations

    • 80

      Variety

      Robert Englund, receiving star billings for the first time, is delightful in his frequent incarnations as Freddy, delivering his gag lines with relish and making the grisly proceedings funny.
    • 80

      Los Angeles Times

      A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is by far the best of the series, a superior horror picture that balances wit and gore with imagination and intelligence. It very effectively mirrors the anxieties of the teen-age audience for which it is primarily intended. [19 Aug 1988, p.17]
    • 75

      Chicago Tribune

      Directed by the Finnish-born Renny Harlin, it's a deft, fluid piece that rushes from one surrealist epiphany to the next, and along the way displays a craft and imagination far above the norms for the genre.
    • 60

      Chicago Reader

      Harlin's arsenal of conceits and visual effects--pirouetting overhead angles, dancing trigonometry formulas, a pizza flavored with tiny human heads, a lot of fancy play with a water bed, and much, much more--keeps it consistently watchable and inventive.
    • 60

      Empire

      Surprisingly watchable for the third sequel and despite its general predictability it's entertainingly inventive.
    • 50

      TV Guide Magazine

      It seems that with Part 4, Freddy Krueger has just about run out of gas. Getting further and further away from creator Wes Craven's original concept, the series has declined into a plotless series of special-effects set pieces featuring Freddy slicing and dicing a variety of teenagers in their dreams. What the films lack in narrative, however, they make up for with pure cinematic panache, and the latest installment is no exception.
    • 50

      The New York Times

      Elm Street 4' does have an endless onslaught of astonishing, often grotesque special effects .Mr. Harlin only has to keep things moving, which he does with restless camera work, swirling high above Freddy and his victims. Freddy, who says I am eternal, seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, immune to directors and scripts.
    • 38

      The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

      In-jokes for horror-film fans abound (the dog is named Jason, the monster in the Friday the 13th series; a cafe is the Craven Inn - Wes Craven directed the first Nightmare on Elm Street), and it's possible that those fans will be satisfied with the expensive, surreal special effects unleashed by director Renny Harlin. Everyone else is apt to agree with the teen-ager who dismisses Freddy by saying, "We all got better things to dream about." [19 Aug 1988]

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