you Hello, everyone, and welcome to Jay of the Dead's New Horror Movies, the horror podcast that rewrites its own history whenever it fits the current story it's trying to tell. This is a continuation of our retrospective look at the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. I'm your host, Fred Head Ron Martin. And with me tonight is one of the 100 lunatics trapped in a mental institution, Mr. J of the Dead. It's a boy.
And the man and unborn children dream about while they're in their mother's wombs. Mr. Doc Shock, Dave Becker. Oh, good to be here. Talking about this movie. That's an apt description of it. This movie. So for those of you who have been paying attention and we're celebrating a Nightmare on Elm Street franchise in this its 40th year of existence. And this portion of the episode will be focusing on Nightmare on Elm Street 5, The Dream Child.
We will be spoiling this movie. So if you have a hankering to watch for watching one of the many poorly reviewed slasher films of 1989, please take that into consideration. But for now. Let's go on to the meat of the show. And please remember that you are listening to Jade of the Dead's new horror movies, a horror podcast with a need for speed.
His mother was a God-fearing woman. His birth was an unspeakable horror. Please don't let him do that! His life... and death have been one incredible nightmare but now all that is going to change because freddie wants to become a daddy The story of Nightmare on Elm Street 5 is one that we keep hearing over and over again in this franchise.
with both Friday the 13th and Halloween set to have movies coming out in 1989. New Line Cinema did not want to be left out in the cold because that was how it worked in the late 80s. You had to put movies out quick. And often, even though I would argue that Freddy Krueger was probably the most.
popular and profitable of all three of those horror icons. You probably could have waited a year or two and been fine with the character just because he was kind of everywhere because he talked, right? And Jason and Michael don't. However, that means since they want to put a movie out so quickly, they don't have a script. So remember way back when we were talking about an Iron Man Street 3 Dream Warriors, and I told you to put a pen in an idea about Freddy invading the dreams of an unborn child.
It's time to take that pen out because we're going to recycle that idea for... This movie, obviously, because it's called The Dream Child. And as we mentioned that even before a script was written, the poster was already out for the public to view. And it had a picture of Freddy's Claw with a...
crystal ball with a unborn child inside of it. So kind of pigeonholed into what you can do with that image, right? Not that the Diamond and the Street franchise has been really good about telling the story that their posters tell in the movies, but... Still expectations, right? So director Stephen Hopkins is brought aboard for this one. And, you know, I've only ever seen one of them. I think one of them movie that he's done.
And I wasn't really impressed with that. Oh, may I? May I, Ron, real quick? Yes. I actually appreciate a few of his films. Okay. I'll just say really quick. I'm guessing the one is the one that I've seen. Predator 2, yes. Yeah, don't love it. Judgment Night, Blown Away, The Ghost and the Darkness. Okay. Lost in Space, 1998, surprisingly good. Traffic.
The Reaping, a horror movie, and then Race, a Jesse Owens movie, really good. Wait a minute. This isn't Traffic, the movie that came out in the late 90s, is it? This is – It's the Benicio del Toro traffic, right, Dave? Wait a second. Well, that was Steven Soderbergh. Okay. This is a different traffic.
So, Jay, let me ask you this. Of all those movies you just listed, because I've seen Predator 2 and that's it. Okay. Which is the best. Like if somebody wants a Stephen Hopkins retrospective night, what's the best one to watch? Of all his films, what are the best? You can include this one if you want. Honest to goodness, probably Race, the Jesse Owens film, which I bet hardly anybody's seen. Wow.
Well, that track probably owns all those films. Yes, I own a few. I don't I do not own that one, though, because I know for a fact that one was how recently was that pretty recent within the last like five to seven years. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't own that one, I don't believe. So apparently this movie did not ruin his career. Right now. I can see why. Once we get into the making of the film, I can see why. So aside from Stephen Hopkins.
We do have Robert England, Lisa Wilcox, Danny Hassel, and Nicholas Mele reprising their roles as Freddy Krueger, Alice Johnson, Dan Jordan, and Dennis Johnson from the previous film. To this point. I think Nightmare on Elm Street's been pretty good about bringing back surviving characters with that jump from part two. So the character one showed up in part three at least, then with the surviving characters. Yep.
That will all go down the toilet after this movie, but so enjoy it while it lasts. I only spoke previously about, you know, the rest of production for Nightmare on Elm Street 4, how they shot the entire movie in about eight weeks. Well, this one was rushed even harder because Stephen Hopkins had four weeks for shooting and four weeks for editing. So you're making a major motion picture, not even a major motion picture, but like a, you know.
an expected like a major person picture that's actually being sought after by certain members of the audience. So it's not like it's a forgotten film, right? This is one that people are looking forward to in eight weeks. Wow. Yes, how you can make a quality movie in eight weeks is beyond me. So a lot of this, I think, after researching this franchise, a lot of that goes wrong with the end of the franchise, I believe.
can be placed firmly on the shoulders of New Line Cinema and their push to get things out quickly. But to his credit, Ron, right? I mean, from what I read, and I'm sure you did too. He got very little sleep during the time, and he said he could do it because he was only 28 years old. Yeah. And all things considered, I mean, I know this isn't a great film. I mean, I don't think that he's without blame.
But sure. But who's going to do a better job in that time frame? I don't know that Steven Spielberg can make a good movie in eight weeks. Seriously, like all things considered. I mean, this isn't a great film, but it's still pretty impressive for those types of. restraint. When they rush you like that, I think, oh, who was it? It was Francis Ford Coppola with The Godfather Part 3. I think he asked for something like a couple years.
to make it, and they gave him six months to write it, shoot it, and deliver a finished product. Yeah. And you've got to think about the expectations for that film. He wanted six months. I can't remember what it was, but it was a fraction of what he asked for is what they gave him. Well, especially since the first two films won Best Picture. Yeah.
He wanted time to do it right, and it just – he wasn't giving it. And I guess that's – same thing with these. They just want to keep churning them out, churning them out, because they need that money. I wonder if they felt like the – shelf life of the slashers was going away so they're just trying to get as much as they can i know they're trying to keep up with the 13th and halloween franchises i know they're trying to do that but yeah At this late stage, you could certainly make that point.
It was starting to get a little bit – it was getting past its prime. Well, my understanding of the Hollywood world is that, like, these production companies, like, they need – to make as much money each year as they possibly can to stay afloat. So the fact that they have a property that sells, I'm sure they wanted to get it out as much as possible. I would think so. The corporatization of Hollywood. Yes. Yes. Which is still a problem to this day. Yes, it is. Whores.
Bunch of whores. But because of the quick turnaround, the script isn't finalized. They're rewriting scenes left and right on the set to the point where some of the actors even said, you know, I didn't even bother memorizing my lines because I knew they weren't going to be used. They're basically being – and that's on the Never Sleep Again documentary, so. Wow. Terrible.
And because of the rushed, the rushedness of this film, that's probably not even a word, but I just said it anyway. The entire continuity of the franchise gets retconned. Because. of the fact that this movie begins at the graduation for the class of 1989, and the year 1989 is very prominent in the scene and is said several times. So because of that, to make the timeline work...
They had the retcon in the official canon, A Nightmare on Elm Street, the original from 1984 back to 1981. It's a horror nerd thing, but it's something that I pay attention to. Very good. Very good. And I know that you're a Fredhead and everything, but I do have – I'm saving it for the right moment tonight. But I do have – Listen, I'm not a blind Fredhead.
No, and I respect that about you. Call a spade a spade. Okay, that's good, but I do have something to say about this, but maybe I'll just save it when the time is right. Is it a continuity issue? Sort of. Well, it's how Freddy's dream interactions work versus don't work. Kind of your complaints with the second film. Okay. Okay, but anyways, when the time's right, I guess.
On the subject of continuity, Alice tells a loose interpretation of the Freddy Krueger story in this film that doesn't match any of the previous movies. And this totally rewrites everything. This movie...
Did have an uncut version because they cut out a lot at this time in horror movies. The MPAA was really like... really coming down on horror movies pretty hard so uh they had to cut quite a few scenes in order to get it down uh to the rating that they wanted and if you want to see the uncut version of the movie it's available to watch archive.org really for free. And it's just the uncut version. There's only, I want to say 10 minutes worth of stuff.
Also, you can see just the uncut scenes on a couple of YouTube channels. But the uncut version of the movie got released on VHS and Laserdisc, and it has never been released since. That's why I mention it. Oh, I was going to ask you about that, Ron. I'm so impressed that you had that right there ready. So that's why it says VHS and Laserdisc. That is specifically the uncut version. Yeah.
I mean there was a cut version that came out on both those mediums as well. But if you want the uncut version, that's the only two mediums that they were released on. Like you can't get it on DVD. It's not on streaming sites except for archive.org. Nice. Nice. Interesting. So this film came out on August 11th, 1989, opening up third that weekend behind, let's see if you guys remember these movies, Parenthood. Yes. And The Abyss. Of course, we all know The Abyss.
Oh, yes. This movie was critically panned as well as received poorly by horror films and fans of the franchise. And the poor reception of the film by everyone, including the cast and crew. led New Line Cinema to decide that the next film would be the last in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. So that being said, and... So let's talk about our first impressions of the film. Maybe the first time you saw it, it's what relationship you have with the film. Doc Shock, do you want to go first?
Sure. I think the first time I saw this was when we did the franchise for HMP. I think that was my first viewing of this movie. Nice. Because it's not really my franchise either. But I was watching them all. And I'd have to go back. I don't even remember what. rating I had done back then. I don't even know if it's out there anymore. Had you seen the first four before that, Doc? Oh, yeah. Definitely.
Yeah, I definitely had. So I'd seen all four of them before I got to this one. One thing I will give it credit for is I really do like the set designs. And for a movie made as quickly as it was, some of the effects are not bad. I liked that whole comic book thing that they did. I thought that was really pretty cool.
Well, on set design, I can say the one thing that Stephen Hopkins is on record as talking about positively about this film, he doesn't seem to like the film very much either. I'm assuming that he had very little to no say over the editing process. Right. But his goal was to bring a more gothic feel into the franchise with castle-like buildings, like the dungeon-like institution.
That we see quite a few times in this film and the MC Esker esque dream world that we see near the end of the film. Those are all things he definitely wanted to bring to the franchise. He wanted to make. Dave – too bad Dave Z's not on the show because he would love this film. He wanted to make it scary again. And I do think the film succeeds in that. I think this is a – I think that this is an overall –
more traditionally scary film than the fourth one. That's not to say it's more enjoyable and it doesn't use the Freddy Krueger that had been dominating pop culture at the time, I think to its fullest extent. No, no, Freddy's like, God, he's, and when he's in the movie, it's not even quite like the Freddy Krueger. Again, I didn't think anyway. You know, I didn't find him quite as effective in this one as I did in any of the other ones. Well, this has a very, very low kill count. Yeah, it does.
It does because whenever there's a group of five friends, you know that... Instead of having like this, there's like eight, nine, ten people in a crowd or whatever. If there's five people they're focusing on, you know it's going to be – you're ready for that. At least I was ready for that. Well, there's also –
collateral damage that sometimes happens in these films, like the parents or a doctor. And this film had two surviving final girls. I mean, there's really only one that acts like a final girl, but another girl survives. Right, right. as opposed to the last one, which only had the one. Right. But then when it came time, and I'm sure Jay's going to – I'll save that for Jay. I'm talking about the –
Go for it, David. Well, I was going to say that the rules here were just very sort of scattered all over the place. Like, OK, I'm awake, but Freddie can get me. But then I'll fall asleep and I can go in and get him or I can go in and look for him. Try to keep an eye on me. Stay awake and keep an eye on me. Whenever a character says that, you know the other one's falling asleep, too. I mean, when has it ever not happened? Although I will say Mark does the best.
In this movie. He stays awake the longest. Yeah. He stays awake the longest. Johnny Depp was before Nancy was in the first movie. Exactly. That'd be me. Oh, don't ever let me guard you guys against Freddy. We'll all be dead. But then you have. Yeah. OK, so they're walking. OK, so he's. It's in the real world. He can get them, but it's not – is it the real world? No. It's another – they explain it away with like another dream, but those people aren't dreaming. It's because –
So here's the – I'm not saying that it's done well. I'm not defending it. I'm saying from my research this is the explanation for it. It's because that the unborn child inside of Alice's body is dreaming. Yes. Freddie somehow is also in there. Right. And I saw I do I do understand that part of it because they didn't explain it to a point like, OK, well, the baby dreams 70 percent of the time.
So they could be pulled in there at any time. But then they fall asleep, and it's like, okay, so I'm going to fall asleep and go look for Kruger. So it's kind of like, okay, so that still happens.
But then he could pull you out any time because of the baby dreaming. Well, the reason for that as well too, the one little mention of continuity they decided to follow, it seems like – to me, is the fact that in the fourth movie, when Kristen died, she passed her powers being able to put people into her dreams to Alice. Okay. But it went through Freddy. So that gave Freddy some of the powers and also...
Jacob, her unborn child, is also gaining some of those powers from her as well. So they would have the ability to pull people into dreams pretty much at will and then – well, whenever Jacob is sleeping anyway. And then Alice later on. When she knows if she falls asleep, she can go into the dream because she's been here before. I think there's a nice dichotomy.
One thing I say about this one is I think there's a nice difference between Alice and the rest of the characters. Alice who's seen this and done this before. And she's much more aggressive in this movie than she is the previous movie because she knows Freddy. She knows his weaknesses. She knows she's fought him before, right? And the other characters who are much more timid and much more scared, which I think would make sense. Yeah.
So real quick, since you guys are talking about this, one point of clarification, and maybe you two just covered it and I missed it. My big complaint was, so typically when a person falls asleep, That person who is dreaming is at the mercy of Freddy, right? Right. Okay, so. In the original context, things have changed since parts three and four happened because there's powers involved now.
OK, yes. And that's where you'll have to straighten me out here, because I'm like, OK, yeah, the baby's asleep. Fine. And I know he doesn't want to kill the baby because he he's using a. The baby has a conduit, but it was bugging me super bad because of like the baby's asleep, but the other people are awake. So how is he attacking other people while they're awake?
Hey, again, I didn't say it was done well. Okay, no, but that – well, I just wondered if that – That was what I was sort of trying to get at. I think you said it better, Jay. Did I – so I didn't miss. I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss something because that's the way I understood.
was happening and you guys say yes that is what's happening yeah so in the in the cases of Mark and Greta not Greta Dan I believe they fell asleep or were induced to sleep by Freddy because they're asleep when they die or they are asleep when they're in danger and die right when right when they wake up. In the case of Greta, and then when Yvonne's attacked and doesn't die, they seem to be wide awake. Right. So there's a lot of continuity issues in this. I believe that's probably the fault of –
rewriting all of the scenes on set as they're filming them. And with four weeks of the film, you probably don't have a continuity guy there to point stuff out. Listen, if anyone from Hollywood is listening... and they need a continuity guy, I'm your dude, okay? Yeah, you or Dave Lee. Either that or the continuity person would be speaking up, but yeah, yeah, yeah, we ain't got time.
In fact, while we're on this – Get out of here. Can you get some catering on the way out? That's actually what I was going to say is this – More than anything, what this feels like, and I didn't know what you just said was the case, Ron, but I was going to show up to this podcast tonight and say, I'll tell you what this feels like. It feels like they were in a college course or whatever, and they had an hour to bang out this script.
And like it's like, OK, pages, you know, five through ten. We got we got ten minutes. What's going to happen next? And it just really feels like somebody's like, OK, and then what if this happens? And then let's just say this happens because it just feels very thrown together on. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree 100 percent. And I mean, there's a reason why. But that doesn't mean that we should forgive the film because of that.
You know what I'm saying? Because they we are, you know, the people who are consuming this film and as consumers, we need to be satisfied. And then we obviously were not satisfied by this film in 1989 or today. Yes. True. Yeah. One other thing. This is a really sort of minor quibble that I had. The scene where she goes and she's getting the ultrasound.
And then she starts screaming about, you know, he's coming. He's in his dreams. He's coming after me and all this other stuff. And then you see the doctor get on the phone. And the doctor allegedly called the grandparents. Quite spoiler alert. The dead boyfriend's parents. and said you can do all the spoilers you want okay that's right yeah call the dead uh dead boyfriend's parents and said hey yeah she's she's in here she's
Really freaking out and all. I think this doctor is what the HIPAA law was made for. Yes, HIPAA compliance right there. That's a huge violation. You can't really do that. You can't say, hey, look, I've got to tell you something about this girl carrying your dead son's child. I will say this. They did make it seem like that was a real shady maneuver on his part. Yes. And I do think that that was a storyline that probably was dropped at some point because it went nowhere.
No worry after that. They don't even see the grandparents anymore. I don't even think you need to have it in there. No, it was not necessary. I do have a very, very brief discussion about abortion, which I do think that you have to have because it is a possible solution to the plot of the film.
Actually, I think they handled it really well because it was just like three or four lines between two characters. We got that out of the way. Here's why it's not happening. We don't need to go into any further discussion. And I also appreciated the fact that while there was an abortion discussion, there was also an adoption discussion. And rarely that's the case when people are talking about such things.
you, Jay, when they were referring to something in Christianity, how they pulled out Christian mythology instead of the Bible. Oh, they call it mythology. Yeah. Christian mythology was the title of the book instead of it was shaped like the Bible. It looked like he was grabbing the Bible, but the cover said Christian mythology. It absolutely did.
When you said you were thinking to me, I was getting ready to say, yeah, Dave, I don't know how many children I've fathered. Yes, that's true. Anyway. I will say this on the – it's attached on the abortion adoption thing. It was a nice discussion to have. For the purpose of the movie, I don't think you have to have the adoption discussion. You do have to have the abortion discussion. The abortion discussion will end the movie.
Right. Right. If you went the other way. That would be the end of it. Don't have to have that. It was nice to have it, but I don't think it's necessary for the film. Yes. And I like that little kid who played. Jacob in this. I've seen him in other things. Jurassic Park. Yes. Okay. That's right. He was the one who Sam Neill went up and stared.
With the velociraptor talk. His name is Whitby Helford. I think it's Helford. Okay. And he's the kid who's in everything in the 80s. That's not Miko Hughes. So it's one of those two in every movie. Yeah. You can always spot this kid, though, because of his eyes. He's got very distinctive.
Yeah, I think he was a semi-regular on Full House, I want to say. He was one of Michelle's friends on that film. And he's in a ton of films, just like Miko Hughes. It's either him or Miko Hughes. And we'll hit Miko Hughes up later in this franchise. Nice. So, Jay, what about your initial impressions on this back in the day? Did you see it in 1989? Did you see it in the theater? Let's see.
It was it was that it was after that. I saw it once like before we did it on the blockbuster rental. Probably. And so this was my this was technically literally my third time watching this. But this is going to surprise you guys. I don't know what it is. I am such a sucker for blue, the color blue. I always want to like this film. And each time I sit down to watch it, like the poster art is predominantly blue and probably because it's a boy, you know, the boy.
blue thing. I'm sure that's part of it but also it was part of the whole going for a gothic feel. Yes. Yes. And and like, yeah, there's the cinematography, the way this is shot, it has tons of. of blue tinting and coloring and lighting. And, and, and I, I really appreciate that even in the opening scenes. The opening scene is very fascinating because you can tell.
You've got some human bodies, you know, probably you're assuming they're going at it. But what I love is the way that shot, you almost can't make out which parts you're looking at. And I think that's kind of cool for a horror movie because what we're seeing there is the conception of the dream child. Right. And here's a little trivia for you if you want it.
So that's obviously supposed to be Dan and Alice, right? Yes. Well, that's not Danny Hassel or Lisa Wilcox in those scenes. It is Super Freddy, the guy who plays Super Freddy. and Alice's body double, who is also the girl who's naked in the shower. I was thinking the same thing, yeah, but it didn't seem like that was her. I mean, not so far off. I was wondering about that.
I got that from Super Freddy himself. That's how I know that information. Oh, that's neat. So was he like, hey, in addition to being Super Freddy, I was the dude up front. Yeah, basically. I love it. I love it. That's great. So, yeah, that's kind of cool. I think I have to make good on this because I talked about it in the text thing and I forgot to include it in the opening. So I sent you guys a picture of myself with Kelly Jo Mentor on the text message.
Kelly Jo Minter and a ton of stuff. So here's my little trivia I had about her, and I need to make it good for you guys. The audience probably doesn't care, but I guess. Anyway, so here's my little trivia. I was talking to her and I met her. It was like very shortly, maybe two weeks after Wes Craven had passed. And I was talking to her and she just told me that.
Literally like a month before, maybe two, three weeks before he passed, Wes Craven had contacted her about wanting to do a sequel to People Under the Stairs. So we could have got that had Wes Craven lived a little longer. Oh, wow. Oh, man. The Gilman right now is – He's crying. Yes, definitely. That's one of his all-time favorites. Yeah, it could have happened if not had an untimely passing. According to Kelly Jo Mentor, that's my only source. I haven't read that anywhere else.
I don't know why she would lie to a random dude in Indianapolis about it. Yeah. For listeners who don't know, he's speaking of Yvonne in the movie. Yeah, right? Yep. Well, listeners of the Javadet's new horror movies are smarter than the average bear. They know if they don't know who Kelly Jo Minter is, they can just go to the cast list for Nightmare on Elm Street 5 and figure it out. That's right. That's right. And I would –
guess at least 90% of people listening already know who Kelly Jo Minter is. She's not exactly a stranger to the horror genre. That's right. That's right. So... um other things just throw out there uh did you want general thoughts from me wrong okay go for it like i i love the fact that we have a shower scene, and not for the pervy reasons, but I think it's really cool and ambitious when a horror film endeavors to...
Take on a shower scene in a horror sense. Because after Psycho, it's like, who would dare try that? It's kind of like the same poor fools who try to make a shark horror movie. It's like... I'm rooting for you. I hope it works out. But you're not going to be able to beat Jaws. I wish you could, but you can't. But anyways, the same thing with showers. Not much happens in the shower. I do think that the shower scene was mostly just to get some nudity into the film. I think at this point.
At the back end of the 80s, I think nudity is a staple of slasher films. And if you notice, ever since part three, we've had nudity in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, which we did not have before. OK, well, let me even. Even in this brief like one scene that's a body double filmed through a shower door, you know, a sort of one of those kind of see through shower doors where you kind of see stuff, but you kind of can't. Yeah, yeah, yes. But when you're what?
What were we in 89? 13. Yeah, 13. It was enough. We were going to be little teens. It was enough. But, no, let me just ask you. That's all we had back then. We didn't have X videos. That's true. That's true. The red curtain in the video store made sure of that. Nobody ever let you go behind those beads. Anyways, so, no, there's something really cool in here, and I bet you, Ron, and...
probably Dave Z and people are going to fight with me on this, but okay. There's a scene in the beginning. Of course, we get to see our main man. Robert Englund a couple times without the makeup, which is really cool. I like when they do that in these films. And there's a jump scare that happens, and she wakes up, right? And it's kind of like this jump scare, and she's all startled.
And then all of a sudden, right after the jump scare, they do a double barrel jump scare. It's a secondary jump scare that happens immediately when you're the last thing in the world you're expecting is a jump scare because you just had one. And you're coming down. Yes, I think that is super cool. That was pretty cool. I wish horror movies did that more. I can't remember.
Very many other instances. There might be like two or three I've ever seen do it. But this film is noteworthy because it does one of those double barrel jump scares. And what I mean by double barrel, because you've seen. Jump scare, it's a fake, and then the real jump scare. But that's not what I'm talking about, listeners. I'm talking about it's supposed to be a legitimate jump scare, and then you think it's over, and then, bam, second jump scare. Really cool.
Anyways, just saying. I think that Robert Ingram, his makeup was purposely done. I mean, the camera lingers on him for quite a while. So I feel like that's supposed to be a note to the audience. Oh, this is Freddie's dad.
Mm. yeah neat he was right by all the the nun was right by all these people but this is the one this was the sperm that got that's right there's only one that gets through one that broke through right yes one of these little swimmers okay what about i'm trying to figure what the number is doing Who knows in this film? She didn't seem like she was overly supervised.
as it was even before the guards left. So I wanted to ask you guys a question. This is kind of weird. In the beginning at the graduation sequence when We're getting to know our group of kids. And they're all using their sense of humor and trying to be funny. I don't know about you guys.
But their sense of their comedy attempts there, everything they were doing was making me so uncomfortable. It was like that secondary. It was cringy. It was cringy, yeah. It was cringy. And even more cringy, though. What are the parents who are a cartoon like that one girl's mother? She's a total cartoon, not a real person at all. I know. And what I want to ask you about that, though, this is just this is curious to me.
When we saw that, or when people, let's say modern audiences, whatever age, saw that in the theater when it happened, since it was the late 80s, was that actually... the style of humor back then? Does it seem cringy to us now? I could see it not bothering people as much as it does now, but I don't know that anybody would have ever been like rolling on the ground with it either.
It feels so 90s. I would also say this, Jay. I don't know how often you're around high school kids. Not much anymore at all except for my son. Right. Because I. I'm around them at the bowling alley, you know, where I work. So and and, you know, in my day job, I work at a college. So these are kids just out of high school.
Yes. And a lot of stuff they do is pretty cringy. Oh, OK. And I'm just like, OK, you think it's cool now. But, you know, when you get older, that's going to be cringeworthy, which, you know, I was the same in high school. I assume that we all were. I think we all were, yes. Especially me. So you're chalking it up to just – Immaturity. Youth, okay. Immaturity. Although the giant sucker that says lick me probably would play well today.
Yes, yes. That was a good idea. No, I have something I prepared for you guys. Is it a song? No, but I can do that. About Freddie Baby? I can do that for next time if you wish. But probably the person who will appreciate this most would be Macula. And I don't even know if he's going to listen to this episode. But if he does. So you know how this film.
is set in 1989 right at their high school graduation. So I'm pegging that late May, early June, right? Yeah. Allegedly this film takes place in June, 1989. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So what would have been in the theaters? In the world of this film, what would have been in the theaters? Well, in May, a little bit in May. Yeah, that's one of them, but we'll start with May.
The Return of Swamp Thing, but that was only in limited release, so it probably still would not have been in theaters. I believe that was in theaters where I was at. Okay, yeah, that was limited, so that's good. And then you had Fright Night 2. Okay. Was out when these characters were alive. Roadhouse, also my desert island movie and quite possibly the most perfect film ever.
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. Okay, okay. And then Clint Eastwood, Pink Cadillac. So that was it for May. And then in June, we had, get this, get this lineup, Dead Poets Society. No holds barred with Hulk Hogan. Star Trek V, The Final Frontier. Ghostbusters II, as Ron said, Batman. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Great Balls of Fire with Dennis Quaid. Love that. The Karate Kid Part 3 and Spike Lee's.
Do the right thing. Was that not a big summer or what? That was a pretty big summer. Yeah, that is a big summer right there. I feel like... There were a lot of big summers in the 80s, though, that were bigger than that, even. Well, the summer of 88, the year before, is the big summer. That's the Die Hard, Midnight Run, Great Outdoors, like all those movies were in the summer of 88s. And the last thing on this little note is – Ron already mentioned this, but this film –
It came out August 11, 1989. So I know that, of course, this as a movie doesn't exist within this movie, but... But it preceded itself. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. Sorry. And it had to mention 1989 a bunch, so we have to retcon the rest of the series. Yes. So, like, better movies are like, you mother – Yes, exactly. You're affecting me. Are you kidding me? So I saw this in the theater because I was hooked after seeing part four in a theater. Nice.
I won't say I probably I probably didn't see it August 11th, but I probably saw it at some point in September or maybe late August. I don't remember the exact date. I don't have the ticket stub or anything, but I definitely saw this in the theater. And my first reaction was, huh, that was not nearly as good. That's the third or the fourth one. So even as a 13-year-old, you were unimpressed? I was unimpressed. I was like, what the hell is going on? Freddy Baby? Do we need Freddy Baby?
I thought, I'm like, Freddy Baby's just there to sell merch. He has to be. Well, the very first glimpse we get of the Freddy Baby. It's terrible and I hate it. The very first glimpse I hate. But after that, the puppet looked better. I don't know if he was developing more. It seemed to change somewhat. And it actually looked a little...
a little weird and creepy or something. I didn't, I didn't hate the special effects for the most part in this. There were a few of them that I thought landed with a clunk, but for the most part, I thought the effects were, were pretty. We're well done. I'm surprised to hear you say that because I think it's the worst effects in the whole franchise. I can agree. I mean, I think I love the effect, like I was saying with the cartoon. I thought that was really cool. You know, what was that?
that the Take On Me video was almost what it was like. I mean, that one was okay, I guess. I just thought that death was kind of lame myself. Well, yeah, I didn't like the death in that either. I thought that was, you know. I thought two of the three deaths were. Yeah, and I did – no, I didn't mind the affection. I really – I mean, the thing for me with this, though, was the – were the set pieces. I thought the set pieces were really cool.
Well, I can split you two down the middle, I think, in this, and I maybe put my finger on this. This film, believe it or not, this actually has a lot of dark concepts to it, but the execution is goofy. So, like, the food kill, the force-feeding of Greta, like, that's actually pretty... dark given you know what they were what freddie was trying to abuse her with because she was already tormented by her her mother
With food anyway. But it's the execution. In the original script, she was bulimic. See, that would have been even worse. And also in the uncut version of this film. Freddy pulls the doll back to show that he's actually been feeding Greta her own guts, and that's cut her open in the stomach. Yeah. Now, see, that's...
That execution is less goofy. I just thought that her fake face looked dumb to me. Yeah, that didn't look good. That was not a good effect. It looked like he was just feeding her Jell-O, like it wasn't even a gross-out moment, like it should have been. And with the cartoon kill, when he slashes the dude up and he's like made of paper and then his color bleeds out from beneath him, that would work great. That was cool.
But it's better in a Who Framed Roger Rabbit movie, not in a Freddy Krueger movie. That's how I felt, too. I felt like it was just Freddy slicing up a paper doll. Yeah, and it's like, okay, he's bleeding color. This is... This doesn't feel like a horror movie right now. I mean, how do you feel about the whole comic book sequence where Mark, who's kind of a loser of the whole movie?
He writes a comic book. He becomes his comic book character who's kind of a Punisher-like guy, I guess. And then Freddy becomes Super Freddy based on the comic thing and then basically kicks his ass. The swashbuckling music when he's winning against Freddie was just a bridge too far. I couldn't handle that music. The score is just offensive there to me.
You know, Robert Englund, I know, I know, this is sacred ground, everybody. Nobody can do Freddy better than Robert Englund. However, I do want to critique his delivery of... I don't think this was his best... This was certainly, well, we know it's not his strongest, but I'm with you, but go ahead. Yeah, his delivery of It's a Boy was way too much. It's like, dude, dial that back a little bit, less silly. I mean, but at this point.
You probably can't. Here's my theory on that, Jay. Okay. I feel like he didn't have as many one-liners in this one. He didn't talk as much. He didn't talk nearly as much as he did in the other ones. He wanted to make sure the ones that he had, he really got into. That's my theory. Okay. Okay. That's a good theory. What about the fact that this is kind of a neat concept because in Christianity, there is the...
There's an important concept of being reborn again. And it's neat that in this Freddy Krueger horror movie, he is reborn in a sense. He is brought back. through this sort of rebirth and that's in a movie that highlights a book called christian mythology yeah exactly that's pretty pretty interesting i think you know so um here's my here's my question in regards to that
And here's some continuity issues I have with this phone. Okay. There's a lot of continuity issues with this phone. First of all, why is Freddy inside of Alice? When and how did that happen? The last I saw Freddy in Non-Manuel Street 4, he was being pulled to pieces by the souls that were escaping his body. Right.
And we were led to believe that that was his final death. And we all knew he was going to come back. It doesn't matter how they brought him back. This is more like Nightmare on Elm Street 3 when they said, oh, yeah, he's back. But for some reason, instead of being in the dreams, like at least in Nightmare on Elm Street 4, we had that paranoia from Kristen.
over the course of a year gave him enough strength to bring himself back. This time we don't get that. Like Alice has one dream and then suddenly she's pregnant and Freddy Krueger is in there with the baby. Like how did that happen? Yeah, good question. It's a fair question. So at the end of the movie, because he's inside of her this entire time, allegedly only.
You know, except for when he's in the dream world. He literally has to come out of her, like be reborn again. That's like you're saying, but not in a traditional sense. Like he's coming out of her, like he's pulling himself out of her. And what I thought was a really another bad special effect. Because I think that this similar scene, and both you guys were here with me, was done much better in part two. I'll agree with that. Yeah, it was. The one in part two I thought was excellent. Yes.
And that's supposed to like wear Alice down to the point it's so painful and so sap so much of her energy, the point where she's she's given up fighting at that point. Let's talk about the whole mother taken like he's afraid of the mother. He doesn't want to leave that one cell because she's out there and the power that she would have over...
The son to the point that he's hiding her and keeping her away. That's that's almost like like an early version of only only a Voorhees can kill a Voorhees that we got in that crappy. What was it? Jason goes to hell. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that because this is another continuity issue and it's a big one. If Amanda Kruger.
is the only person who can kill Freddie and finding her body, which isn't in her grave that we saw previously in part three, but is hidden behind a brick wall that is so obvious that a girl who didn't even know that she existed. Then why would her ghost in part three tell the doctor that he has to bury Freddie when really what he had to do was find her? Right.
It makes no sense. No, it didn't. Yeah. That just seemed like, okay, we need something to take Freddie down at the end of this one. Let's just throw his mother in there. And she doesn't even do it. I don't even know what the point was. Like Yvonne touches her. Her body, I assume, that's been hanging there since she killed herself seven years after Freddy was born or something. And then Yvonne touches her. Her body disintegrates. She becomes a ghost again. And then she just comes in like.
Sucks Freddy into her gut. Baby Freddy. Aren't there birds or something flying around? I don't know, man. It's like it was breaking into a remake of the Total Eclipse of the Heart video. There is no bird that could help that scene. I don't care what kind of bird it is. Let's serenade Ron right now. Turn around. I will not because I like that song a lot and I will not. I'm not going to butcher it. I'm sorry. Tell it. It was written. Oh, yeah. You know what? Yes. I think I heard that. Yeah.
Yeah, you can listen to that song and it feels like a meatloaf song, right? Yeah, you're like... It does, it does. Also... continuity-wise, and Alice gives the big speech to her friends, none of them who believe in Freddy Krueger, after Freddy kills Dan early in the movie, which was by far the best scene in the movie, in my opinion.
She tells the lore of Freddy Krueger and says, oh, well, Freddy killed all these 20 or 30 kids on Elm Street. Again, not true. Then their parents, the parents – she actually says the parents of the people he killed. Burned him. Also not true. And then now he's out to kill the rest of the Elm Street kids. Also not true because you guys aren't Elm Street kids. It's made clear in the third movie or fourth movie that Kristen is the last Elm Street kid and you are not one of them, Alice.
It's like, Alice, didn't you watch the damn movies that preceded this one, Alice? You were in that movie, Alice. Come on, Alice. Yeah, so a lot of that kind of, you know, maybe doesn't bother somebody else because it's the basic story that people think, but it's actually not the actual story. Well, and here's another continuity error as well. Alice has lost all of her powers from the fourth film.
In the fourth film, she's built up as this very powerful – I mean honestly, I would argue – it could be – I mean it's arguable, but I would argue by the end of the fourth film, she's probably the most powerful. character in the franchise other than Freddy. And then in this film, for some reason, when her friend dies, she does not get their powers. Even though that's the whole point of being the Dream Master.
So, Ron, right here is where I'm feeling the time is right to lay this question on you. So, and this is, I mean this sincerely, and as a Fred head, I really want to know what you do with this. I know. That there have been weird circumstances and excuses. I'm sure studio interference.
budget, time restrictions, whatever. I know there's always that in Hollywood. Here's the thing about that, though. You can't take that into consideration. You can only take the final product, really, into consideration. Because they released it. I paid money for it. Right. It pleased me as the consumer. Yes, that's very fair-minded of you. And I don't give a crap what happened behind the scenes. That's very fair-minded of you from a film criticism perspective.
So good, you're in the right headspace for this question. All right, let's go. So do you think that because we have so many problems with changing up... the mythology of this monster, how he functions, how he kills. Do you think that that's because when it, at the end of the day, when it all comes down to it, This is a pretty thin and Fredbear, not Fredbear, sorry. That was a Freudian slip. Threadbear. That's hilarious. Threadbear concept where it's like.
OK, yeah, we did this for one movie and it was good. But now we're on the fifth movie. I mean, by the second movie, they were already changing it up. But I'm just saying, even if they had been faithful. The second movie is an anomaly. Every franchise gets one anomaly. Yes. OK. But even if they had been faithful, I mean, would you really have wanted to see.
basically the first movie five times over now. It's like I would have gotten bored pretty quickly. Jay, we answered this question already in the franchise. And I will answer the same every time. Okay, tell it. A franchise should find a formula and should stick to that formula. The thing that makes new movies interesting are the new characters you put in the formula. Really?
That's when things go south, and the franchise is obviously grasping at straws to try to pull in new viewers. Instead of taking a rest or ending the franchise and starting something else, this happened in 1989 again with Jason Takes Manhattan. Yes. And this has happened, I don't know, 800 times with the Halloween franchise at this point. Because my contention is ultimately – and you can ask – I told Mac this.
Especially with Nightmare on Elm Street because there are so many cool things you can do in the dream world. Well, my – but see, my thing is – it might surprise you, but my contention is… I think the first film is great because the concept is great, but this should have been a one-and-done horror story, the end. That's what Wes Craven wanted. He wanted it to be a one-and-done. He was right.
I don't disagree. I don't disagree. That would be great as I want it done. But I think through the first four films, excluding the second film, there is – it's very much like Tremors. I'll bring Tremors up as an example too. So in each film, they raise the stakes with something different. Right. So excluding the second. I'm talking about my right now, but we will bring up. OK.
So in the third film, for example, OK, so we fought Freddy. We know how to beat Freddy. We're adding dream powers now. So that's something new. In the fourth film. We know about dream powers. We know how to beat Freddy. So we're adding the dream master, which has its own set of rules. OK, in the fifth film, you probably could have found a decent.
movie somewhere in here with involving an unborn child. I don't think that's the direction that I would have went with it, but there might be something there, but you have to, if you can add something interesting to the formula. it's going to feel like the formula is fresh. And the reason I brought Tremors up for this, I think Tremors is a really great franchise at doing this because yes, in the first film, it's just the, um, the, um, what are they called?
The Graboids. And in the second film, we know how to kill the Graboids. Well, here's the Ass Blasters, right? Yes. I love this. We know how to kill the Ass Blasters. Well, here's these other guys. And then in the fourth film, it's like, well, this is a prequel that takes place in the 1800s. How do you... kill the Graboids in the 1800s. So they got away from that with the direct streaming stuff, but the escalation of danger in each movie...
I think helps keep a franchise fresh. And I think they were doing that with this franchise through the first four movies. I would have been happier with this movie. I mean, I know you wouldn't and Dave Z wouldn't. But I would have been happier with this movie if it had more followed the format of the fourth movie where Freddy's shooting off one-liners and killing kids in interesting ways. And then we find a way to kill them at the end.
That would have been a better film than this, don't you think? Hard to say. So it's like for the Friday the 13th franchise, okay? Which I think is the quintessential horror franchise of all time. It's probably – I think the horror franchise has the most good movies in it for sure because there are seven – Yes. Sorry. I'm sticking by my statement. I think there are seven good movies in it. You had to throw that in there.
Stick in the knife and twist it just a little. I love Ron. Because all you need in that film, in those films, you know, the first one's an outlier, but all you need in those films is Jason. In the woods, killing teenagers. Right. And it's a success. That's all you need. So the entertainment from those films comes from the teenagers themselves and the kills. You could have done that.
Until 1994 had been fine. But then they had to go and fuck it up because everything has to be in New York at some point or – You know, New Mind eventually bought the franchise and could even use the Friday the 13th. And only the Voorhees can kill a Voorhees. Even the Muppets take Manhattan, so Jason had to. Come on. I said that in my review of Jason Takes Manhattan.
I said, it can't be that fucking hard. The fucking Muppets did it. Right. And he doesn't take Manhattan. He strolls through Manhattan. That's true. So anyway, that's always going to be my answer to that question. You can ask it a thousand times if the answer is never going to change. You find the formula, you work the formula until the formula dies.
There's no need to take the formula away. There's no need to go to Hollywood. There's no need to go to New York if the films aren't originally set there. The only franchise that it made sense to do that was Scream. It goes because of the movie within the movie plot. The reason for all of this goes back to my earlier quote, bunch of whores. Because if something is making money, you know they're going to keep milking it to try to make more money from it. And I understand that. And this movie.
Essentially killed the franchise because the movie is so disjointed and has no real plot that makes any sense. A bunch of subplots that go nowhere. And outside of Alice, characters who are on screen for like. 10 minutes you don't really care about. We know Alice because she was in the previous film.
Other than that, the only other interesting thing in the movie really is Alice's dad, who has done a 180 from the previous film, right? He's cleaned up. He's no longer an alcoholic. He's a supportive father. This is a, I think. overlooked and important storyline in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise because parents in Elm Street don't do this. He's the only one in the franchise, but it's overlooked because it's such a shitty movie.
Yes. And what you said about this essentially killing the franchise, it's ironic that in a film where there is a rebirth of Freddy... It is the movie where it kills Freddy. If you have a burnt-up baby corpse of Freddy, your franchise is done. The audience knew this. New Line is going to figure this out. We've got to write one more movie to – Write Freddie off, and then we're done. Because the burns didn't happen until he was an adult and had killed those kids. Right.
So why would there be a bird to be? It's a dream world, so whatever. It's a dream world, yeah. So, okay, oh, I guess this is supposed to be Freddy. That's the only way we'll know. Not that it was Robert Englund. playing the guy who fathered Freddie. We get to see him in that sanitarium or whatever it is. So it's like, oh, okay, that must be the guy who did it, even though, you know, she's...
There's about 40 guys ahead of him in line for this poor girl. So he must be the one. Nope, we've got to say, oh, a baby. We already know she was impregnated by him. We know her last name is Kruger. But let's show the burned baby so that we can really drive home that this is Freddy. Yeah. And I bet they didn't sell jack shit. Freddy and 89, I bet they did.
You think so? Yeah, people were buying – With this movie even? I'll tell you this. People were buying Freddy Krueger rap albums. Now, I didn't buy the Freddy Krueger rap album until well in the 2010s, just so you know. Here's what I would buy. But I do have it on CD. I bet you, I would bet you a ton of the ladies out there listening, the horror fan moms, that horror stroller.
Yes, the horror stroller design is very cool, and I could see purchasing a horror stroller like that one. I will look out this year. Have you seen any? Listen, I have seen some horror strollers in Salem. in october and i'll be there this year for the end of october during halloween so i will look out for a horror stroll but look specifically for this
Dream child stroller. I have to look at the movie again. It's badass. It's right there on the cover. And Ron, is this right? Tell me if this is right. I read that they had this poster concept art. finished before the film. I already mentioned this. I didn't mention that right at the beginning. Thanks for listening, buddy. Am I dealing with Jessica here? Back on the Zombie 7 podcast? I knew you referenced it, but it seemed oblique.
To me, but I also read about it in the in the trivia. But I'm just saying they had to that horror stroller as it appears on the poster appears in the movie is my point. They probably just made it look like the one on the poster. That's what I just said, yes. They're probably just like, oh, well, let's do this. We're at Little Miss Horror Nerd. Hi, Jessica, if you're listening. Well, she got a second cat.
Even though she said for years and years and years that the cat she had was going to be her last cat ever. What's her second cat's name? I don't know. Stupid cat. You should have named it second cat. I call it stupid cat. So it could always feel inferior to the first cat. When I go over to her house to take her medicine or whatever, I always just pay attention to the first cat. I don't pay attention to the second cat.
And I always give her grief. I always give her grief. I say, listen, you just got a new cat. You're throwing this one out basically. Like this one, you probably make him sleep in the litter box at this point. Because he's not cute. He's old now. He's not a little kitten like the other one, right? You don't care about this one anymore because he's old and smells bad probably or something. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
We had done that. We had one cat, and then a couple years later, had a chance to get a second one, and we did. And the second one would literally pounce on the first one. I mean, it would like sit on the back of the cat. It was walking past and jump onto it like it was tormenting the first cat. And I remember, you know, the first cat was just like a cat. You know, you'd see it sometimes. Most of the times it wouldn't pay attention to you. We got rid.
of that second cat because it was peeing all over him. It was a nightmare. So we couldn't keep it. We got rid of it. From that point on, the first cat became so loving. It would be around us all the time saying, please don't bring another little bastard like that into this house. So what you're saying is the dream child here is the second cat of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.
The Dream Child is why we have no more Nightmare on Elm Street films. Well, that's because Robert England's old. Yeah, right. Well, but we but alas, we still have more films to review, though. Right. Well, I mean, but we have the one that they said they're going to make, and then we have a weird one, and then we have the one that they were working up to for 20 years while they bought Jason Voorhees.
Okay, I have a question. I have a little bit of trivia for you, and then we'll go into ratings. Here's my trivia first from my discussion I had with Lisa Wilcox some time ago. It makes sense. I never thought about it. But apparently Robert England, whenever he had to put makeup on in the morning, they would he would only put makeup on the part of his face. That's what was going to be on camera. OK, so he was rarely in full makeup. Wow.
And I'm guessing at this point, the fifth film of the franchise, he's probably in all of the other side stuff he was doing. Freddy's Nightmares, the MTV stuff. He probably hosted the New Year's special at some point, I'm sure. I'm sure – I don't know why we didn't have the Freddy Krueger Christmas special at some point. I'm sure he was tired of putting the makeup on. I'm sure he was. Oh, yeah, yeah. But in this film, okay, in this film, he has the makeup on.
Lisa Wilcox has the makeup on at one point. Whitby Helford has the makeup on at one point as well. And I think Amanda Krueger has the makeup on at one point. So a lot of people have some version of the makeup. So that being said, the question I want to bring up is that we get really heavy into the lore of Freddy Krueger. And I think a lot of films do this. A lot of franchises do this anyway when we get further into.
The franchise, I always kind of think that's the kiss of death. You know what I'm saying? When we start trying to figure out the killer, the psychological makeup of the killer, that usually means they've run out of ideas. So what did you guys think of going deeper into the lore? And we'll get more into it in the next movie. But what do you guys think about going deeper into the lore of Freddy Krueger? Is it necessary to do? Was it interesting?
Or was it just something they put in there so they can make this fake Amanda Kruger needs to be found bullshit thing that totally contradicts the rest of the franchise? That's what it felt like to me. That's how they figured they'd kill him this time. You know, that that would be the that would be his demise this time, which it turned out it wasn't even his demise this time because she wasn't even the one that delivered the.
The final blow, I don't think. Well, she took baby Freddy and sucked him into her belly and then went into heaven or something. Yes, that's true. So I guess technically that was it, but I seem to remember it was the little boy.
Who turned him into Baby Freddy? Who turned him into Baby Freddy, yeah. They have turned him into Baby Freddy, yeah. I think if they could have done it better, it would have been – kind of cool i didn't i don't know that we needed it though yeah i mean you know when they start getting into it and get okay here's here's this story and that story and everything i don't know i just feel like
You know, this is the kind of movie you make when you only have two months to do it. Well, here's the thing. In four, the Amanda Kruger stuff was pretty cool. Three, you mean three. Yeah, three, sorry. In three, it was pretty cool. And all the times I've watched this, you know, I was doing the in order thing. And then by the time you get to this, it feels redundant.
And it's like, oh, well, we've been there, we've done this, and I don't need more of this. So I strongly dislike that aspect of this film. And I will say before this film came out as well, Freddy's Nightmares first season had already aired. And the opening show, the opening episode of Freddy's Nightmares is the prequel to the original Nightmare on Elm Street of Freddy Krueger getting off.
of prison for because the paper wasn't filled out properly or whatever wasn't where it was his Miranda rights or whatever. And then being burned by the parents of. Of the killed kids and. our neighborhood parents of the killed kids and, um, then coming back in, in dreams. So we've already spent, you know, three of the last four, uh, mediums on Freddy Krueger talking about.
where Freddy Krueger comes from. I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I guess it's okay. It worked in three. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, I guess. Because I guess it works okay with Jason for the most part. But we never really delve into how he got his powers of never being able to die. He just kind of comes back to life. We never know why. Like in the next film, spoiler alert for the next film, we're going to find out why Freddy Krueger can –
Kill people in dreams. Part six of the Halloween franchise tries to explain why Michael Myers is always trying to kill his family members. And we get the Cult of Thorn. I like that film a lot better than most people do. But most people hate that film. I don't hate it.
I like how weird it is, actually. I like it better than 4 and 5, but that's just me. I'm not saying it's a good film. I'm not saying I like it better than 4. It's a typical Halloween. Most of the people get killed off set, off screen. But that's for the Halloween retrospective. So I just wanted to touch on going into the lore of these killers and trying to make them – I don't – sympathetic or I think Halloween did do this. No, I've not seen it because I don't care for remakes, but I...
I feel like I know that the Rob Zombie Halloween does this, right? Gets into the psyche of Michael Myers is kind of why he is. Gets into the backstory. Yeah. Was that necessary? He's a white, trash, dysfunctional family. Yes, he's a Rob Zombie movie is what it is. Yeah, that's the shorthand for it. We get it, Rob. You grew up in a trailer park, so did I.
That's great. All right. So with that being said, let's go into ratings for Nightmare Mystery 5. Dream Child, and I have some trivia for you guys to try to guess. Okay. Four or five questions, and we'll get you out of here. So, Doc Shock, do you want to go ahead and rate Nightmare on Elm Street 5 a dream child? Yeah, I'm going to come in. I'm really.
I'm really toying with giving it a 5 out of 10, but I think it probably deserves a 4.5 out of 10 a little more, so I think that's what I'm going to go with, a 4.5 out of 10. I did like the set pieces quite a bit. A lot of them, especially even that castle at the end, which didn't make sense as to how she could go in there by herself, a place she'd never been in before.
Take care of it like that. But the set pieces were pretty cool. And I did like some of the makeup effects, like I said. But it was just so jumbled. It was kind of hard to follow. Okay, so wait. So I guess the baby's asleep now, and he can now, you know, pull these other people in. Okay, fine. Yeah, I wasn't, and okay, now they're asleep.
No, I just – it seemed to be scattered all over the place. And so, yeah, 4.5 out of 10. I'd – only if you're a completist, I would say to check it out. But it's not something you – Or if you're a friend. I don't know that I recommend being an absolute completist. Some of us are just born that way, Dave. Yeah, we are. We don't have the choice. Jay, how do you feel?
Yes, I feel like Doc Shock should go with his first impression, you know, like you're supposed to when you're doing a test and everything. Because, yeah, this is a 5 out of 10 for me. It is a blue, literally blue, cinematic oddity. So for that reason, I call it a low-priority rental. And for whatever reason, I think it has to do with the fact that this is among the last of the technically the last.
1980s slasher films. It's among the last of them, even though Freddy's not my favorite. Well, since it was released in 89, I think that was going to happen. And late 89 at that. That's what I'm saying. These 1989, there are a lot of... There are a few bad slasher films in 1989, but I... It was the highest grossing of the bad slasher films in 1989. Yes, and I kind of have a soft spot for all those because they're kind of an end of an era, more or less.
The last thing I just want to say is anybody out there who wants to take a chance on me, I would be willing to write a film under a short deadline. Just saying. I've always thought I could do it and do it, come up with a great story, you know, in a franchise. For how many years, 20 years, whatever, nobody's been pushing you hasn't spurred you on to do it. You need that pressure. I'm just saying.
Nobody's ever going to give me a franchise movie to do. But let's just say there's a lister out there for years who just got so sick of listening to me run my mouth about... This is wrong with this horror movie, and it should do this, it should do this. If they just threw down the gauntlet and said, okay, Jay of the Dead, let's see if you can do it, I would be willing to do it. Anyway, this is 5 out of 10 low-priority rental.
Well, let me tell you this, Jay. I thought about this while I was watching the movie, and mostly my answer to that when people say, oh, well, what would you do? I would say, well, pay me the money to come up with that, and I'll figure it out. Right. I'm not getting paid to think of those things right now.
When I was watching the movie, I was trying to think what would be a better plot line, and I think at least to kill one of the continuity issues, I think a cooler way to bring Freddy back would have been through the comic book geek guy. Maybe he finds a horror comic. back in deep in the aisles of the local comic book store that highlights Freddy Krueger and that starts bringing that idea into his head and he starts having dreams that bring Freddy back and then Alice is like what the fuck bro
And in fact, this does have a horror comic with the Freddy stuff in it. It does. Yeah, but after he dies. Yeah, after it's already. It's not part of the plot. Right. Instead of just Freddy's back and he's living inside of Alice. Right. I'm back and I'm living inside about, I mean. Anyway, I'm going to say that I think Doc Shock was dead on with his rating of this film. I don't think he needs to go any higher. And the only reason that I would give this one a four and a half out of...
is because I did like the sets, just like you guys said. I do think it's kind of a cool look. I'm always up for a gothic look in these films. I do like the... character growth from Alice as compared to the other characters who are dealing with this the first time. What I don't like and I didn't mention this in my continuity stuff is there have been
Like 70 murders in this town within the last 15 years, and people are still like, you're crazy. Who the fuck is Freddy Krueger? Yeah, right. Yes, right. Yes. Let me tell you. Lauren Spear disappeared from here 14 years ago. We're still talking about her here. So that's just one girl. If 70 people died, we would still be talking about it.
So because of that, because of the character growth with Alice, because of the character growth with Alice's dad, which I kind of like compared to the other parents in the Nightmare Normal Street franchise, and because of Dan's kill, I like all of those things. So I think it's – Well enough to give it a 4.5. I wouldn't even say it's a low-priority rental unless you're a slasher fan or a Freddy Krueger fan or an 80s horror fan.
I would say if you're in – if you're a Freddy Krueger fan and you've already watched this, you own it, whatever, just because it's part of the lexicon, right? I don't think anybody who's not in one of those categories needs to watch it by any stretch. All right. So that's my feeling on Nightmare on Street 5, The Dream Child. Here is a few trivia questions to see if you guys can get, okay? All right. Do my best. Here we go.
This one's about Kelly Jo Minter, our favorite 80s horror actress of all time. At least Joel Robertson's. Yes. So Kelly Jo Minter. is actually credited and in one of my five, 10 out of 10 films. But she has no speaking lines and is only on screen for two seconds. Do you know which film this is? It's you, Doc. You can do it. No, I don't. I didn't look up any trivia or cast or anything for this movie. That's just something that I know. Okay.
I am not sure. Is it a horror movie? Yeah, it's one of my five 10 out of 10 horror movies. It's either Night of the Living Dead. It's either Night of the Living Dead. The Exorcist, The Lost Boys, The Crow, or Scream? Is he in The Lost Boys? He's in The Lost Boys. Okay. And she's credited at the beginning in the opening credits. It says Kelly Jo Mentor. Her entire role got cut out in editing. Wow. She works in the video store or the technology store that Max owns.
And you see her in the background of one scene for like two or three seconds. But all of her lines and her subplot got cut completely from the film. Can you believe that's a Joel Schumacher film? That's just so funny to me. I know. When I think about that. A film that's somehow timeless, but also set in 1987 forever. Yes. I don't know how that works, but it's perfect. That's funny. So in this film.
Almost every scene was rewritten at some point. The character of Greta originally was a different character who was bulimic and had a different name. Do you know her name? What her original name was? Sally. No, not Sally. Sally is in the pumpkin patch with Linus waiting for the great pumpkin. That's right. Lucy. And pissed off that she missed...
Trick or treating. She wants her restitution. That's it. That's right. Doc, it's tricks or treats. Oh, is it peppermint patty? I'll give you guys a hint. You're going the wrong direction. Think more Gilligan's Island. Old Ginger. It's Ginger. Nice. Okay. I like that. Here's a third question for you. One of the original concepts of this film before it landed where it landed had all these high school kids.
participating in a school play. And most of the movie would take place following the gothic nature of the director rehearsing for this play. What was the play? Taming of the Shrew. It's a good guess, but that's not correct. Oh, okay. Is it Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street? I think more classic, more gothic. Oh, okay, okay. All right.
Dracula? No, that's a good guess, though. I wonder if Dr. Walking Dead would have got this, but it's Madea. Oh, Tyler Perry's Madea. Okay. Not Tyler Perry, Madea. Ancient Greek Medea. OK, gotcha. OK, so in the death cycle scene where Dan is murdered by Freddy Krueger when Freddy becomes some sort of cyber motorcycle. And turns Dan into some sort of cyber motorcycle rider. Dan is death process. Sorry. Because you said death cycle. Sorry.
The motorcycle has a personalized license plate. What is the personalized license plate? Is it a bitchin'? It is not. Oh, sorry. What is it? It's just Freddy. It just says Freddy. Oh. F-R-E-D-Y. It should have said Fast Freddy, but... He can get all that on the license plate. Oh, that's true. All right, so here's the last one. This is the final film appearance of Alice and Jacob as Dream Master and son. But they do appear in other media fighting Freddy. What?
What is that media that they're appearing in? What's the name of the media that they're appearing in? Let's put it that way. Video game? Is that what you mean? It's not a video game. Okay. Is it a graphic novel? It is a graphic novel. So they appear in... That was a guess. So it's not canon, according to New Line Cinema. There are some graphic novels that are canon for Freddy's story that New Line Cinema has. this is a six series graphic novels um six edition series called um
Something nightmares, Freddy's nightmares or something. Anyway, it's so it's the main title is called Freddy versus Jason versus Ash. And in the overall series, all of the surviving people from all three franchises. come together to battle mostly Freddy, who's taking over the Deadites because he has all the Necronomicon, and he's controlling Jason.
So Alice ends up perishing in that comic book and passing her powers on to Jacob, who uses his powers to bring back the Dream Warriors to help kill Freddy. Oh, wow. Interesting. Okay. It's a fun comic book series. It's not canon, but it is fun. Right. So that being said, I think that we've covered Nightmare on Elm Street 5, Dream Child, as much as anybody probably should and probably more so than anybody probably should.
Although I will say this was not the worst part five that year. Jay, when you were given that list, Star Trek V, oh, my God. That's a rough one. That's so big. Oh, you think this is the worst one? Final Frontier? Okay. I think Final Frontier is much worse than this. Yeah, I haven't seen it in a long time, so maybe. And that for me was by choice. Yeah, because...
Oh, man. That was the one directed by William Shatner. Because that's the one where they go find God, right? Yes. They literally go to... They're looking for God, Spock's brother. Oh, it was just brutal. Just brutal. Yeah, but it has a 5.5 rating on IMDb, just saying. That's probably higher than this movie has on IMDb. I know. I got to look. Now I'm so curious because now we've thrown down the challenge here on this. Dream Child?
44 on Rotten Tomatoes, I think. Oh, you guys are going to be so jealous right now. Dream Child has exactly my rating, 5.0. So Jay stole his writing from IMDB and we came up with our own. We came up with original thoughts, Jay. I'm just in tune. With the horror community. You're in tune with IMDb, which overrates everything? The horror community. 51,000 ratings on there. And they're right with Jay of the Dead. Or it's Stephen Hopkins voting 1,500 times.
Right. Probably. And the one for Star Trek, it's probably recently because of Shatner. Anything with Shatner seems to be jumping up the scales a little bit on IMDb. He directed that one. Shatner was here in Bloomington for The Eclipse this year. Oh, neat. One more note on Stephen Hopkins. I know that of the films that Ron asked, I picked Race. But really... If you haven't seen Judgment Night, you really should. I haven't. That one is one of my faves. I really love that movie. Cool. Okay.
So now if you've listened this far, listeners, you have more knowledge about Nightmare on Elm Street 5 than anyone should have, more than most people who worked on the movie actually. And I talked to some of them, so I know this to be fact. So that's our coverage of Nightmare on Elm Street 5 in our retrospective of the entire Nightmare on Elm Street franchise in honor of its 40th anniversary, turning middle age officially this year.
I am your host, Fred Head, Ron Martin. And on behalf of Jay of the Dead, Dave, Dr. Shock Becker, the Gill Man, Joel Robertson, Mr. Watson. Dr. Walking Dead, Kyle Bishop, the Southern Gentleman, Greg Amortis, Macula, and Dave Z. We all want to thank you for listening to Jay of the Dead's new horror movies. the escaping tarantulas of horror podcasting. Bravo, brother. Very great. Very good. Can't you guys wonder what that reference is? I read that in the trivia.
Well, I also got that message from Lisa Wilcox because they had thrown the tarantulas on her. They had to do that. And a lot of them ran off. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. As a boy, he was always different. No one understood him. It's time to take your medicine. Thank you, sir. No one could control him. Go inside, honey. But now... It's a new beginning. The beginning of the end for Freddy. Every town has an Elm Street.
hello everyone and welcome to jay of the dead's new horror movies the childless carnival of horror podcasting today on jay of the dead's new horror movies We will be continuing our coverage of a Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, celebrating its 40th anniversary as a franchise. And we will be spoiling... This movie that we're covering tonight, Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare, a.k.a. A Nightmare on Elm Street 6.
So if you haven't seen Freddy's Dead yet, maybe you want to go watch that real quick. I'm sure it's available just about anywhere before coming back and listening to this episode. My guess is if you haven't seen it yet, you probably don't care if you see it or not. So you can just continue this episode. And if we pique your interest, you can go and watch it later on. I'm your host, Fred Head, Ron Martin. And with me here today, I have the leader of our dream police here, Mr. J of the dead. Kids.
And the man who will beat you upside the head with a baseball bat in your dreams, Mr. Doc Shock, Dave Becker. Great to be here. So The Dream Police, that's kind of an interesting one. I think Cheap Trick might have been one of the strangest-looking bands in the 80s, and that's really saying something. From the 70s to 80s, I should say. The Dream Police is a reference I'm going to get into here.
in just a minute when we talk about the origins of this movie. But don't think that that reference wasn't lost on me either, Doc Shock. I am well. aware of Cheap Trick. And also, it's also the first song that you play on guitar hero Aerosmith. Oh, wow. Nice. The cheap trick or opening for Errol Smith in that case, I believe. So that song has actually been ringing in my head most of the day because of my researching of this movie.
And they won't get out of your head, will they? They won't be on my head for a while. It's OK. It's a good song. So let's move on to the production of. Freddie said, The Final Nightmare, we have Rachel Talalay taking over directing of this particular film, which I feel like is a choice because she was... She worked on all of the previous films. So this is more of a – what's the word I'm looking for here? When they give out the career awards.
Yeah, I know what you mean. This is like, hey, thanks for hanging in there with us. We're going to give you a break here. Lifetime achievement. That's what I was looking for. Yeah, exactly. This was her lifetime achievement.
So they said, you've been here the whole time. We don't really want to look for another director. So we're just going to promote you to director. And she's like, cool, I can do that. Several scripts were written. And actually, this isn't filmed for a couple of years after the fifth film. So I think they really kind of wanted to do Freddie Wright.
in his going away because New Line Cinema at this point was kind of a player in the horror genre at this point and we all know that if the success if not If A Nightmare on Elm Street hadn't been as successful as it was, New Line Cinema may not have existed at this point, and that's why it's called The House That Freddy Built. So I think they want to do right by Freddy. So they're rejecting some scripts. They're not just turning around and doing a movie within eight weeks like they did.
Plus, Nightmare 5 was so critically panned and panned universally by horror fans and fans of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise that they wanted to kind of, I think, do their best to make this movie. And by putting someone in the directing chair that knows the characters, that knows the stories, that's familiar with the franchise, I think that was a step in the right direction. They also wanted to...
Pull out all the bells and whistles, right? So they made part of the film – not all of the film, but they made part of the film 3D in a nice little gimmick to go with the movie. They also – I don't know if you guys knew about this. They also held a – fake funeral as a marketing ploy for Freddy Krueger in whatever that cemetery is in LA that has all the celebrities.
There's a bunch of them. Yeah, well, one of them held a fake funeral for Freddy Krueger, the character, not Robert England, obviously. And they had the cast of this movie plus some of the other. characters from well we'll get into that in the trivia but alice and jacob from the previous movie that was led by a guy named andy mangles and the reason that i mentioned that is because he comes into play here in just a second
So that was a cool little marketing gimmick they did because, again, they're trying to make this a bigger deal than just another basic slasher film. This was going to be allegedly the last. Nightmare on Elm Street film where we're never supposed to see Freddy Krueger again. And by all intents and purposes, this is the last traditional Nightmare on Elm Street film. And run. Less in the series, yeah.
And Ron, just a quick question. Didn't those efforts sort of work? I mean, it was popular property, but also with the 3D and with that marketing ploy, wasn't this still the biggest opening of the franchise? I think I read that here. Yeah, I believe that it was because, again, this is the last time people are going to see Freddy Krueger. Even though his time has kind of passed, they actually –
Hollywood can take a note from this today. They actually realize, hey, people aren't into Freddy Krueger anymore, so we're not going to give them Freddy Krueger anymore except for this one final farewell. I believe that people who grew up with Freddy Krueger, they're like, this is the last Freddy film. We need to go watch it.
But after that opening weekend, the itch was over. I mean, it did pretty well in the box office. I mean, $835 million, which is pretty good for a slasher film at that time. Yes. That's very good, actually. This came out in 1991, so that's kind of the... You know, noir. The year of popcorn. Popcorn came out that year, and I'm pretty sure that probably did not do. What was it, $35,000? That's a shame. It should have. I don't think slashers would have been revitalized until 96.
Especially horror in itself, but slasher especially. That is true. So they kind of saw it for what it was and wanted to do right by Freddy, who's the whole reason they have a production company. The mayor of Los Angeles declared September 13th, 1991 to be national for our to be Freddy Krueger Day in L.A., which caused some controversy. Right. Because a lot of.
pearl clutching people said oh you're you're you're uh raising up a serial killer a guy who's even though he's fake he's very evil and he kills children and we're like the mayor's like hey that that The franchise brought a lot of money into this town, so we're going to stick with National Freddy or actual Freddy Krueger Day. Although later that year when he declared December 25th Silent Night Deadly Night Day, I think it raised even more eyebrows.
Well, Silent Night Deadly Night is a whole different situation. We're going to have to do a Silent Night Deadly Night 50-year at some point. You want to talk about a bad franchise. No matter what you think about the end of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, it is Citizen Kane compared to the end of that franchise. Come on, you didn't.
Like part five with Mickey Rooney. My God, that guy, that guy made Santa Claus. The toy maker. Yeah. Yeah. About part two, which is just the rehash of the first movie. Literally. I think there's like 45 minutes of original material. The rest of it is just like clips. I don't even think it's 45 minutes. I would argue that there are two other prominent. Films that do that with their part, too. I think Jaws 2 and Texas Chainsaw 2 are just a rehash of the first film as well.
And then, of course, the puppet master movies. Oh, yeah. The first 15 minutes of all of them are the previous. Wow. Yeah. There's a difference between bringing a rehash and and. actually using the same footage for an hour and 15 minutes yeah that's horrible which and silent dead and night 2 i mean i know we're off track a little bit but silent dead and night 2 literally the producers said here's the first movie just recut it to tell a different story
Yeah, yeah, puppet. They originally didn't even want those little cut scenes with the guy in the mental institution, the garbage day guy. They originally didn't even want that. I'll still say that I think Puppet Master is the most egregious at doing that later in its franchise. I mean, it's real. Even earlier in its franchise. I mean, how many times do they reuse that?
footage with, you know, from the opening, which was probably the best scene of any puppet master was the opening of the first one, you know, set during World War II when he's putting the puppets into the trunk. How many times did they reuse that footage? Yeah. Speaking of reuse footage, let me tell you guys about the original script for Freddy's Dead. And here's the reason why I say reuse footage, because the original script.
was rejected by Rachel Talalay, who wanted to go a different direction. But it was turned into a series of comic books by Andy Mangels, who led the Freddy funeral. in that marketing ploy. And so we know that what was in the comic books, not all of it, but the back end of it anyway, was supposed to actually be the... But I don't know how far in production it got or how far it got in the process because I have some insider information that would deny a little bit of it anyway.
But anyway, I want to mention that comic book series because according to New Line Cinema, that comic book series, and there's a couple other comic books after Freddy Stead, in between Freddy Stead and Freddy vs. Jason, that are considered canon in The Nightmare on Elm Street. So I just want to mention the plot of these comic books really quick. And almost the entire series takes place in the dream world.
So you guys remember in Nightmare on Elm Street 3 when Nancy is dying and Kristen says, I'm going to send you to the most beautiful dream world that I can imagine. Well, that happens. And Nancy lives in this beautiful dream world where Freddie can't reach her. So Freddie starts killing her friends in the real in the real life in order in their dreams. But in order to. lure her out which eventually works dr neil from the second movie gets involved alice and jacob come back to
to Springwood because they had previously left. Six years later, they come back because Alice's father has passed and she asked to deal with his belongings and things, which is alluded to that Freddie killed her father to lure her back. Like in the movie, he needs someone who can help him get out of Springwood. And he wants to use Jacob and Jacob's powers.
for that as the dream master and he also has some telekinetic powers as well that he's inherited and he he uses um the image of jacob's dad dan pretty um uses them a lot in order to manipulate jacob and jacob almost falls for it but you know uh doesn't quite but they do neil dr neil gordon does fine And when he goes into the dream world, he does find the remaining dream warriors who have carved out this little pocket in the dream world where they monitor Freddy and they become the dream police.
Kincaid and Taryn and Will and Jennifer and Phil, I think everyone except for Kristen and Joey are involved. So that's where the Dream Police reference comes into play. Okay. OK, and then, you know, they they thwart Freddy's plans and Alice and Jacob again leave Springwood. This time, Dr. Gordon is romantically involved with Alice because he has a little bit of. Alice's ex-boyfriend Dan Dan's soul inside of him as well so that is a canonical reason why Alice
And Jacob are not in this movie, even though the original movie script had Jacob as a teenage boy in this film. And there was a theory on the Internet that the John Doe in this film. is jacob you can't really thwart that theory just by the movie but the theory goes uh they couldn't get lisa wilcox back for the sixth film so they didn't go with that storyline Again, Lisa Wilcox at the time was doing some high-profile guest spots on Star Trek The Next Generation, and she was also playing.
the hot stepmother on the Bill and Ted TV show, but that only lasted like six episodes. So I don't think it would have been hard to get her. And when I, I remember the, I remember the Bill and Ted animated show used to play on Saturday morning. I didn't know it was the early 90s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there was a live action that lasted about six episodes, and Lisa Wilcox played – is it Bill that has the hot stepmom? Yes, I think it was Bill. Whoever's hot stepmom, she played the hot stepmom.
It was Bill, I'm pretty sure. But when I asked Lisa Wilcox this directly, she said she was never asked about a sex film. So they never went to her and said, hey, we have an idea for a sixth film. There's no contract for her. She was never approached by New Line Cinema, according to her. I don't think she'd lie about that.
You know, some guest spots on Star Trek, The Next Generation, and a short-run TV show. I don't think it's like she didn't have time. It didn't make her unreachable. It's not like they would have thought, well, we can't afford her anymore. Or like I don't think she had time constraints. Like I'm doing a TV show. I don't have time to make a movie. I don't think that's the case. And she herself has said she was never approached about reprising the role of Alice. And they had her at the funeral.
for Freddy Krueger and I'm assuming that's because either they were sold very early it couldn't have been early that was late in the run though they must have had her and they had the kid who played Jacob in the fifth movie at that funeral and I'm thinking that might have been Just to throw people off. Because I'm sure that funeral got some coverage. Probably. As a franchise as a whole has been really good about bringing back their surviving characters. Yes, that's true.
But they did not do that in this case, as we're about to find out. So let's get into Freddie said proper. Now that we have that that run up to the property, we kind of know what's going on for new line, new line cinema. And Jay, do you want to start us off with your initial thoughts about Freddy's dead? Sure. I'd love to. In fact, you know, there are many things to be said about this movie. But one.
That interests me that I wanted to share is I typically do not believe in the phenomenon where a later film, if it's poor. It tarnishes or negatively detracts from earlier, more successful films that were done better. However... In the same franchise? Yes, yes. That depends on if it directly affects those earlier films. Well, I'm just saying that me – But like for example in the Scream franchise, if Stu Macher comes back in the next film, it directly affects Scream 1.
Well, not necessarily. And here's why. Here's why. A film stands on its own when you watch it. Right. So when you watch Scream 1, that's all that exists right then.
No, that's not true, Jay. Not in the franchise. Well, I'm just saying in that particular example, some films jump around. Like if you're talking about Godfather Part II, you know, that has – If you're watching – film later in the franchise you're supposed to come into that franchise film with all of the knowledge of the previous films right that's true but i'm i'm just saying that um
Retconning in a franchise, especially if it's poorly done, it doesn't affect, typically, it does not affect my feelings on the earlier film. If I valued the earlier film... um highly like if i really loved it like for example i don't love alien 3 but alien 3 does not harm
No one loves Alien 3. Well, and here's the thing. I don't dislike Alien 3 as much as most people do. I'm not going to sit here and say it's the best in the franchise. It's not. Well, real quick, not to get distracted on it, though, but the very opening of Alien 3. completely undercuts everything significant that happens in terms of survivors of Alien 2. Yes, it does. But Alien 3. But Aliens undercut Alien 2. One second, one second. But Alien 3 does not undercut my love and appreciation.
of Alien 2 typically. That's just my point. Go ahead. What you're saying is absolutely right and I agree with you. I don't hate Alien 3. I don't think it's the worst in the franchise like most people do.
There are moments in it that I do like, and I like the setting of it. But I don't think it's the strongest. But I will agree with you. And they really do go in a very... strong direction at the beginning of Alien 3 to the point that you're like, oh my God, when Aliens was over, you kind of had hope.
You know, for some of these characters, and they kind of snatch that away from you. And I thought that that was actually one of the things that was kind of interesting about it. Not cool. I didn't love it, but I thought it was interesting about it. But I will agree with you that it... It takes nothing away from alien or aliens, which are both just tremendous. And so what I'm really speaking to, Ron, you know, for your benefit here is I'm just talking about my tendency as a viewer.
Usually, 90% of the time, if a later film is bad, it doesn't take away from the earlier film. However, with Freddy's dead, the final nightmare. I don't love Freddy anyway, but then seeing this one, it really affects my feeling. about the whole franchise. And here's the weird thing. I don't despise this film, believe it or not. I don't despise it. It's a yet another cinematic oddity that we have here. But I do...
It does make me like super sick of Freddy. Sick of looking at Freddy. Sick of hearing about Freddy. Just sick of everything Freddy. Well, because they – even Rachel Todd has come back in later years and said she thought it was too comedic. So I'm guessing that's where you're going. But I was going to offer this as an example. Because you asked this question earlier when we were in these franchise reviews as an evolution of the original. The original. Freddy format.
So this evolved into a more pop culture heavy one liners comedic. format which you may not have enjoyed but i think at the time for late 80s slashers that was the direction the audience was going to go in they were going to slasher films to have fun and have a good time not so much to be scared at this point so i think it's a natural revolution
of that franchise as opposed to what was happening in pop culture at the time. Yeah, no, I would agree with that tendency. I think you can definitely see that trend and argue it. And also... If people have never seen this, it's not just that it's like more comedic. It's actually downright silly, zany, nonsensical. It's cartoonish. And in fact, and this is my biggest.
This is one of my biggest condemnations of it that I realized. At the end, there's a scene where his daughter, because we're in spoilers, is wrestling the glove. and bending his fingers, and you're looking at his terrible makeup, his burn makeup, which they've gotten super lazy on by this point. And honest to goodness, Ron, I thought to myself, This looks like a freaking Goosebump TV production. That's how it looks. Yeah, the makeup isn't great in this one.
And I haven't given any of my opinions yet, but weren't there some like AK-47s in that room? Why are they throwing knives under the fence? I didn't see any AK-47s. Oh, there were guns. I'm telling you, there were guns. You look in there, let me shotguns or something. There were guns in there.
It was not. The one girl picks up a knife and they even say, hey, that's not big enough. You know, we got all these other weapons here. Why are you picking up a knife? And this girl is doing nothing but throwing knives under the fence. i'm going to say because at this point in slasher films they don't they hardly ever use guns i mean the only slasher film that uses guns pretty regularly is scream
Well, let's give it credit for at least at one moment adhering to slasher. It's still a slasher. Tropes. Well, the Terminator uses guns, so. But this was your chance to kill Freddy, and all of a sudden she's a carnival knife thrower. Well, it's the throwing stars, which, by the way, one of those I owned.
I own that very same. Yeah, I had a friend who had a collection of Chinese stars and him and I would like he'd come over. And my mother said, I don't want you going anywhere near those weapons. I said, OK. And then him and he would bring them over and we'd go back in the woods and we'd be throwing them with trees and stuff. Yeah, they were big.
in the 80s. They were. They were very good. He even had one of those. He called it like a Chinese switchblade that I got pretty good at opening. Oh, the butterfly ones? Yes. Yeah. Those are big, too. You could buy them at – even if you were underage, they didn't care. You could buy them at – No, he was my age, and he was buying them all over the place. Yeah, they didn't care. And the last just opening thoughts thing I'll just throw out there for now.
and then you can move on from me if you wish, is that I feel like the editing in this film is horrendous. Really? Yes. I just... It's so noticeable and jarring and abrupt, and it may have been intentional decisions, but I feel like it is very jarring. I didn't notice that you have an example.
Oh, my goodness. Well, I don't have like the timestamps written down or anything. There was like 45 minutes of this film that was edited out. A lot of it was story based and they took a lot of it out because. The decision was it's the last film. People just want to have fun. They want to see Freddy. They don't want all the back story. So they want to get to Freddy quicker. So they took out a lot of exposition in the first part of the movie.
They feel like this movie could have been over two hours. They feel like smash cuts basically is what I'm saying. Like, it's not a very smooth transition. And like. In some instances, it feels like, oh, they cut that scene way too early. I mean, it's just so abrupt. But later, when I come back around to me again, I do, believe it or not, I do have some positive things to say about this movie. But anyway, that's all.
Okay, Doc, how about you? Well, I think I've tipped my hand a little bit here. I'm going to be honest with you. This might be the very first time I've seen it start to finish. And the reason I say that is because I don't think I was on the review for this when we did it on HMPJ. For some reason, I think I missed this movie. But I have seen New Nightmare.
which is interesting because then I would have watched them. Well, that movie is more of a – But people were telling me you don't need to know anything about – Nightmare, you know, maybe you watch the first Nightmare on Elm Street, then you can watch New Nightmare and you'd probably be okay, is what people were telling me at the time. Yeah, New Nightmare is more of an internet, darling.
OK, I know I've seen moments of this movie. There are things about this that I do remember, like the opening of this movie on the plane. I do remember that. But there are things about in this movie that I know I would have never forgotten if I had seen them. Chief among them that stupid video game scene with Brecklenmeyer. Whoa. Holy God. Yeah, we didn't go much over the cast. We should mention this is the first theatrical film for Brecklenmeyer. Yes.
Yes, his first film. You have a few people in this. Oh, and who can forget? The mighty Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold. What media darlings they were when this movie came out. Well, I mean, that was a cameo. They weren't actually like. Yes, they weren't a cameo. But you have to say Cotto, guys. I mean, the fact that. Well, you know something? You know what?
When I saw Yafit Kodo in the credits, I'm like, oh, that's cool. I like Yafit Kodo. I like him a lot. Then as it got to the end of the movie, I'm like, you know what's really cool? Yafit Kodo was barely in this movie. I like that even more. His role was fine. He was in the movie for like 15, 20 minutes. That might be five to ten minutes too long, to be honest with you. I think it was maybe ten minutes. And six of them were at the end. But anyway.
Literally, there were scenes in this movie that I'm like, oh, my God, this is like that video game scene could be the worst scene in a slasher I've ever seen. Because when it started up, the animation. It looked like early Sesame Street. There were scenes in the last film that were worse than that, I think.
How much did Nintendo pay for all that promotion in this film is what I'm like. Well, you know what? If they did, they were screaming bloody murder saying we got ripped off when the scene was finally in there. Did that look like any Nintendo game even from that time period? Yeah, that's an 8-bit. Atari 2600 had better graphics than some of that shit. Come on, Dave. Okay, well, ColecoVision, and that's still pretty decent. That looks like an 8-bit game, which is where they were at in 1989.
whatever for Nintendo, but still doing Mike Tyson's punch out. And that looked a hundred times better than that shitty video game. They were playing in that movie. I don't think this was meant to solve video games, though, Dave. No, it wasn't. But obviously, it was obviously talking about Nintendo. That's what they were talking about. Don't they even use, like, a line from a Nintendo commercial or something? They do. You're playing with power.
No, they don't. Now you're playing with power. So it was obviously meant to be Nintendo. And I'm pretty sure Freddy had a controller there. That was not a Nintendo controller because I looked. But also the power glow. I said I made a mental note that if. Nintendo had paid money. That would have been a Nintendo controller. It was some sort of... unique like Freddy bloody controller thing that looked like it was homemade. But Nintendo came out and was against them using anything of their products.
Yeah, once they saw the movie, I would have been too. We've got to backpedal this shit pretty quick. Before, and that's why Freddy Krueger does not say, now you're playing with power. He says, now I'm playing with power. Right, right. That's true. That's true. What an amazing change. Because they asked to use the Power Glove, and Nintendo said no. Anyway, that to me was as bad as some of the other scenes were. And then he's hopping around the house.
I thought it was the goofiest, worst scene in the movie. And it lasted so long. It wasn't quick. It went on and on and on. It was terrible. terrible. And I would have remembered that if I'd seen that earlier, because I would have been like, this is brutally bad. It's not Freddy's best kill. No. None of the kills in this would rank in the top five Freddy kills. Maybe not even the top ten Freddy kills. Top ten for sure, but I don't know about top five. There's only three kills in here.
Rose's kill was pretty cool. Yes. That scene, that whole scene with the, like, the swab. Yes, that made me cringe. That was actually probably the best. I wasn't really into the whole dropping of pins and things like that. That didn't really work. But the whole scene with the swab and then the sort of beetle. coming out of the hearing aid and stuff. Yeah, that was cringing. That was probably the best sequence in the movie, if I'm being honest, for me anyway.
But I think also at this point in the Freddie Burst and the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, they've made it quite clear that, you know, while there are going to be. horrific images and Freddy's still a murderer. And it's going to have some intense moments that, you know, this isn't, this isn't a horror movie that's trying to scare you. This is a horror movie that's trying to entertain you.
Those are two different things. All right. Wait a second. They entertain you in a way that – If it's a horror movie, horror is meant to try to scare you. I mean, come on. Are there horror movies out there that – that are fifth or sixth in the franchise that really scare you at all? I mean, were you scared by Friday the 13th Part 5 or 6 or 4? No, not Part 5.
But, you know, no, I think, yes, OK, I know what you're saying. You kind of know what's going to happen as the franchises go on. I think there are moments. that sort of you can be like, oh, that was pretty cool. But yes, I know what you're saying. It's not necessarily going to like, it's not going to scare you like the earlier movies in the franchise did. I'll give you that. But they at least still try to keep it horror.
Say what you want about Friday the 13th Part 5, and I've said plenty. They're at least trying to keep it horror. You know, and I've come to it. I've come to like part five a little more on a recent viewing than I did in the past. I actually did one of my myth busting segments on that movie, how it's actually a good movie in that franchise. But here's the difference. Like, you know, so we have Jason Voorhees. He's stabbing people. We've got Michael Myers. He's stabbing people.
And then we have Freddy Krueger. He's flying out the window like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. But it's entertaining. It's not a guy in a mask. I rolled my eyes. That didn't entertain me for a second. I rolled my eyes when I saw that. I'm like, are you kidding me? You could have – I mean the –
The other option is if the guy in the mask stabbed him and got somebody ten times in the same room. I would have rather him stab him than riding that broom as the wicked witch of the world. Ron, I've got to call Doc Shock out on something. Go ahead. Do it. Doc Shock, here's the thing. Weren't you one of the among the people?
Who loved Pearl as a masterpiece because of all of its Wizard of Oz references. But, you know, Fred here makes a Wizard of Oz reference. Tell me something in Pearl that was comedy. Jay, tell me something in Pearl where they used a Wizard of Oz. comedy. When she's humping the scarecrow on the ground. When she's humping the scarecrow on the ground, yes. How about that? That's pretty comedic. So that movie had many references to The Wizard of Oz and took them in several dark directions.
This one had a single reference to The Wizard of Oz, and it was goofy as shit. I'm just saying. You're just saying wrong. I know. I'm just saying it was just funny to me. The Wizard of Oz can never be used in horror is what you're saying. The Wizard of Oz can't be used in horror because of the one statement.
I made about this movie, whereas The Wizard of Oz had moments in it that were even creepier than moments in Freddy's dead, the nightmare parts. Well, I'm not going to deny that. For sure, for sure. But all I was pointing out is that it was humorous to me. How much you love Pearl. Oh, no, you wanted to call me to task. You didn't say it was slightly humorous. Well, it's true because I thought that was one of the things you appreciated most. And then when I gave you my response, all of a sudden.
and became slightly humorous. Okay, it's more than slightly. It's pretty humorous overall. Okay, now it's pretty humorous because you've got to save a little face. I understand. Okay, let's move on. My experience with Freddy's dead. I saw this in the theater in 1991. Did not care for it. I've seen it maybe half a dozen times in total. And I listened to my previous podcast on this movie earlier today from about 2013. And I did pretty much what you guys were doing.
So I feel like after watching it today for this podcast, today I probably – of all the times I've watched it, I think today was the time I liked it the most. And I'm not going to deny that it's not goofy as shit. It is very cartoony in many, many aspects. I just take into consideration what they were doing in slasher films.
At the time and the fact that they just wanted people – I think they just wanted people to come in and have a good time and say goodbye to Freddy. However, that does not negate a lot of franchise. continuity issues that this one has because this film is you can look at it a certain way and it is kind of a
I don't want to say a love letter, but it definitely references a lot of the rest of the films in the franchise. I think that's purposely done because it's the last Freddy Krueger movie. They even bring back the... The cause of Freddy's demise from the first film to be a major player in this film. They bring back Johnny Depp. I thought that was pretty cool that they brought that back from the first film. And I did like that. I did like that. They stayed with that.
I don't think they did anything interesting with it, but I like that they at least stayed with that. I do have an issue with the fact that this film allegedly takes place 10 years after the events of... Yeah, how strange was that opening? How strange was that opening? All the kids are gone. On Elm Street, the adults are now pretty much psychotic. But there were rumors that one kid survived. Listen, I'm okay with that, okay? I'm okay with that, and that's fine, but...
If you're going to do that and you're going to set your movie 10 years into the future, then I don't understand all the pop culture references. Like at one point, Breckenmeyer's playing a Tiger Electrics handheld game. That was out of date in 1991. Are you referring to the Ninja Gaiden game? Yeah, we had Game Boy at that point. Right. Second of all, those Tiger Electronic games went out of style like in 86 when we got Nintendo.
And side note on that. This is 1999. In the film, you're saying it's 1999. Yeah, it's 1999. And then the PSA cameo from what says 10 years later. It does. The movie opens. Ten years have passed. So you were saying ten years since part five. With a graphic. You know, it just opens with a graphic. Before anything else happens, ten years have passed.
All of the Elm Street kids are dead. Right. The parents have gone insane, including Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold. Right. I'm OK with that plot device. One kid has survived. I'm OK with that plot device, but you've got to be better with in a.
especially near the end of the franchise, that heavily references pop culture at the time, you've got to be aware of that if you're going to set your movie 10 years in the future. 10 years in the future, yes, because when was the last one? The last one we established was what, 89? 89. So this would have been 99. It's anachronistic. That's correct. But I just wanted to say regarding Ninja Gaiden on Nintendo, speaking of Nintendo.
That is one of the all-time hardest games ever made. And I beat it. I beat it, by the way. God, Jay, I couldn't beat Joe Glass. I couldn't beat Joe Glass. Joe and Mike Tyson. I gave up. When it got to Nintendo, I gave up. My brother sent me his Nintendo. No, I had a Nintendo.
And my brother said, hey, I'll send you, he was overseas with the Air Force. He goes, I'll send you my shortwave radio if you send me your Nintendo. I said, fuck it, yes, absolutely, because I suck at this game. And I sent him my Nintendo, and he sent me his shortwave radio. Nice. I think the hardest game I ever beat, Nintendo-wise, was Lost Levels. Super Mario Bros. of the Lost Levels, the Japanese version of Super Mario 2, which is a really, really hard recreation of...
I'm pretty sure Mike Tyson's came with my system, and I couldn't beat Glass Joe. Yeah, maybe you have that. I'm like, okay, I'm out of this. I might have gotten to that hippo guy who you got to punch in the belly 3,000 times. Oh, yeah, King Hippo. King Hippo. Yeah, I think I might have gotten to him at some point. What's he, the third fighter? And then when Don Flamenco with a rose in his mouth, I couldn't beat his ass. But I just wanted to say, I can't even imagine.
a handheld Game Boy type Ninja Gaiden game. I would... I would die. Oh, did you ever play those Tiger Electronic games? No, I have not. I did have several handheld Nintendo games. Before the Nintendo system came out, there were Nintendo handheld games. They were very rudimentary.
They're not like Game Boys. It's just like life that... Yeah, exactly. They weren't Game Boys. They were just like... You're right. They're like these lights or these graphics that would float down. There was one with Mario and Luigi killing plants. as they were, like, coming down the vine that I had. My brother had a different one. I think it might have been, like, a very early version of, like, the Mario Racers or something. Mario Kart.
Mario Kart, yes. It might have been a very early version of that. And I'm talking very late 80s at this point. And also that PSA announcement. It might have even been mid-80s, to be honest. Oh, yeah. The PSA parody was real big in the late 80s too, but in 1999, nobody knew what that was by that point. For sure. And especially now, I can only imagine that people seeing that.
would just think it was a random Johnny Depp cameo. But, yeah, that was a very prevalent commercial. Oh, it was all over the place. This is your mind on drugs. You know what? I didn't mind that scene. I actually laughed at that scene. Because I'm thinking the same thing. Looks like a pan and eggs to me. Looks like a pan and eggs to me. Yes, I got it. I got to admit, I laughed at that because that commercial was like all over the place.
Yes, yes. Even before this, I think it was in the 80s. I think they were doing that commercial from back in the 80s with this is your mind on drugs. Any questions? Now, I will also say this. Johnny Depp. I didn't like his performance in the first Nightmare on Elm Street. He wasn't bad in this cameo. Because by this point, he was a little more experienced.
Yeah, he was basically – Here's some foreshadowing. I think Johnny Depp plays himself better in that 30-second cameo than Heather Linkamp plays herself in A New Nightmare. But look into that a little bit later on. That was awesome. In this retrospective. Also, I want to take this time to throw out a plea to the town of Springfield, Ohio, which I've driven through several times. So at the beginning of this movie, it shows where Springwood, Ohio is.
on a map of the United States, and it's roughly the same spot as Springfield, Ohio is. I would like for Springfield, Ohio to just... reimagine themselves. They should just go with the whole thing. They should just rename their town Springwood, Ohio, make some sort of town logo with the Freddie glove. Just fall into it. You're going to get all kinds of tourism money coming into your town.
Build 1428 Elm Street, make it some sort of tourist attraction, and you will just rake in the dough. Horror fans are nothing if not loyal. Yes, they are. And I would go there. It's only about five hours away from me. Four hours? Maybe not even that. So that's my plea. If anyone's listening who is in a position to do this for Springfield, Ohio, you should consider it.
It's within driving distance for me, but I think, you know, Pittsburgh, I think for me, is like between five and six hours. And that's like closer to the border of Ohio. But I could get there driving distance as well. It's really close to my hometown. Yes. You know what? Wheeling, West Virginia, I think, is closer to Pittsburgh and Ohio than Philadelphia is. It's not saying something. Oh, for sure. Yeah.
I'm 45 minutes from Pittsburgh, and Ohio is literally across the river. I can get to Ohio in like 10 minutes from my mom's house. Yeah, that's a very long drive for me because it took you a while to get to Hershey, didn't it? Yep, four hours. So despite what you guys have said about. that particular kill thing. I think the kills in this movie are better than the kills in part five. No, I don't. I don't love the kills in part five, but I like the kills in this even less.
Well, the cotton swab is very effective, as we said. The cotton swab is the best one. There was the guy dropping on the spikes that you never see. You just see sort of their after effect in real life. Yeah, I think it's better than... feeding a girl until her fake claymation cheeks look like they're going to explode and then she chokes to death. Yes, that sucked. I think it's better than slicing up a cardboard cutout of some dude and saying, you're dead now.
Okay, but there were others in part five, weren't there? There's only one other, just Dan. Well, Ron, what one's in... in this movie did you like? I like Carlos's death. I like the pin dropping. You know, you can hear a pin drop. I didn't like the pin dropping. I like the nails on the chalkboard. It makes sense with Freddy. That was cool. But wasn't that Carlos?
Yeah. So you mentioned Carlos twice. Well, he asked me which death I like. Okay. So you said Carlos twice. Now you're trying to make it like it's three. Come on, Ron. Jeez. What the hell is happening here? You mentioned, oh, I like Carlos, and I like the nails on the chalkboard. I like Carlos, and I was saying why I like Carlos's death. I was giving, you know. Oh, okay, so you weren't making it three. You were just saying here's the right.
There's only three deaths. So we're at two. We're at one. Okay. But I'm not finished. I was going to call you out on that. You said you like him falling on the bed of an amp. Well, here, guess what? I do. I like all three of the deaths in this movie. Better than the three deaths in the previous movie. I'm not going to defend the deaths in the previous movie. They were not good either.
But I can't say that the best in this one are better than that one. Here's why. Even though the falling on the spikes thing may not be the best thing of all time, at least we saw in the real world that... the holes that they left and the blood spreading out of them. Oh, and they look so realistic, didn't they? Again, it's better than some chick getting chipmunk cheeks and choking at a dinner table and nobody even helping her. Yes.
That sucked. Or a cardboard cutout getting sliced up by Freddy. Yes, that sucked. I didn't say I love them as the best best in the series. I said I love them more than the best in the preseason. Again, I don't think anything from part five or part six would make the top ten best in the series. Dan's death in part five was okay.
At best. Well, I'm serious. Like, you know when you go to the doctor's office and they look in your ear with that light and they stick the little thing in your ear? Well, I'm always nervous when they do that. I can barely. handle that. And so that swab kill... That is good. The worst kills in this whole franchise. Well, I mean, that didn't kill him. That didn't kill him. No, it didn't end up killing him. It should have. But it was just an awful scene. It was disturbing.
okay yeah okay it would have key that's good good very good you guys are you guys are on it with it and i would point out that in this film we're back to all of the elm street parents being terrible to the point of them being abusive at this point Yes. Abusive. They were morons. They were maniacs. Well, we're led to believe that probably Carlos is hearing impaired because his mother abused him.
Yes, you're right. But he was not from Elm Street. He was not one of the Elm Street kids. The one guy was the only one from Elm Street. Well, I mean parents in the franchise as a whole. Okay, parents in the franchise, not just parents from Elm Street. Okay. Well, originally there were parents from Elm Street, but now since we've expanded upon Elm Street in these films, it has to be parents from the entire franchise.
OK, so we have the running theme for the franchise. And, you know, in this film, yes, they're not Elm Street children anymore. They haven't Elm Street children since the beginning of part four. But now where he's killed all the kids in Springwood, he needs to expand upon Springwood and somehow – and I'm not defending this. He has to bring his long-lost daughter back in order to do that.
So that's why he saves the one kid. So his mother was in four and five, and all of a sudden he had a daughter in part six. The mythology of this series is baffling. It is. It is. But again, I don't necessarily. Hate that because it's not mentioned ever that he had no kids or anything, so it doesn't really go against any of the continuity. I mean, it's not ideal, but.
Again, the fact that we see Freddy Krueger, we see his childhood and we know he's fucked up because – We get to see why Freddy became what he was. Well, that's because he was the son of a hundred maniacs, right? So he's a product of brain. And so he's messed up in the head. He has all this, you know, he's he crushes. He crushes. He crushes a classroom hamster with a hammer and all the kids do are taunt him.
So he's haunted and bullied as a child. He's bullied by his adoptive father. Raised by Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper, which might be my favorite cameo in the movie, if I'm being honest. Well, Alice Cooper, who probably wasn't even there half the time, he had a very heavy touring schedule at the time, from what I understand.
So I wouldn't say his scene took more than like half a day to shoot. No, I'm saying as a father, he probably was a bad father. Oh, as a father. Yes. Well, I don't know that his actual father was Alice Cooper. I think he was playing a character. Obviously, see Freddy as a cutter, as a cutter, as a kid, because he's mentally messed up, right? So he cuts himself to try to...
alleviate himself of pain, which we see when Alice Cooper beats him. He doesn't care anymore because he doesn't feel pain anymore. But then we see after his messed up childhood and upbringing, he tries to go straight for a while. He has a wife and he has a kid.
Here's what I would have liked, I think, more, because this kid gets taken away from him because he kills his wife because obviously he doesn't care about killing things. They don't do anything with that wife character except have her shaken to death. Well, wait, he probably strangled her.
Well, it looked like he was shaking the shit out of her the whole time. It was like in her dead body. Yeah, or it almost looked like – Let's strangle her and then shake her. It almost looked like he was bashing her head into that tree back there in the background, but you –
but i think you guys are right i think it was more of a shaking strangling regardless here's what i would have liked better i think because at that point she has discovered his that he's the springwood killer and we see like all of the attempts at at making the glove before he gets the final product. There's a lot of cool, like, prototype gloves down there that she sees. And she's like, oh, I'll keep your secret. And so he murders her because she knows his secret.
And then because of that, his daughter gets taken away. Yeah, but then the daughter gets taken away. But then at the end, he's resentful against the daughter because he's like the daughter turned him in. Did we see that scene? Did we see the daughter turn him in? That's probably part of the stuff that got cut. I mean, I don't think we need to see that. Then why didn't they cut that?
Why didn't they cut that? Because there is no scene where the daughter does anything to turn her father in. I don't I mean, I don't think I worked out that she was the daughter. Probably in the first 20 to 30 minutes of this movie, I knew that that was the daughter. I don't think we need to see the daughter. I mean, I don't think that's a necessary scene.
There were many unnecessary scenes in this movie, but that might have been one that I would have liked to see. But I would have liked it more, I think, if he... We know he's messed up and he inadvertently kills his wife or maybe one purpose kills his wife. But then his daughter is taken away because of that. And then because he says at one point in the movie. They took away my kids, so I took away theirs. I would have liked it if that's when he started murdering children.
I think that would have made more sense. It seems like he was already murdering before that. He was already a murderer. Yeah, he was. He was already the Springwood killer at that point. But I agree, Ron. It would have been way better if there had been a cause. Yes. That sent him over. I agree, too. I agree, too. He's messed up in the head, but.
And we don't get any of that until this movie. And that's just – that's the problem with this whole series. They just keep shifting shit up. They just keep shifting things up. Oh, his mother is the only one who can kill him. Oh, he had a – daughter. Well, his mother in the last film, and this is my next question, you guys, about all the backstory and the necessity of it, including the dream demons. and how it worked out. The dream demons made me laugh. So the previous film introduced...
Reintroduces the ghost of Amanda Kruger and completely contradicts everything she said in the part in part three and completely contradicts everything we've known about the entire franchise. Part three and part four, I'm assuming, as well, right? She was in part four also, wasn't she? She was not in part four. Oh, really? Just part three? Three and five. That's some good continuity right there.
Well, she wasn't necessary in part four. But in this film, we've added some scenes from his childhood and upbringing. And then we also add that at one point he tried to go straight and had a wife and a child, which while not. And I don't know that those scenes come off super well. Two things. I think one, I think Robert England was really sick of wearing the makeup. So as we get further in the franchise, you see many more scenes with him not wearing the makeup.
We learned in the last film he only has a part of his face with the makeup that's going to be filmed. Yeah, and like Jay was saying, every single movie the makeup gets a little weaker. So I wonder, I don't know this for a fact, but I wonder if he didn't push. For that, you know what I'm saying? I probably would have. I can imagine that being a tedious process. Oh, he has to be. I mean, Boris Karloff used to sit in the chair for, what, four hours every morning for the Frankenstein makeup.
And that's why they had to rewrite the entire mummy film, right? Because he didn't want to be in makeup anymore. No, the mummy film ruined his skin from 1932. Paris Karloff, it ruined his skin more than the Frankenstein makeup. The mummy makeup from 1932. ruined Boris Karloff's skin. And he was like, I'm not doing that part anymore. And that's why Boris Karloff never played the mummy again. Because when they were pulling the stuff off of his skin, it was actually pulling skin away.
Wow. And leaving these pores in his skin. He's like, no, I'm not doing this ever again. I will not play this part ever again. And that's why the mummy's hand had to change up the series from that point forward.
Interesting. I would imagine with someone like Rachel Talalay who's been in the franchise the entire – all of the movies like Robert Englund, he probably had some pull. I'm not saying that happened. I don't have any proof that that happened. There's no stories that that happened. That's just a guess on my part. I'm with you.
I think you're probably right. I think you're probably right. Yes. Secondly, the inclusion of a wife and a child does not disrupt any of the rest of the continuity, unlike Amanda Kruger's role in part five. You know what? I'm going to agree with you. I'm not quite with Jay on this. I don't think this movie ruins any of the previous films for me. It doesn't. But I can understand why it does for Jay. I can, because of how this one, of just how bad this one is.
I can kind of see that, but it doesn't for me either. I still go back and I look at the first Nightmare on Elm Street, Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors. I look at them as very strong. horror films, and it doesn't take anything away from them for me personally. As a matter of fact, this movie makes me regret my scores for part two and part five.
Yep. Yep. So the latter half of the film, we're in the dream world, right? So this is the point in the film where you put your 3D glasses on and stuff starts happening in 3D. In the film, the actual film, Catherine Krueger, who is Maggie Burroughs, a.k.a. Maggie Burroughs, she puts on the same 3D glasses. they dissolve and now she can, she's supposed to be able to see.
There's been crazier things than that in horror, better horror films. Oh, no. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not sitting here like criticizing it. It's just it's just yet another goofy ass scene. Allegedly, she can see Freddy's, you know, if he tries to portray someone else. Or he tries to trick her. She can see through that with these glasses on. And then when she pulls him out of the dream. And how did Yafet Kodo know that? How did Yafet Kodo know that?
Well, I mean, in the film, he's presented as a person who studied dreams his whole life in the dream world. Did he study Freddy? I wouldn't imagine anything about the history of Freddy Krueger. So, Dave, I know where you're going with that, but he is that that character that they always have that annoys me so bad. Who's the. The expert guide. Who's the expert who knows nothing about the history of the franchise, but he's still an expert. Yep. Okay.
I hate that role, too. I don't like them either, but let's go with it. The consultant. I will grant this, because this is not the first franchise to use that. Oh, yeah. Yes. Well, and he does a little experimentation when he fights Freddy in the dream world and rips a piece of his shirt off. That's true. Which is just a rehash of the –
Which is a rehash of the first film, but I think that's a nod to the first film as well. The minute he did that, I'm like, oh good, Yaffe Koto is going to survive this movie. I like it a little more now. Yeah. Well, after like the first 30 minutes, everyone survives at that point. Exactly. Freddy kills no one else. Well, it might be at the 45-minute mark with that shitty video game with Breckenmeyer. But, yes, I agree with you. After that, everybody survives.
I'm not saying this is a better movie by any stretch, but I will say that when he fights Yafikoto, when he fights Tracy, when he fights his daughter in this film all three times, all three of those battles. He takes more damage than he ever took from all of the Dream Warriors combined. Yes, he did. Even in the Dream World. Even in the Dream World. He took more hits than he ever did. He took more hits than he ever did. And I kind of like that as well.
Yes, and when they pulled him into the real world, the only question I have, when they pulled him into the real world, how could he climb on the ceiling? Well, she did say... And again, this is not a great explanation, but she did say like, oh, we're still in some sort of part of the dream world because I'm still seeing things the same. OK, I think that was, you know.
One, so Freddie could do something, and two, so that the people in the audience could keep their 3D glasses on. Yes. Okay. Speaking of those fights, Ron, what about when she sticks the daughter? Sticks a pipe bomb into his chest. A pipe bomb. As if it's like sharp or something. She like sticks it into him. But then when you get. Oh, no, he had a hole in there before from the crowbar.
Okay, that's where she stuck in. Okay, so she dug a hole with a crowbar strictly so she could stick the pipe bomb in him. Well, no, his hand, that was improvised, but his hand was pinned to his chest for a while because she jammed that into that crowbar into his. That's right. She had that whole scene where she was throwing knives like a carnival knife thrower and pinning him to the wall. Yes, that's true.
But you cannot defend, I bet, the explosion graphic. You will be surprised at what I can offend, sir. You can defend that with his head. You can defend that with the three ghosts bursting from his body and floating toward the screen. Those are called snake demons, by the way. I don't give a shit what they're called. They suck. That's awesome. Well, and by the way, the snake demons, I believe we are to understand that to a certain extent, Freddy is literally –
Weren't we supposed to believe they are the ones who turned him into Freddy Krueger initially? I was getting there, dude. And what kind of bullshit is that? Wait a second, dude. They are possessing him, literally possessing him. Yes. And driving him. Total bullshit. Total bullshit. That's right. Well, it explains why he has the powers he has in Dreams. It explains nothing. It's bullshit.
Well, I mean, in universe it explains that whether you like it or not. Okay, fine. It explains it whether I like it or not. I don't like it. I think it's bullshit. I don't love it either. I don't like it either, but I'm just saying that's the explanation for it. One more fact about the snake demons in case, you know.
Because I know how much Dave likes them. He'd probably like to learn more about it. Those were puppets, which I would have never heard of. No, Jay. I thought they were high-tech computer effects. I'm just saying I would have assumed that they were really crappy CG or some kind of, you know, some kind of crappy CG, but they were. No, they were crappy puppet effects. They were actually puppets. Yes. Yes.
You're a puppet. That's true. That's true. So the explosion scene is not great. I'm not going to try to defend it. I didn't make it, but there had to be something for the 3D effects. And for the record, I don't. Most of the people involved with the film didn't like it either. I think that was probably brought down by the studio. I'll do that. Really, you think the studio? Yeah, big ending with the 3D effect, sure. I would rather blame the studio.
than the director of this movie or anyone else involved. I would rather blame the studio for that. So, yes, I'm with Ron on this. Well, I mean, I think that's documented. Like Rachel Tyler Lai said, she didn't love it. So I'm assuming it came down as a direct order from the studio to have a big 3D ending like that. Also, the studio, Robert Jay, has been on record as saying, like, one of the reasons they were killing Freddy off was that...
They had, at this point, grown into a real studio that had other projects they were working on and other franchises they were. He mentions Critters. Wow. I don't know if that Critters is any better. than this. But they also had a house. No, you know what? I kind of like the first two Critters movies. I like the first two Critters movies. Yeah, I can see it. Definitely both of them better than this piece of shit.
Also, the credits – I don't know if you guys stayed for the credits. Yes. But they had a compilation of scenes from – That was my favorite scene in the movie. Actually, the ending credits when they went back to all the old kills from the previous Nightmare on Elm Street films. I was sitting there going, this almost redeems the movie for me. See, and I have to disagree. In one way, because that's where I was going next is I feel like I know they were trying to give a tribute like.
It's kind of like a bunch of member berries. Like, remember all this? Remember how much you've enjoyed this franchise? But I feel like having watched the movie that we just watched. And then ending it by showing us all the better sequences in the better movies was kind of a mistake. I can't argue with you on that, Jay. I think you're probably right. They're probably saying, look.
We know we screwed the pooch on this movie. But look at these previous films with all the kill scenes and how cool they are. Yeah. Cut us a little slack. They did have numerous scenes from every movie leading up to this one, including scenes from this movie, too. And an RIP. They had a few scenes from this movie. Yes, they did have a few scenes from this movie.
Some of the ones I kind of liked in this movie. That's the ones that made. So it's almost like the megas of this movie knew, hey, these are the stronger scenes from this movie. Let's throw them in with the rest of the scenes from the franchise. And then maybe no one will remember how we screwed them over with this. How creepy it was that carnival though, right? Yeah. Yeah. That was weird. That was weird.
Two notes about this movie, specifically with Carlos. And I know we've already talked about Carlos. Why do you love Carlos so much? You know what? I like the scene with Carlos. I think that was the strongest scene in the movie. When he's in the dream world with the swab, it's just Ron insists on turning into two kills. I don't even know where you got that. From you saying the kill of Carlos and the chalkboard. I was actually giving analysis of why I like the kill.
Instead of just blindly saying the kill of Parker's and giving you nothing to step back. You know what? I'm going to back off. I'll give you that. Probably the best kill of the entire time. I call bullshit. It's probably the best kill in the entire franchise, honestly. Because Ron was outlining the entire Carlos sequence and the various torture that Freddy gave to him. Okay. In addition.
Whatever you say. 13 kills in this movie. 12 of them were Carlos. 13 kills in this movie? There were five characters. How could there be 13 kills? Well, he killed Carlos 12 times. That's right. I think he did. And I think you referenced six of them as your favorite in the franchise. So my two. The top six kills in the whole franchise, actually. So, guys, get this. My two Carlos notes that I loved. Number one. When Carlos is in the back of the van unfolding that freaking map. Yep.
That is my exact experience with maps, because that has always happened. I have unfolded maps in my life, and I was unfolding them and unfolding them and unfolding them and saying, where the fuck does this map end? Right. That's right. Every time I've ever tried to unfold a map, that happens to me. Same with me. My father said, hey, tell me what road we're on. I said, I haven't even unfolded the goddamn map yet. Yeah. Right.
And the other thing is, and Ron, this is for you as a Fred head. I want you to know this. The only time that I can actually recall laughing at a Freddy Krueger antic. that he's doing you know yeah is when after he sticks the swab through carlos ear and his hearing device is gone and he's he's deaf essentially
He's following him? When Freddie's behind him, locking him. I was laughing at that as well. I thought that was pretty funny. I actually cracked up laughing during that. I did too. I thought that was pretty funny. Here's a little side trivia for you guys. So I've met Ricky Dean Logan and I've gotten his autograph. You know what he signs? What? You know what he signs is his little quote on the autograph. Does he say what?
No, he... What? What? Are you asking me what? Are you asking me to repeat the question? I think you two are talking cross-purposes here. No, I'm answering when you said, do you know what he signs? And my answer was... What? As if he can't hear? Get it? Oh, okay. I did not get it at the time, and now I get it. No, he signs the map says you're fucked. Oh, that's great. That's better than saying what.
That's really cool. Yes, that's awesome. That's really cool. That is hilarious. So does anybody else want to get anything out of their system before we go into ratings? Yes. Yeah, well, I'll leave it to Jay because I think I've gotten everything out of my system. Okay. Okay, just a couple real quick little notes. Number one, like props to the stunt people in this movie. There were actually quite a few falling down. type stunts and especially when he's the rolling down the hill fall
That goes on for so long and it's so overdone. It reminds me of those scenes in Family Guy where Peter Griffith hits his knee. The chicken? The chicken or when he hits his knee and he's like. Yeah, he does it, it's funny, then it's annoying, and then it becomes funny again. Yes. So I wonder about this, because that dude rolls down the hill forever, and I'm like...
That stunt person really took a beating doing that. We've talked about how cartoonish it is, but in addition to the low point of the bouncing, the boing, boing, boing, is... Him busting a Roger Rabbit type cartoon hole through the wall. Yep. God, how awful was that? Very slow. But I did promise that I was going to say – But he is bussing bricks in the video game. That's right. Like Mario. Like Super Mario. Yes.
But I did say I was going to mention a couple of positive notes about this. And honest to goodness, you guys, I feel like if we could take elements like nobody would ever. Pay to remake these, I bet. But you could assign me as a writer. I'm just, you know, delusions of grandeur. But I think there are elements in part five that are. Worth keeping in elements here. Like, for example, in this film, the whole Freddie's the abusive father, of course, I mean, we've seen that done a lot.
But Jay, there was no setup for it before. Why do we need it now? I'm just telling you, it's not that we need it, but I think that because of... This man's problem with. So we have to somehow relate to Freddy Krueger? Is that what you're saying? We have to understand Freddy Krueger? I can tell you what I'm saying if you hear me out. So here's what happens. Freddy Krueger has this weird relationship between adults and children, obviously. As a child, he was, you know, he had a...
Alice Cooper as his stand in dad, but also with his own family. He tried to have a normal dad, not his family. What? Well, that's not his dad. That was his adoptive dad. Yeah. That was his adopted dad? When did they set that up? That is 100 Maniacs. Yes. Oh, Christ. What a sack of shit. Anyway, hang in there, Dave. But then he tries to have this family, and then he loses.
touch and this connection his daughter is taken away I mean there are aspects to that kind of like in the original Friday the 13th movie there's a reason why Betsy Palmer. There's a reason why she goes berserk, you know, and it's a pretty good reason. And we got in Friday the 13th in the first movie and we got in Nightmare on Elm Street in the sixth movie. Yes. But.
You know, I'm just saying, it's not, Dave, you're acting like we can't introduce other elements later in a franchise. I mean, you can learn more about characters. All horseshit. It's all just late introduction horse shit to try to make this movie interesting, and it's not interesting. Also, I'll just make the wrestling aspects to it. Yeah, like, for example, I thought it was brilliant when they said, every town has an Elm Street. That's a great concept, you guys.
Because every fucking town in America has an Elm Street. Exactly, Dave. Elm Street is just two streets over from where I'm sitting right now. Oh, so because every town has an Elm Street, that makes that a very... Important statement. Yes. Let me explain. Let me explain why, Dave, because let me explain why you can try. OK, watch. Watch this. Thus far.
He has tapped out and mined out this Elm Street there in Springwood, Ohio. It's tired. Not Elm Street. He tapped out the entire city. Yeah, the entire city, but especially. God, he got off of Elm Street in the fourth film. Okay, but especially the Elm Street kids. You two can't even agree on this shit. I'm just saying if you want to keep having nightmares on Elm Streets.
then there are plenty of Elm Streets to be had across America. Just saying. I don't think that line is meant to be taken literally. I think it's just a statement line for the movie. Why don't you two battle this out and then I'll get involved. Well, there's no battle. It's a cool line. Yes. But I don't think at this point in the franchise the kid has to be on Elm Street to have –
to be killed by Freddy. And I'm not saying... It's called Nightmare on Elm Street. It doesn't have to be on Elm Street. Well, I'm not saying it is. In fact, this movie didn't even have Elm Street in its title. I mean, Jason went to space and killed people. That's right. But I'm just saying this movie is called Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare. Maybe if we got on to fresh new Elm Streets, we could bring back the Nightmare on Elm Street title again.
That would be actually – that would be like a good Netflix original or some sort of streaming service original. where you have a different Elm Street every season, five or six episodes. Yes. Kill some kids in creative manners. Yes. You have to find someone who is adequate at playing Freddy Krueger. Okay. It's an interesting point. I think that...
I think there's an interesting concept involved in Springwood where there are no children. The women lament this. The men are like, we don't want children because that brings Freddy Krueger back. I think you do something at the restaurant that I don't know what it is. I don't get paid to know what it is. But I think that's an interesting.
concept. As long as Roseanne Barr isn't one of them, I'm fine with it. Apparently she's a big fan of the franchise and she was big at the moment. But her and Tom Arnold in this movie... By the time they were in this movie in the early 90s, they were already passe. You think? Oh, yes. Roseanne was only like in three years. Absolutely. The Roseanne TV show. From 1990 on, they were. But Roseanne and Tom Arnold.
I guarantee that by the time this movie came out, people were tired of hearing about both of those assholes. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. They're in the movie for 20 seconds. But the fact that they were in it for 20 seconds proves the filmmakers didn't have their pulse. They didn't know what they were doing. They didn't know what people were thinking.
Well, they knew that people didn't want Freddy Krueger anymore, so they killed him off. Unlike other franchises who said, no, I prefer a convoluted movie. And I will always give this franchise credit because it got out. You know what? It still got out too late, but it didn't get out as late as other franchises. It's hard to say no to that money. Yes, it's hard to say no to the money. It absolutely is. So this franchise got out and it made money. The sixth movie made a lot of money.
because everyone said, Freddy's dead, the last nightmare. So everyone's like, hey, we've got to go see Freddy for the last nightmare. I will give them credit for that. And I will also give them credit for not carrying this storyline forward. Everything from this point forward was Freddy versus Jason. It was the remake. There were other things. They did not carry Freddy Krueger forward from this point forward.
from this point on. You know, with Jason Voorhees, they had Friday the 13th Part 4. You know, that one was supposed to be the end of Jason Voorhees. It wasn't. But that series was going to continue just with other people under the mask. No, for one movie. For one movie, it continued with people under the mask. No, no, no. They were supposed to transfer the mask to Tommy. But they didn't, did they?
No, because people got pissed because Jason wasn't in the fifth film. They got pissed because Jason was in the fifth film, and the filmmaker said, okay, fuck it, we'll bring Jason back for number six, even though it makes no sense. We'll bring Jason back for number six. Oh, I mean, you can make an argument for saying we will end this when we know we should. You can make an argument. And, of course, let's be honest. This was late in the franchise. This was after.
Friday the 13th, Part 5. This was after the Halloween movies with Michael Myers when they said, okay, we're not going to make the same mistake as those other series. We're going to kill Freddy off right now. Yeah, like I was trying to say, I would take this contrivance of a film that at least fits in with – you can make a straight story.
I would take this 100 times over a franchise who just says, oh, we want to keep making money, so just ignore everything else. We're going to start over with the same character, and there's numerous franchises that have done that. Yes, there are. And I will give this movie absolute credit for that, that they got out when they knew they should.
And in today's Hollywood, right? So this movie makes a bunch of money at the box office. It makes three or four times its budget. Even though they said it's Freddy Dead, if this was today, there's no way they're not making another movie. Oh, no, you're absolutely right. They would have made three to four other movies in this franchise. This franchise still has blood to give. We're going to make sure we get the most. Yes, it does. Yes, it does, but it does not.
Follow the same storyline, and I give it credit for that. I have three last comments, Ron, and then I'll be ready when you are. Why don't you give your three last comments and then do your rating, and then we'll move on from there. Okay, deal. Number one, I have to agree that they genuinely intended for this to be the last Freddy film because I feel like that little member berry sequence of the previous kills during the closing credits.
The last Freddy solo film. There was always intentions for Freddy versus Jason. Yes, yes, yes. Sorry. Thank you for the clarification. Yes, agreed. That little sequence by the credits and then the RIP at the end. Which I thought was clever. I liked it. Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that. It was okay. I liked it. I think it fit with the franchise. But it's like, oh, you're going to tell a dream demon who killed and slaughtered children to rest in peace? No.
No. Anyways, that was weird. So those are the two of the comments. And then the third comment real quick is. Speaking of pop culture references. I didn't think about it like that, but okay. Speaking of pop culture references, this does have a Twin Peaks reference. That's all. At one point, the character mentions this is like Twin Peaks. Yes. Yeah, that's the Twin Peaks reference.
This movie is heavily – I think heavily inspired by Twin Peaks, which was very popular at the time. And New Line Cinema in a couple of years would go on to produce the Twin Peaks movie. Yes. So that makes sense I guess. But go ahead and give your –
Rating? Okay, here we go. This is another cinematic oddity. I think it's bonkers. It is crazy. And I just sat, once again... incredulous while watching this this is my like second time seeing this film and I have this weird little thing for cinematic oddities I like to remember films that are bizarre and of note. And it, and because it is the only Freddie film where his antics made me laugh, I give it a four out of 10. I call it a low priority rental. There you have it.
All right, Doc, can you beat that? Oh, I can beat it. I will agree with Jay. This is a cinematic oddity. There are moments in this where I did genuinely laugh at Freddy's antics. For me, it is a 3.5 out of 10. You know what? I almost wanted to say at the beginning of this review, if you are a Freddy completist, you've got to watch it. But... I have not seen the whole movie until today. I went from part five to New Nightmare. And I felt perfectly fine with that.
Ah, screw it. I'm going to say watch it once. You've got to see this movie once. I'm saying 3.5 out of 10. Honestly, it might have even gotten a 5 out of 10 if it wasn't for that extended Breckenmeyer goddamn video sequence that sucked total ass. It was terrible.
You didn't even mention the worst part of the sequence. No one did. What is it? It's when the pit of hell appears at the bottom of the steps in the real world. Oh, and he goes sliding down it. With Freddy's daughter watching him slide down it. Right. In the real world where Freddy shouldn't have any powers. Yes. I that that sequence was awful. But.
Everything before it was just as bad. The pogo stick like bouncing. Oh, when he's jumping around that house in a pogo stick. There was no pogo stick. This is supposed to be scary. This is supposed to be frightening. Are you kidding me? Yeah, that was so awful. Anyways. Best death of the franchise. But anyway.
Best death in the franchise. Jesus Christ. You just said Carlos was the best death in the franchise. Now you're giving Recklen Meyers' character the best death in the franchise. 1 and 1A. 1 and 1A. All I will say is Jesus wept. That is – go ahead. That's a different franchise. I just know that Jesus was heavily involved in the making of Freddy's dead, but maybe I'm wrong.
No, maybe if he was, it would have been better, at least in this movie. So I've watched this movie about, I don't know, half a dozen times. I did see it in theaters. I was never a big fan of it. Like I said, today was probably the best. It was probably the time I've watched it, and one, understood it the best, and two, enjoyed it the most. I don't know if I'm just reaching a different Pokemon Evolution in my horror film watching, or because...
Since the last time I've watched it, I mentioned this already in a couple of the previous reviews. You know, I've gotten into collecting Ephemera and that Freddy Krueger plays a big part of the late 80s pop culture. So maybe that's.
part of the reason too but I think if you're coming into this movie and you're looking to be scared or you're looking to recreate the um uneasy horror aspects that you got in the original nightmare on elm street you of course you're going to be greatly disappointed this franchise has evolved into something different than uh what it what it started out it's a pop culture spewing uh vehicle
at this point, just trying to give teenagers, I think, and mostly, you know, that's the target audience for these films, mostly is just like Blumhouse at this point, is teenagers, a good time in the theater. You know, I'm not going to defend the Nintendo death scene. I mean, I did a little bit in this just to be a contrarian, but just to have a good show. But it's not great. I'm not, you know, I'm not.
I'm not visually impaired or anything. I know when there's a good horror. But I think you have to take 1991 Freddy Krueger. at its core value of what 1991 Freddy Krueger is. This is not a great film, but I do think it's better than part five because it doesn't contradict every other movie in the franchise despite the stuff that was added. not being incredible stuff. You don't think the daughter stuff contradicts the other movies?
No, because at no point does it mention – if they had said at one point that he had no children, then it would, but at no point it doesn't say that he didn't have a child. But at no point they mentioned he had a mother either. Yeah, it does. Can we not assume Craig Kruger had a mother? Well, I mean, he's alive, isn't he? He was alive at one point, wasn't he? Exactly. So you're saying part five with the scenes with the mother are worse.
Then part six, the scenes with the door. I'm saying they're worse because it contradicts her previous appearance and what they had said previously in the franchise. Okay. I'm not saying they're better scenes. Okay. The daughter being in this movie does not contradict the continuity of the rest of the franchise. It sucks, but it doesn't contradict it.
I mean, it's not it's not the best story. But, you know, at this point, again, I would I would take this over rebooting the franchise and saying, oh, we're going to ignore all the films except for the first one. And then, you know, I would I would take this. They didn't do that. This was they this I will I will.
Give it to them that this was the last film in the franchise. This was the last one. This was the last one in the Freddy Krueger franchise. And I'm giving them credit for that. I'm giving them credit for it, too. So I think this is a better film than the fifth film. It's more entertaining to me. I think the fight sequences are better. I think the kill scenes are better. I mean this is all personal stuff. I think the acting is better.
The acting's not great, but it's better than the fifth film. No, I don't think the acting in this movie is terrible. I'll be honest. I think a little bit of it is over the top, but especially that one girl. who was throwing the knives under the fence. I thought she, like, overacted pretty much every scene. But other than her, I thought the acting was decently solid. That's Leslie Dean.
And she did a lot of projects with Robert Englund around this time. Like she's in his movie, 876 Evil, and she was in Freddy's Nightmare. So I think he had a hand in getting her the role. OK. And I don't dislike her. I don't dislike her. I like that character. I thought she overacted a bit in this film. I like that character. I thought Sean Greenback was a little rough as John Doe.
There were some lines that made me kind of laugh the way he delivered them. But overall, I don't think this is the worst movie in the franchise. It's definitely not a great movie. I'm giving it a 5 out of 10. And I think unless you're if you're a, you know, Nyman Elm Street guy, you're going to have the film anyway. I would say it's a low priority rental, but only if you've seen the other movies like I don't. This one is not a standalone.
not a standalone film. I think you can go from one to four and then jump from there to new nightmares. Personal. That's what I, I would say one, three and four. You don't need to. And then I didn't think, I don't think you need new nightmare either, but. Come on. Two is good, guys. Come on. Two. Now, you know what? I might agree with Ron. I think one, three, and four, and then you can jump to.
New Nightmare. Well, New Nightmare is not officially part of the canon. No, it's not. But there were things about it that I really did enjoy. I can, even though it's not, and I know we'll talk about that next time, but even though it's not, I consider it. So I love it. I love New Nightmare, believe it or not. Well, when we talk about next time, you can tell me where it fits in the canon. Okay.
Well, yeah, I don't even care about that. I'm just saying I love it. It's one of the very few Freddy films that I love. So, can't wait. I seem to remember you, Jay, ranking it along the same lines as the first movie. Yeah, I love the first Nightmare on Elm Street 2 in terms of Freddy films. Yes, the first one's good for sure.
I know you like the first one, and I know you really like New Nightmare as well. Yes, sir. I also like the remake, but Ron doesn't let us talk about the remake. I said you can put the remake in, but I'm not on that show. I refuse to watch it. You know what? Yeah. I might join you with the remake, Jay. If you ever decide to do the remake.
I will join you for the remake, and we have to have Gilman Joel on because of his absolute despite of the remake. I will. I mean, I'll come on and do the intro and be a spectator, but I'm not going to watch that movie. And you've never seen it, right? Nope. Never had desire to see it. Run, run, run. You know what? I think you have to at least watch it. I think you have to at least watch it. I don't think you'll like it.
I don't think it will rank high for you, but I think you have to at least watch it. Gilman Joel has watched it and really, really hates it. In fact, I have all that, but we'll talk about it when we get to the end of this franchise review at the very end of Ron's episodes. And then I have a surprise for the listeners who will be looking for that. I'll just say it like that. How about that?
Okay. Very cool. So now that we've done the ratings, I have a little bit of trivia, and then we'll get out of here. You guys ready? All right. I'm ready. So there was a first draft script sent to New Line Cinema for Freddy's Dead. Freddie – basically a lot of elements of this ended up in Halloween Ends a couple of years ago where Freddie is this decrepit old man who can't defend himself.
So kids, teenagers would put themselves to sleep and go in a dream more than kick his ass. I actually love that. Yeah. And I guess eventually he probably kills one of them and starts gaining strength, much like Michael Myers in Halloween. And so do you know who wrote the pretty famous person wrote this draft of the script? Do you know Peter Jackson?
It is Peter Jackson. Good job. That's a good idea. I read the first ten quotes on IMDb of trivia, and then I gave up because I just didn't give a shit enough about this movie. I never get my trivia from IMDb, so I didn't look at that, but it was everywhere else. There was a – this may be – and all this may be on IMDb. I don't know. But there was a scene in this movie.
which caused the actor in the movie to, what's the word I'm looking for here, to remember some repressed memories from some traumatic childhood. event that they eventually got counseling for. Can you have any guesses as to who the actor might be? I'll give it to Jay. No, I don't know. I don't know either.
So it's the character Tracy, the actress is Leslie Dean, and it's the scene where Freddie is posing as her father to sexually molest her, which made her uncover some repressed memories of some childhood trauma that she had in the same situation. Why did the series constantly overlook the sexual molestation of Freddy Krueger? Well, every single goddamn movie they overlooked.
The possibility that Freddy Krueger was a predator. In the original draft of the first film, he was a child molester. Yes, but they cut it out. They didn't want it to be a focus of the franchise, of the film. Right. They didn't want it to be a focus of the franchise, but goddamn, it was. And one of the things I will say about the remake is it did not back away from that. Mm-hmm.
I mean, honestly, we can discuss this when we talk about the franchise as a whole, but I don't think it's necessary. Oh, he should just kill kids and not molest them. That's what you're saying. I mean, that happens. Yeah, maybe. But I'm with you, Dave. I think the molestation angle is even more monstrous. Yes, I absolutely agree. And I think the fact they backed away from it in the initial series.
weakens the series but i could see why i don't think there would be i can see why they did it right i can see in the 80s why they did it because People were so sensitive and like with – look at how they responded to Silent Night, Deadly Night, right? If they would have had a franchise about a child molester, you know they would have gotten shut down. Well, you're talking about the –
the Reagan era as well, where, where the church is taking over the conservative side of the political platform as well. So I don't think there is a series if he's a child molester in the first film. Right. I agree. I don't think they could have done it when this film initially came out. When the first film initially came out, I don't think they could have done it.
It's an underlying theme throughout the series. It really is. And it isn't until the remake that they finally address it. Yeah, I know it's incorrect, but I always think of Freddy. As a child molester. I do too. And a child killer. I really do. I absolutely think of this stuff. I never ever do. Interesting. That's interesting.
Third trivia question. Sean Greenblatt was not the first original person playing John Doe in this film. Who was? I don't know. I don't know either. It's Ricky Dean Logan who ended up moving over to the role of Carlos. Oh, wow. Nice. I thought he was a good actor. I liked him in this movie. I did, too. So Johnny Depp famously makes a cameo appearance in this film, but he is not credited as Johnny Depp.
In the credits, what is he credited as? Is it Glenn? It is not Glenn. That's a good guess, though. If you don't know it, there's no way you're going to guess it. What's that credit that everyone gives the directors when they take their name off from movies? Alan Smithy. Yeah. Alan Smithy. Is he Alan Smithy? He is not. He is Oprah Noodle Mantra.
Something tells me that Johnny Depp came up with that. Yeah, probably. Two other ones. These are music related. Who is the artist on the original theme song for this film? I don't know. I don't know either. Iggy Pop. Okay. And the last question, also music-related, there is a song in the film that does not appear. On the soundtrack, and it's a pretty famous song. Do you know which song it is? No. Me neither. It's In a God of the Vita.
By Iron Butterfly. Oh, yes. I remember that scene. And that's in the scene with Breckenmeyer when he's being pulled into the video game. And I just want to say that at the bowling alley I work at, we have a jukebox, a TouchTunes jukebox, TouchTunes all around the country. People know what I'm talking about. There is a 15-minute version of In a God of the Vita. Well, that's the initial version.
Yeah, that's like the full version of in the God of the Vita. People play it all the time because they feel like and I'm using my air quotes here. They're getting their money's worth because the 15 minute song. Here's the thing. People who play the song and bother me to no end. If it's not the song you like or want to hear, you're not getting your money's worth. You're just getting 15 minutes of a fucking song.
That you never wanted to hear. Well, I'm going to be honest with you, Ron. I think there's another song that's even more egregious. It's Traffics the Low Spark of High Heel Boys. That's a two-minute song. Well, you're not getting your money with a 15-minute song. If that's not your favorite song, you don't want to hear it. I know about that one because – well.
I'm not going to get into it. My father with his computer, when he would shut down his computer, I remember one time putting a minute and a half song about the theme song from Maya the Bee, which was a French cartoon on there. And I remember talking to him and said, hey, the last time you shut down your computer, was everything okay? He goes, no, you put that damn theme song on there. It lasted forever. And it was a minute and a half. So the next time.
When he shut down his computer, I put the low spark of High Heel Boys, which was a 22-minute song. Oh, Dave. And my father said, I sat there for three minutes, and then I pulled the plug on the goddamn computer. One year on April Fool's Day on the Resurrection of Zombie 7 podcast, we played the intro. We cast it as we were covering the movie April Fool's Day.
We played the intro of the show, and then we did an intro, and when we kicked it to Horror News, we just played out the whole Rick Astley, Rick Rowling song. I just record the whole thing and let it play. And then when we didn't come back, that was the whole show. Nice. And I got two emails from listeners who was like, I listened to that whole damn song before I realized this was an April Fool's show.
Very clever. That's awesome. That's our coverage of Nightmare on Elm Street 6. Actually, it's called Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare, not actually called Nightmare on Elm Street 6. So whether or not you agree with Jay and Doc Shock that this is the worst thing their eyes have ever seen and they hate Nintendo. No, I'm not saying it's the worst thing my eyes have ever seen because I've seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4.
And I've seen The Exorcist 2. I like The Exorcist 2. I put both of... Well, you know what, Ron? Two things. One, fuck you. And two, we have to cover that franchise at some point. I've actually only ever seen it once. Might be the most cinematic abortion of all time. But let's move on. He is wound up today, Brian. I got him all wound up. Yes, you did. So whatever your opinion is, put it down in the comments below.
and I'm sure that Doc will monitor those comments and be very angry if you try to say Carlos died 15 times. No, just if he died more than once. So this is the final, like, Freddy Krueger kind of solo movie, because the next movie is a very meta version of Freddy Krueger. But we are going to cover The New Nightmare, even though it's definitely not canon. And we'll move on to...
Freddy vs. Jason. So for this Nightmare on Elm Street retrospective, I am your host, Fred Head, Ron Martin, and on behalf of Jay of the Dead, Dave, Dr. Shock, Becker, Gilman, Joel Robertson, Mr. Watson, Dr. Walking Dead, Kyle Bishop, the Southern Gentleman, Greg Amortis, Macula, and Dave Z. We all want to thank you for listening to J of the Dead's new horror movies, the horror podcast in 3D, but for only about 10 minutes.