A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Renny Harlin
Produced by	Robert Shaye Rachel Talalay
Screenplay by	Brian Helgeland Scott Pierce
Story by	William Kotzwinkle Brian Helgeland
Based on	Characters by Wes Craven
Starring	Robert Englund Lisa Wilcox Andras Jones Tuesday Knight Ken Sagoes Rodney Eastman Brooke Theiss Danny Hassel
Music by	John Easdale Craig Safan
Cinematography	Steven Fierberg
Editing by	Michael N. Knue Jack Turner Chuck Weiss
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	August 19, 1988 (1988-08-19)
Running time	93 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$13 million[1]
Box office	$49,369,899

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a 1988 American slasher film and the fourth film in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. The film was directed by Renny Harlin.

Plot

Kristen (Tuesday Knight), Joey (Rodney Eastman), and Kincaid (Ken Sagoes) have been released from the Westin Hills Asylum and are now living normal lives and attending high school. Kristen has managed to make some new friends: Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox), a young, bright girl and a frequent daydreamer; Sheila Kopecky (Toy Newkirk), a brainy, quiet girl with asthma; and Debbie Stevens (Brooke Theiss), a tough girl who hates bugs. She has also found herself a boyfriend, Rick (Andras Jones), a martial arts enthusiast who is also Alice's brother.

Kristen begins to have bad dreams and feels as though Freddy has once again come back from the dead. During one of her nightmares, she pulls Kincaid and Joey into her dream as she explores the deserted Elm Street house. The boys try to convince her that Freddy has not come back, and puts her hand on one of the furnaces, showing that the boiler room is empty and cold. Kincaid's dog Jason then jumps out of the boiler and bites Kristen's arm. Kristen wakes up and discovers the bite marks on her arm; while Kincaid wakes up and sees blood dripping from Jason's mouth. In school the next day, Kincaid and Joey confront Kristen about pulling them into the dream. Kincaid wakes up one night and finds himself locked in the trunk of an old junked car. When he opens the hood, he realizes that he is in the same salvage yard that Freddy's body was buried in. Kincaid spies his dog, Jason, digging and urinating fire in the ground nearby. Freddy then resurrects from the ground after which Kincaid knocks a pile of junked cars down on him. Freddy quickly recoups and kills Kincaid by stabbing him in the stomach. Later that night, Joey is attacked and killed by Freddy on his waterbed after being tricked into thinking a naked woman was swimming within it.

The following day at school, Kristen is concerned when her friends fail to show up for class. She confides to Alice about nightmares. Kristen hits her head and passes out when she discovers both of her friends missing, being attacked by Freddy but revived in time. After she learns of the deaths of Kincaid and Joey, Kristen goes to the actual Elm Street house, with Rick, Dan, and Alice. Rick tells Dan the story of Freddy, and Alice reveals a part of a rhyme by the name of The Dream Master. Alice suggests to Kristen that she is in control of her own dreams. However, Alice also looks down at the ground and sees something, a sidewalk chalk drawing of the house, that only Kristen has been able to see. Clearly, she senses something. At home that night, her mother secretly slips a sedative into her dream to forcibly put her to sleep. Kristen replies angrily to this, and runs upstairs in fear. She quickly falls asleep. On Alice's advice, she tries to convert nightmares into pleasant dreams. At first this works, and she proceeds to dream about a sandy beach vacation spot. While she meets a child named Alice creating a sand castle in her dream, Freddy appears and ruins everything, eventually taking Kristen to his boiler room. It is explained that Kristen is the last child from Elm Street, and Freddy needs her help to get more children. Freddy taunts her long enough to make her scream for Alice. Alice appears suddenly in the boiler room and Kristen tries to get her to wake up but to no avail. Krueger attempts to kill Kristen's friend in front of her, but she jumps in front of Alice, and Freddy throws Kristen into a furnace and collects her soul along with the other Dream Warriors. Before Kristen dies, she sends her power to pull people into her dreams, to Alice's body.

Alice awakens immediately, realizing that Kristen is in danger, and she and Rick both quickly make their way to Kristen's house. Outside, they see flames coming from Kristen's room, and they are too late to save her. As Alice tries to understand what has happened, and exactly who Freddy is, her friends begin to die. The next day at school, while taking a test, Alice falls asleep in class and accidentally pulls Sheila into her dream where Freddy is waiting. He traps Alice in her desk chair so she cannot help her friend and torments and taunts Sheila before sucking all the air out of her mouth. Alice awakens, only to discover Sheila having an asthma attack.

Later, Rick finds himself fighting an invisible Freddy and seems to win when he knocks his glove off. The glove stirs and soon launches at Rick and stabs him in the stomach. After every death, including Kristen's, Alice picks up new talents and traces of the former owner's personality. She also picks up the dream powers of the children who have died. She is obviously Freddy's supernatural opposite, albeit too weak to truly conquer or even resist him yet. After Rick's funeral, Alice teams up with Dan Jordan, who was one of Rick's closest friends. Together with Dan, Alice tries to get to Debbie, their last surviving friend, before Freddy finds her. Unbeknown to the two teens, Freddy is able to control their movements. Trapping Alice and Dan in a time loop, Freddy is able to reach Debbie and kill her by transforming her into a cockroach and trapping her inside a roach motel and then crushing her before Alice and Dan intervene.

Following a car accident, where Dan is injured and rushed to the hospital, Alice returns home to prepare for one final battle with Freddy. Alice goes to sleep to help Dan before Freddy can kill him. As Alice and Dan search for Freddy, Dan is injured and right at the moment the doctors wake Dan and he is pulled from the Dream World. Alice, facing Freddy alone, attempts to use all of her newly absorbed abilities against him. The fight is relatively equal, except that she has a mortal body and he does not, giving him the advantage of immortality. It is an advantage that proves nearly too great to overcome. He declares that he has been guarding his gate for too long to be taken down by her. But just as he is preparing to kill her, she recalls the final verse of the Dream Master rhyme. For the first and only time, someone defeats Freddy, by using the power of the spell to make him see the evil that is inside. Using her power as guardian of the gate of good dreams, Alice releases the tortured souls that Freddy imprisoned into the gates of good dreams where he can no longer harm them. Krueger's clothes fall lifelessly to the floor and Alice kicks his glove. The film ends with Dan and Alice at a fountain some time later. Dan tosses a coin into a fountain and before the coin falls into the water, Alice briefly sees the reflection of Freddy appear, Alice brushes this off and she and Dan walk through the park.

Cast

• Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger
• Lisa Wilcox as Alice Johnson
• Danny Hassel as Dan Jordan
• Brooke Theiss as Debbie Stevens
• Andras Jones as Rick Johnson
• Tuesday Knight as Kristen Parker
• Toy Newkirk as Sheila Kopecky
• Rodney Eastman as Joey Peterson
• Ken Sagoes as Roland Kincaid
• Nicholas Mele as Mr. Dennis Johnson
• Brooke Bundy as Elaine Parker

Reception

Critical response

The Dream Master received mostly mixed reviews. It has a score of 54% 'rotten' on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 25 professional reviews.^[2]

Box office

The film released theatrically in the United States by New Line Cinema on August 19, 1988. It opened in 1,765 theaters grossing $12.8 million its opening weekend. It eventually made $49,369,899 at the domestic box office,^[3] making it both the highest-grossing film for the studio that year and the highest-grossing horror film.^[4] It is the second highest grossing original Nightmare movie aside from Freddy vs. Jason.^[5] & was the highest grossing slasher film of the 1980's. Robert Englund, the actor who played Freddy, has since said that this was one of his favorite Nightmare movies.^{[citation needed]}

Accolades

1990 Saturn Award

• Best Director - Renny Harlin - Nomination
• Best Horror Film - Nomination
• Best Supporting Actor - Robert Englund - Nomination

Fantasporto Awards 1989

• International Fantasy Film Award Best Film - Renny Harlin - Nomination

10th Golden Raspberry Awards

• Razzie Award for Worst Original Song - Vigil For the song "Therapist" - Nomination

Catalonian International Film Festival

• Best Special Effects - Won
• Best Film - Nomination

Young Artist Awards

• Teenage Choice for Best Horror Motion Picture - Won
• Best Young Actor in a Horror or Mystery Motion Picture - Rodney Eastman - Nomination
• Best Young Actor in a Horror or Mystery Motion Picture - Andras Jones - Nomination
• Best Young Actress in a Horror or Mystery Motion Picture - Brooke Theiss - Nomination

Soundtrack

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[6]

1. "Nightmare" - Tuesday Knight
2. "Love Kills" - Vinnie Vincent Invasion
3. "Angel" - Love/Hate
4. "Don't Be Afraid of Your Dreams" - Go West
5. "Back to the Wall" - Divinyls
6. "Anything, Anything (I'll Give You)" - Dramarama
7. "Are You Ready for Freddy" - The Fat Boys
8. "Fatal Charm" - Billy Idol
9. "Pride and Joy" - Joe Lamont
10. "Rebuilding the Big House" - Nick Gilder
11. "Therapist" - Vigil
12. "Under the Night Stars" - Sea Hags
13. "Standing Over You" - The Angels
14. "I Want Your (Hands on Me)" - Sinéad O'Connor
15. "In the Flesh" - Blondie

Music score by Craig Safan

1. "Kirsten's Haunted Dream"
2. "Freddy's Back"
3. "Kincaid Killed in Junkyard"
4. "Joey's Wet Dream"
5. "Drugged to Death"
6. "Alice Lured Into Dream"
7. "Rick's Kung-Fu Death"
8. "Freddy's Pizza Restaurant"
9. "Debbie Checks In/Time Circles"
10. "Sheila Sucks Face"
11. "Theater Madness"
12. "Freddy's Calliope"
13. "Alice Battles Freddy"
14. "Corpus Krueger"

Music videos

With the popularity of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, many songs on the soundtrack had music videos:

• The Fat Boys featuring Robert Englund performing "Are You Ready for Freddy" showing one of the Fat Boys inheriting the Elm Street house and staying the night in order to complete the inheritance, even including Freddy rapping and audio of Heather Langenkamp's famous line "don't fall asleep" from the original film. This video can be found on 1999 boxset bonus disc.
• Vinnie Vincent Invasion performing "Love Kills", a music video featuring scenes from The Dream Master. It is not featured on any DVD release.

References

External links

	Film portal
	A Nightmare on Elm Street portal

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• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master at the Internet Movie Database
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master at AllRovi
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master at Box Office Mojo
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master at Rotten Tomatoes
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master at The Nightmare on Elm Street Companion