A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

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Following up the previous Nightmare film, dream demon Freddy Krueger is resurrected from his apparent demise, and rapidly tracks down and kills the remainder of the Elm Street kids (imdb)

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Directed By: Renny Harlin

Written By: Wes Craven, William Kotzwinkle

Starring: Robert Englund, Brooke Bundy, Rodney Eastman, Lisa Wilcox, Andras Jones, Ken Sagoes, Tuesday Knight, Brooke Theiss, Nicholas Mele, Danny Hassel, Toy Newkirk

Genres: Suspense/Thriller, Fantasy, Horror

Franchise: A Nightmare on Elm Street

Country: USA

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master belongs to 18 collections

1. Psychotronic Film and Video Guides (collaborative: moderated by Gregzilla - 40 stars)

2. Slasher (collaborative: moderated by Moribunny - 16 stars)

3. Films available in HD (collaborative: moderated by kubricksucks - 13 stars)

4. #1 at the US Box Office (collaborative: moderated by BeeDub - 10 stars)

5. Sequel (collaborative: moderated by td888 - 9 stars)

6. Horror Franchises (collaborative: moderated by mattburgess - 8 stars)

7. Filmsite.org - Sex in the Movies, An Illustrated History (collaborative: moderated by afx237vi - 5 stars)

8. Horror comedies (collaborative - 4 stars)

9. Nightmare On Elm Street (collaborative: moderated by td888 - 1 star)

10. Horrific transformation (collaborative: moderated by mattburgess - 1 star)

11. Dead Meat: Kill Count (collaborative: moderated by delollio)

12. New Line Cinema (collaborative: moderated by elhenzo)

13. Available on Divicast (collaborative: moderated by Dunstan-xxx)

14. Horror/Suspense Movies I Own (public: Lord Moe)

15. Owned (public: ribcage)

16. Forrest Watch List (public: ForrestQ)

17. Laptop (public: Jason212)

18. Nightmare on Elm Street (public: LibraLynx98)

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All Ratings | With Reviews

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TCI | Percentile | Date Rated | # Stars (Reviews)

Stars	User	Rating
6	Luna6ix	76 _57th
After a completely awesome third installment "The Dream Master" is a slump into stagnancy. While this one does have some decent effects and good kills, it's also an uninspired continuation from my favorite installment. This is my favorite slasher series and even when simply treading water, you'll find no complaints from me.
6	Paxton	72 _71st
Freddy's at full quip strength in this entry that brings a few characters back and has absolutely no qualms about murdering them. There's a terrific car accident where they stop a truck dead using a line underneath but it looks like what I wanted to see at the end of that U.N.K.L.E. video where the guy pulls a The Bothersome Man collision course. References! Enjoyable without really being very memorable. Except for the pizza. But I always remember a pizza.
6	TimeCapsule	63 _54th
The fourth film in the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series is a sequel to the third film, which was a follow-up to the original, if we ignore the second, and surprisingly #4,"The Dream Master" feels like a movie sick with sequelitis. Although totally watchable, the movie plays like sample for a 80's slasher mixtape that copied "A Nightmare on Elm Street"(1984) off of cable, commercials and all onto a VHS, then tried to add "Freddy's Revenge", but instead taped over that with "Dream Warriors".
4	BillyShears	75 _65th
The laziest resurrection (flaming dog pee) and death (his reflection) but the death itself is so awesome and I’m literally just mashing this idiot keyboard trying to forget they killed off the glue that keeps this franchise together .... ... KINCAID.
3	INDYATMN	74 _36th
This obviously has a much bigger budget & so there are a lot more efx & most shocking of all, licensed songs you may have heard before. There's also an actual creepy scene featuring an insect, a splatterific climax & a plot that's briskly paced which makes this watchable at least. The problems? Dialogue & acting. It also brings back characters from the last film only to get rid of them all 1/2 way through & since it's clear Freddy will never die, any dramatic conflict feels pointless now.
3	DavidBlast	40 _28th
Disappointed that this didn't take place in space. Picks up where the third one left off, and does feature some quite inventive nightmares and a coherent plot. Warning: Does not actually feature any Dream Master.
2	nuotio	48 _26th
Most "80's" of the films; Harlin directs each scene like a music video and uses the gig as a showcase for big-budget action films (which worked). Cheesy 80's songs are playing constantly with MTV & Pepsi product placements. Script by e.g. Helgeland is all over the place: 1st getting rid off characters from the previous film, then introducing new ones that you don't really care about. Freddy is the real lead here and more comedic than scary. The ending goes overboard and resembles a spoof.
2	joseywales	48 _20th
hahaha that girl's name is Tuesday night.
2	twincinema	60 _36th
Don't worry. I brought my "Rappin' Freddy Krueger" tape. It always makes the trip go faster. "Bitch, bitch, bitch, b-b-b-bitch-b-b-b Bitch, bitch, bitch" Heh, heh, heh. Y'know somethin', he did say, "bitch" a lot!
2	KasperL	30 _10th
The idea that our protagonist (a well-cast Tuesday Knight whose creepy doll-face fits the material) holds great powers over the dream world had some potential that Harlin and Co. unfortunately largely fail to fulfil.
2	misterlizard	40 _43rd
Somewhere between the decent part 3 and the 80s abomination of part 2. The contrived return of Freddy is quite horrible, but once that's out of the way it serves as an OK entry into the franchise. Considering most slashers are shit out of ideas by this point in the franchise, the fact that this is still pushing boundaries is a plus in its favour.
2	Jerky	55 _59th
Unfairly bashed 4th entry in the series, this one has some inventive kills and some great Freddy one-liners. Not good enough to recommend, but decent enough to give multiple viewings (around Halloween)
2	guy piranha	40 _12th
the lack of creativity in here is almost overwhelming. i mean, people obviously don't give a fuck how you bring freddy back, you could have a dog piss fire on him in a dream and TADA. but what they came for is a nice assortment of funky deaths in weird settings that somehow relate to some quirk established in the respective character before. this was just lazy. and the ending? what the hell...?
2	SirSass	60 _45th
Jason had the black kid try to box him to death, Freddy has the retarded brother trying to Karate Kid him........the tough girl in this gets fucked up.
2	Dakota99	5 _44th
Usually when you get to the 4th entry in a franchise, it’s starts to become stale, especially horror. However, Dream Master continued to lend itself to it’s more goofier elements. At this point, you’re well established with the Freddy character, so I get what they’re trying to do. There is quite a few interesting kills and some genuine terror. However, any semblance of a story is non existent. For a sequel to one of the better Elm Street movies, this feels kind of just there.
2	Pickle_Man	60 _21st
Self-indulgent and absolutely drenched in 80s pop culture, so much so that this almost feels more like nostalgia porn produced in 2017 than an actual product of the 80s - montages, karate, drum machines and hair metal abound. It's still leagues better than Part 2, but it feels like a cheap attempt to cash in on the franchise's popularity by just throwing Freddy into a mash-up of whatever was popular in 1988. Makes for an interesting relic, but not a terribly interesting Elm Street movie.
1	eveelun	60 _22nd
Polished, with some good sequences. On the whole, though, pretty dumb.
1	doctor7	12 _6th
It's all the same, it's all been done before. There's nothing new here at all. Even the surreal scares that are decent in this film are directly lifted from previous Elm Street flicks. Now let's add in the terrible 80's music, style and hair to the mix as well. Flat out, even if you're an Elm Street fan, you can most certainly skip this addition to the series.
1	Moribunny	40 _27th
The second best installment in the series, after #3.
1	TheDenizen	30 _11th
A shitburger that was essentially the death knell for the NOES series. This movie is just awful and so are the two that follow it.
1	Ytadel	3 _28th
(2016 Freddython #4:) Probably the one you'd point to as the clearest example of just "Generic Nightmare on Elm Street Movie." Freddy shows up in dreams, kills some high school kids, makes lots of dark-yet-cheesy jokes, people don't believe it's happening until they do, then there's a comeback to defeat him in the dream at the end. Elm Street filmmaking down the bullet points. Totally watchable in a dumb way, nothing standout in the slightest.
1	gogokain	35 _42nd
Show a clip from Reefer Madness in the middle of your terrible movie to remind viewers that they could always be watching something a lot worse.
1	nilkynarfy	25 _16th
More of the same. No new ideas, nothing really innovative, even for the series.
1	muutanet	18 _14th
Interesting movie. If you haven't seen three prev. movies in serial. This is only rerun of them!
1	hellsditch	78 _51st
The best scene involves a teenager practicing his kickboxing to Dramarama's "Anything Anything". I think that says it all.
1	recklessmess	24 _12th
Wanna suck face? more like wanna suck shit.
1	mattburgess	58 _31st
Impressive visual flourishes and effects aside, this is a generally unsatisfying entry in the series. The surviving Dream warriors from the last film are brought back only to either be recast or quickly killed off and their transition from quirky mental patients to generic high school teens is never really explained. Still the highly inventive death sequences make it very watchable eye candy.
1	moraesfelipe	75 _80th
Most colorful fantasy-action-horror. It's truly awesome how Harlin uses dream as way to convey a multi-layered narrative: Alice uses moods and characteristics from her dead friends to try to defeat demon and fight as a dream master - car sequence on loop, cockroach destroying a girl's body, Freddy sucking life from the nerd girl, Freddy eating pizza with his victims' heads, souls being liberated out of Freddy's body, ripping him apart. Not that bloody, but the most exuberant of the franchise.
1	hellboy76	42 _12th
Missing a lot of what made the previous films at least slightly different from all the other indestructible slasher films. Renny Harlin is not a good director but there is the genius move to bring Freddy back with fiery dog urine.
1	Trooth	53 _21st
The ACTING in this movie is the REAL nightmare!! Ha ha, zing! Good one Trooth! Another brilliant movie review for the record books. Now to watch those Criticker Stars rooooll in!
1	myfavchords	71 _30th
This film has a number of good moments and others that seem forced. Robert Englund is good in his most famous role again here. The script could have used some more work. Overall I would recommend this to fans of this horror series only.
1	Goldbluming	57 _13th
I will never bench press again after watching that woman get crushed and turn into a mechanical cockroach thing. The actors are cliche stiffs and the script is generic as fuck, but the horror sequences are frequent and scary.
1	FoxyRussian	49 _15th
Number 3 was so good, all this did was destroy everything that made 3 good and continue the franchise. Could have been worse, deaths will still ok to watch at this point.
1	moonsmilk	6 _25th
This one's kind of a mess, I'm not going to lie. New actress can't hold a candle to Patricia Arquette, but she tries. Characters aren't really as likable here. This is basically where Freddy goes full cartoon villain, and I can't say it's a bad change? Adding some more points for the cockroach kill, which is maybe the craziest/coolest bit of body horror in the entire series. Screamin' Mad George basically throws this movie a lifeline.
1	Groovy_Souls	30 _11th
A really horrible outing in a franchise I've come to expect that from. With some horrible acting and a strangely unscary Freddy, the only thing this has going for it is some cool kills and the same fun score. Otherwise the rest is too cheesy. Even for the 80's.
1	Yiannos	58 _41st
(Viewed on 30/12/12): At this point the series had nowhere to go, so there was an increasing emphasis on wild set pieces to disguise the lack of plot. Hiring Harlin was a smart move; he brings plenty of energy and attitude to the series, trading narrative coherence for cartoon surrealist spectacle, a tendency that would be pushed further in future installments. Freddy regrettably became more joke like here, but Englund is always watchable and there are a few creative death scenes.
1	okayfrog	65 _60th
Not sure how this is considered worse than the previous entry. The new cast? The disregard of the "rules" for how Freddy works? Who cares. Freddy continues to be a mischievous jerk, killing teens in sillier ways and throwing out zingers left and right. This one even features Linnea Quigley for a split second! How can you not like it?

Average Percentile 28.55% from 1226 Ratings