A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989) User Reviews

Watchable in a style-before-substance way.

[StormSworder · 5/10 · 19 May 2005]

Freddy, who survived being destroyed be the 'dream master', is now attempting to be reborn through the dreams of Alice's as-yet unborn baby. Alice starts having nightmares concerning Freddy's mother, his place of conception and what he looked like before he was cremated by avenging parents.

The '5' I have given this film is only so high because of the dark, imaginative special effects, the atmospheric soundtrack and because of Robert England who is at his wisecracking best (even though the comic-book portrayal of Freddy leaves the film abut as scary as an episode of Postman Pat. Everything else about this film stinks, from the lousy, couldn't-care-less acting to the often tedious storyline and the irritating characters. Reviews at the time of this film's release claimed you needed an IQ of less than 20 to enjoy it. Perhaps they were being generous.

While not exactly terrible, Dream Child isn't a perfect dream

[gavin-thelordofthefu-48-460297 · 5/10 · 25 October 2020]

After the events of Dream Master, Alice and her new friends graduate from high school, but little does she know that Freddy Krueger has returned once again and plans to be reborn into the real world through her unborn son. The only person who can stop him is his dead mother and only Alice can free her spirit in order to defeat him once again.

The sequels to the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, like I said before, has been hit and miss with Dream Warriors, Dream Master, and New Nightmare being better entries and others like Freddy's Revenge, and Freddy's Dead being weaker entries. Dream Child is another weak entry and while not exactly godawful, it lacks the elements to actually be a perfect dream.

Now there are some good things about Dream Child. The production design looks fine. It doesn't have the imaginative nature of Dream Master and Dream Warriors, but it does feel dream-like. The music score is once again haunting and fits the tone and atmosphere while Robert Englund did his best with otherwise lackluster material.

That being said, there are several problems with this fifth entry. The story isn't quite as imaginative and fresh and feels rather pedestrian, the pacing is very uneven, the writing is filled with one-liners from Freddy Krueger that aren't quite as funny, the direction is pretty drab, and the rest of the acting isn't that good. Lisa Wilcox did okay, but she wasn't as interesting as in Dream Master while the other characters are poorly-written due to their illogical decision making and while the death scenes are cool to look at, they do lack the spark that made the death scenes in Dream Master, Dream Warriors, and the original more memorable.

Overall, Dream Child isn't exactly godawful and has some good moments, but this is a dream that should've been better.

Review of 100 Lunatics!!

[CharlestonNole · 6/10 · 26 August 2003]

The series continues it descent with this the 5th chapter of the Nightmare series. Freddy is still great! Lisa Wilcox is still fine! But something is missing, I really don't know what it is but you can feel it.

While Dream Child is a step below the others, it is not as bad as other make you believe. There is the interesting backstory of Amanda Krueger (Freddy's mother) and the den of 100 lunatic's. Worth a look, but don't expect alot.

Pros: Englund is still the man -- Cons: Freddy baby, oh my lord -- Bottom Line: 6/10.

* * out of 4.

[brandonsites1981 · 30 May 2002]

Never mind Freddy's return is never explained, this installment has terrific effects, and style to burn with Robert Englund giving it his all, but this series is getting old fast. In this entry, Freddy (Englund) is trying to control the unborn child of part four's survivor and murdering all her friends in the process. The black and white sequence is a highlight. Unrated; Extreme Graphic Violence, Sexual Situations, Profanity, and Brief Nudity.

What happened?!

[Smells_Like_Cheese · 3/10 · 11 November 2003]

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, the fifth installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street series and the worst sequel ever in the series, even worse than A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. I was lucky enough to get the Nightmare on Elm Street DVD box set for my birthday and I watched all the sequels. The dream child was the worst without a doubt, I was surprised too since they were doing so well with the last two sequels. But I guess they just lost the charm, the story was just ridicules and I wasn't happy with where it went. Alice just became more annoying, she's not Nancy or Kirsten, so her carrying this film on her own didn't work for me. Freddy is also loosing his scare, this was just getting a bit silly.

Alice is back and she's carrying a child, she couldn't be happier with her life. But Freddy is also back and he's not going to be too light on her since she defeated him so easily in the fourth movie. But anyways, he wants her child and to be born into the world again. Did you ever wonder if Freddy had parents too? Well that's what A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child investigates and Alice soon finds out what Freddy's childhood was like and that maybe that's the one thing that can defeat him.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child is just all in all a bad movie and an insult to the series. I don't think anyone could be happy with this sequel. Just the story was really silly, I mean it could have possibly worked, but once again, it was just executed the wrong way. I know that if you're looking to see the sequels for the Nightmare on Elm Street series, you should watch it, but I really wouldn't recommend it, it's not worth it, at least in my opinion.

3/10

Mediocre Boring Movie

[jordansepticeye · 5/10 · 29 October 2016]

First,the pros,the Gothic tone,it really helps the movie feel different than the others.Freddy,he is very sadistic and evil in this one.The acting was good,and I like how the movie deals with mature themes like teen pregnancy.I liked some of the dream sequences,the cinematography was very eerie.The kills were decent,not many this time but they were creative,and the effects were great.Now,the cons,the pacing,the movie is fast,but it's so boring,nothing even happens.The characters,I didn't care about any of them.The humor,all of Freddy's lines were stupid,I didn't laugh once.The plot,while interesting,is very stupid and poorly executed.The Dream Child has a great tone and deaths,but the rest of the movie is too boring and lazy to be interesting.

Sweet dreams, Jacob Daniel

[RebelXStar · 5/10 · 12 April 2016]

A year after the events of The Dream Master, Alice is graduating high school and has acquired a whole new set of victims, sorry, friends that apparently don't seem to know who Fred Krueger is, or the fate of her previous friendship circle. There's Greta, an aspiring model, Yvonne a student nurse and swimmer and Mark, a comic book artist.

She and her crush from the previous movie, Dan are now not only an item but expectant parents; a fact she doesn't learn until Dan is suddenly killed in a freak accident.

After a resurgence in nightmares she becomes convinced that Freddy is responsible for his death, and as her friends start being killed off one by one, it just reaffirms her fears. But as Freddy can only access victims through Alice's dreams, she cannot figure out how he can get to her friends when she is wide awake. That is, until she realises that the nightmares began around the same time as her unborn child's conception...

The Dream Child is very similar in tone to The Dream Master and like The Dream Master, this movie is almost completely all fantasy and no horror by this point.

Despite the fact that I feel the series had become extremely stale and lacklustre by this point there are aspects of it that I like.

For instance, I like how this is the series' nod to the power of maternal love as much of the story not only focuses on Alice's love for her unborn son but on Elm Street's unsung horror heroine, Freddy's tragic mother, Amanda Krueger.

The visuals are creative and imaginative as always, and much like Halloween 4 in it's respective franchise, where a child is the villain's main target, there is something very disturbing about watching a psychotic killer manipulate a child-an unborn child, no less-for his own gain.

Nice 80ies "Horrortrip" with disturbing images. Far better than other sequels

[bj-stroemme · 7/10 · 18 November 2005]

I don't know why people think that part 5 is one of the worst of the series. For a sequel it has everything that is needed for a nice horror flick. I mean, the originity and the "specialness" that noes 1 brought can't be topped, because it was the first one and came up with something that was never seen so if you make a sequel on a movie like this, then you just have to make something out of the dream thing and visualize it in a very fascinating way knowing that people know what the series is about. I think that the dream scenarios where way more fascinating, beautiful and disturbing than in part 4. This scenario and the 101- 80ies special effects give this film the right atmosphere and make worth seeing it. Same counts for part 3. Number two really was a nightmare (what about the dream sequences???) and is the worst of them all besides part 6 and 4... My opinion as a person who thinks that picture and atmosphere themselves are more important than a story in movies like this (because the story was invented, told and finished in part 1!)

Absolutely the worst in the series

[horror7777 · 2/10 · 7 January 2001]

This film is so incredibly bad, that I almost felt sick watching it. Up until this point, the other installments had at least one good thing about it. Part 1 was suspenseful and gory. Part 2 was off beat and entertaining. Part 3 was interesting with great effects. Part 4 had great music, good special effects, and a new entertaining Freddy Krueger. Part 5 is more boring than anything I've ever seen before. Alice, a much prettier blond, from Part 4 is back with her boyfriend Dan. At parts, this supposed Elm Street installment turns into a daytime soap. The newer characters seem harsh, and even that sweet Alice has a chip on her shoulder. Freddy seems to be completely out of this one. He looks tired, and doesn't seem to be as gruesome. His one-liners seem out of place and different, where as in Part 4 they could be pretty funny. Leslie Bohem's story never gets off the ground and Stephen Hopkins' direction is so bad, that it makes my grandmother look good! The whole plot of this movie is ridiculous and unrealistic. It's also confusing and pretty stupid. Avoid Part 5 at all costs!

A Bit Dull

[meghancoker · 6/10 · 10 July 2019]

After the wild, funhouse-like Dream Master, Freddy returns in The Dream Child, but it's a lot less fun this time. It turns out that The Dream Master's survivors, Alice and Dan, are going to have a baby and Freddy sees this as an opportunity to take a few more victims by getting into the baby's dreams.

It's an interesting concept and there are several really excellent moments, but something feels tired and lethargic about it. To be fair, the first act is fairly solid, but it starts getting really slow in the middle of the film with only a murder or two to spice things up. Thankfully, the murders (there seems to be a very small body count this time around) are fittingly fantastical with a girl being turned into a doll and force fed her intestines being particularly gruesome.

Lisa Wilcox still makes for a great heroine even if the material is a bit more dour this time around. Freddy seems to have lost a bit of his jokey quips this time, too, which is a welcome relief.

Special-Effects Great; Story Stinks

[ccthemovieman-1 · 5/10 · 9 April 2006]

Some of the best, if not the best, special effects in the seven-part "Nightmare On Elm Street" series were featured in this movie. They are good and they are clever.

The teens in here are still annoying and profane but not to the degree they are in most of the "Freddy" films. There are some real "hotties" in here, too. The ridiculous part is that all these "teens" look about 25 years old (which they probably are). Robert Englund (Freddy) has some funny lines, as he did in a most of these movies and the movie is well-photographed.

My problem with the story, and almost of them actually, is the theology which has always been so stupid, but I tolerated it through all of the films. But here, to a show a book in the beginning of the film that says "Christian Mythology," is a real cheap shot and going too far. This pagan propaganda was heavy in this film, which is really only worthwhile for the inventive special-effects.

Creepy and Underrated Sequel

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 30 March 2009]

On the day of her graduation in Springwood High School and after having sex with her boyfriend Dan Jordan (Danny Hassle), Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox) has a dreadful nightmare with Amanda Krueger (Beatrice Boepple) on the night that she was mistakenly locked up in the asylum with one hundred maniacs and then with Freddy Krueger's rebirth. During the night, while Dan is in the graduation party in a swimming pool with their common friends Yvonne (Kelly Jo Minter), Mark Grey (Joe Seely) and Greta Gibson (Erika Anderson), Alice calls him and Dan leaves the party and drives his truck to meet Alice at her job. However he is attacked by Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) and crashes against a large truck instantaneously dying. The shocked Alice goes to the hospital and finds that she is pregnant of Dan's son. When Greta is killed by Freddy during a dinner party, Alice becomes intrigued since she was not sleeping in both occasions; therefore Freddy could not have used her dreams to reach Dan and Greta. Sooner Alice concludes that Freddy is using her baby's dreams to kill her friends, and she decides to seek out Amanda to learn how she could defeat and destroy Freddy Krueger.

"A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child" is the fifth part of this classic movie and is a creepy and underrated sequel. This is the movie of the franchise that uses the greatest number of impressive gruesome special effects. The deaths are very creative, like the one in the comic book or the attack of the motorcycle and one of the scariest scenes is when Alice is dressed like Amanda and surrounded by the crazy guys in the saloon of the mental institution. The beauty of Lisa Wilcox gives a great contrast with the ugliness of the beast Freddy Krueger. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Hora do Pesadelo 5: O Maior Horror de Freddy" ("The Hour of the Nightmare 5: The Greatest Horror of Freddy")

"Its Super Freddy"

[Darkside-Reviewer · 6/10 · 10 August 2019]

This movie isn't the best the series has to offer but it isn't as bad as critics made it out to be while the series moved away from the blood and gore horror aspect of the first three films and more towards dark humour and less gory kills mainly to lower the age rating so more people could see it Robert England is still terrifying as Freddy even when he's making funny one liners he still instills fear into you.

The movie has an interesting storyline that focuses on Lisa Willcox character being pregnant and Freddy using the unborn childs dreams to use Alices powers of bringing people into dreams which does change the rules of the series a little but not drastically just a few loop holes to bring Freddy back for another nightmare inducing killing spree of Alices new friends.

Some interesting camera angles used and the usual creepy music found in an Elm Street movie like the jump rope children singing there's also a stop motion scene in the movie that really hasn't aged well at all and is just hilariously bad.

I recommend watching this if your a Freddy fan or just a fan of slasher movies and dark humour and while not very scary is very entertaining to watch.

This one should have been aborted.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 2 May 2007]

The Nightmare series sinks to new depths with the fifth in the series, The Dream Child: lamentable effects, a ridiculous plot, bad acting and Robert Englund portraying Freddy as a comedian rather than a vicious killer all go to making this one possibly the worst of the franchise so far.

Lovely Lisa Wilcox once again stars as Alice Johnson, who was last seen defeating Freddy via the power of reflection (see my comment on Pt. 4 for more details). Having celebrated her graduation, she plans to travel to Europe with boyfriend Dan, but, when her school pals start to mysteriously die, she suspects that Freddy has somehow managed to return once again.

The opening to The Dream Child is extremely misleading; it actually makes the viewer think that this chapter might be worth watching! After a night of rumpy-pumpy with her beau, Alice takes a shower, only to be trapped in the cubicle as it fills with water. This scene is easily the best part of the film. The rest of the movie is a logic-free mess which features such awful concepts as Freddy turning into a demonic motorbike, a girl being force fed to death (by Krueger dressed as a chef), and a geek entering a comic book and battling with 'Super-Freddy' (expect some dreadful effects and a really badly drawn comic during this sequence).

If, like me, you're ploughing your way through the whole series (in my case, having only seen them previously on their original release), then by now you're probably losing the will to live. Only two more to go. Will I make it or will Freddy have claimed another victim? 2.5 out of 10 (rounded up to 3 for IMDb).

And the series gets even worse...

[Op_Prime · 24 January 2002]

The series began suffering with the fourth movie, but this one really sent the series down hill. The acting is horrible. Only Robert Englund delivers a good performance. Not easy considering how pathetic this movie makes Freddy. Instead of the dark and scary villain, he's become a wise cracking jerk. The story is poor, making little sense. More details about Freddy's past come to light, but it really doesn't make a difference. The movie is also not very scary. The makers of this movie just opt for a lot of gore. The special effects try to fix the movie's many problems, but they don't. You'd think they would know when to quit, but yet another sequel followed. Thumbs down on this one.

The series sinks a little lower

[tex-42 · 3/10 · 12 September 2000]

After the success of Part 4, another sequel was a natural move. However they should have stopped it before it began. Alice, having survived Part 4 finds herself pregnant and it seems Freddy is using her unborn child to get at his victims, which of course are Alice's friends. Strange Nightmare movie, very heavy on religious imagery and bad acting. The special effects are good, but the movie itself is not.

children can do anything...

[lee_eisenberg · 5/10 · 19 April 2006]

Obviously, they wanted to have Freddy come back yet again. This time, he murders people through the dreams of an unborn baby. You read that right: AN UNBORN BABY! I never knew that unborn babies can dream, but apparently they can. As for the murders themselves...well, let's just say that the doll scene was something else! I would imagine that Robert Englund is probably proud to be remembered as that claw-handed slasher. Granted "A Nightmare On Elm Street: The Dream Child" isn't exactly the most creative movie ever, but it's still neat for what it is. Needless to say, there are some silly one-liners. And yet, there were even sequels after this one...

"Super Freddy" Scene Was Borderlind Unwatchable

[forrestwrs · 1/10 · 12 September 2010]

A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child was the worst Freddy Krueger film I've seen yet.

To start off on a good note, though, I liked the cinematography. In fact, I really thoroughly enjoyed the cinematography. It's not often that the cinematography is the best aspect of a picture, but it is here.

The director was weird, though. I mean, I could tell he had a little bit of skill with the regular scenes, but the dream sequences were done incredibly poorly. Usually the best parts of the films, these dream sequences were incredibly poorly conceived. I know that the filmmakers were trying to blend the dreams with reality as in the first film, but they ended up being so goofy that it became entirely too obvious what was a dream and what wasn't. Something else about the dream sequences that bothered me: in the first film Freddy would cut the characters and they would get cut in real life. Whatever happened to that? Instead the dreams just lead to random accidents in real life.

The acting in this movie is even worse than last time. Once again, I liked Lisa Wilcox's pretty face, but her acting is awful. All of them have shitty acting. Even so, the actor who played the character of Mark was interesting. He wasn't very good (though better than the other actors), but he was the only actor who seemed interested in bringing out the more intriguing aspects of his character. These characters aren't much to be interested in. They're dull and not very intelligently designed.

Oh, god, Freddy. What have they done to you? You keep getting more puns put into your dialogue, but now he's being put into bizarre costumes and corny setups. I need to watch the first film again so I can take him seriously again. Robert Englund has even stopped trying, a sign that this series has hit rock bottom. I remember reading that this was Englund's least favorite film. And I can easily see why. The "Super Freddy" scene was borderline unwatchable.

I think the worst part must be the dialogue. This is really among the worst dialogue I've ever heard. I straight up hated the words coming out of the actors' mouths, and I think it was part of the reason the acting itself was so bad. I cannot imagine these lines coming out well. On the other hand, every time the director has regular scenes outside of the dreams, he is able to set up the scenes fairly well. Like I said, he has a bit of skill. Albeit he's not brilliant, but he had potential. Until the dream sequences. But if he had a decent screenplay, his ability might have taken the film somewhere.

Visually, the film isn't even attractive. Apart from the cinematography, there's nothing in the effects or set design that would make this film pleasant to look at. It's just an ugly looking film. I was far more interested in the movement of the camera than the images on the screen.

Yeah, the sh***y effects seal the deal for me. A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child sucks.

1/10

Good

[alexviz-52967 · 7/10 · 28 June 2019]

I really enjoyed the first 30 minutes, the house sequences are awesome, the birth scene is pretty disturbing and gross. Some of the deaths are very interesting and creative, the Amanda Krueger scenes are scary, Jacob (no spoilers for who he is) is creepy as hell. The ending is scary, gory and gross, but the whole movie is scary and gross, as a Nightmare On Elm Street should be, scary, funny and gory. (This is the most violent installament in the series). Very suspenseful and funny. 7,5/10

The worst Nightmare yet...

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 10 January 2013]

I've been watching the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series in order, and as is the way with the law of decreasing returns, I've noticed them getting gradually worse with each film. THE DREAM CHILD is the worst yet, an ultra-silly and irrelevant addition to the saga which aims to add a twist with the introduction of a demonic baby.

Sadly, the execution and calibre of the script are both so poor that the resultant film is laughable in the extreme. Once again, Freddy is back as a comedic clown rather than a genuinely terrifying menace and by this stage it's hard to remember when he was an imposing villain.

The script is vapid and unoriginal, taking elements that worked successfully in previous films and merely reworking them for this one. The death scenes are fairly dull and unmemorable and despite some creativity in the bizarre nightmare scenes, as a whole it just doesn't hold together. Add in lacklustre turns from an under-performing cast and you have the worst 'Nightmare' yet...

The weirdest "Nightmare" movie

[ShadySovereign · 7/10 · 4 January 2006]

The 5th movie of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise is arguably the weirdest part ever. There are so many things in the movie that make it hard to watch, yet at the same time it is still fairly watchable.

The movie continues after the 4th part with Alice & Dan engaged. Alice finds out later that she is expecting a child and she starts having dreams about Freddy Krueger (again). But she doesn't know why she is having the dreams, especially after she defeated Freddy in part 4. Then much later on, she discovers that her unborn baby inside of her has caused Freddy to be resurrected again, and with the help of her friends must stop Freddy from making her baby evil.

From beginning to end, the film shows strangeness. In the beginning, their is a weird close-up sex scene (but nothing explicit is shown) illuminated with blue lighting and dark background music. Freddy's dream powers are still awesome but are very weird (such as him changing into a motorcycle, overfilling a girl's mouth with food, transferring dead souls to Alice's unborn son via her womb, and a gross scene featuring Freddy "growing" out of Alice's face and body). There are lots of special effects, but I think they were way over-the-top.

However, unlike with Part 2 of the "Nightmare" movies, there are some things in the film that I like. The comic book geek's part 4-styled dream was the most fun, and it showcased one of Freddy's greatest superpowers (he transforms to an indestructible "Super Freddy!"). The boy who played Alice's son Jacob was creepy-looking and acted pretty good; at least he wasn't like those other bratty kid actors in certain immature horror films. Lisa Wilcox was okay as her character Alice, and after the birth of her character's child at the end, she says a cute addictive line: "Sweet dreams, Jacob Daniel." Finally, the background imagery in the movie is very dark and Gothic, which is a real treat for fans of Gothic horror movies.

To sum up, "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child" is one of the weakest sequels of the franchise, but it has some good points that make it worth watching at least once. It's much better than Part 2 of the series, and much more imaginative.

I give this movie a 7/10.

Here's where it gets bad...

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 30 October 2018]

What can you say about a movie where the director, Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2, Judgement Night), says "What started out as an OK film with a few good bits turned into a total embarrassment. I can't even watch it anymore."?

A year after the last film, the returning Alice (Lisa Wilcox) and Dan (Danny Hassel) have been dating and seen no sign of Freddy until a shower turns into Alice going back in time to witness the creation of Freddy by the maniacs of the asylum. She tries to forget the dream as she's graduating high school the next day, along with comic book lover Mark, model Greta (Erika Anderson, Twin Peaks) and aspiring nurse Yvonne (Kelly Jo Minter, Maria, the video store clerk from The Lost Boys).

The dreams don't go away, with Alice witnessing the birth of a Freddy baby that makes its way to the church from the last film. He tells her he's learned how to come back to life, just at the moment that he kills Dan. At the same time, she also learns that she's pregnant with her dead boyfriend's child.

No one believes that Freddy is after Alice, but Greta soon is killed by being forced to overeat in her dreams. Oh yeah -- Alice is also seeing a fully grown boy she calls Jacob who she believes is her future son. Freddy is feeding his victims to her unborn baby -- who yes, is also Jacob -- to make him evil.

There is an imaginative scene where Freddy kills Mark within a comic book world, as well as the world that Freddy lives in now. But the ending, where Amanda Krueger seals away Freddy and Jacob decides to stay with his mother amidst strange puppet heads gets a little ridiculous. Actually, this entire movie is, supposing that teens we'd want to watch a movie about the terrors of teen pregnancy mixed with the terrors of being an Elm Street teenager.

Supposedly, there's an uncut version of this movie that's never been released that would change a lot of people's opinions on the film. I'll watch it again if that ever comes out. Yes, I know there was an unrate VHS release but supposedly there's even more missing.

Maybe it'd be a better film if New Line had given the director more than four weeks to work on it. And get this -- the poster was released before the producers had a clear idea what the movie was going to be about, other than the idea that Freddy would be a fetus and the title would be The Dream Child.

More of A Soap Opera Than Horror.

[jmcgee321 · 8/10 · 13 April 2005]

Not saying this is a bad movie like most people say, but if you look at it real closely; you will see this installment has the most drama than the others. Besides PART 7. Director Stephen Hopkins and (female) writer Leslie Bohem provide a great dramatic story with perfect comic timing by FREDDY KRUGER(Robert Englund).

Alice(Lisa Wilcox) and Dan(Danny Hassell) have been living like king and queen since the battle with FREDDY. All of that is about to change, because FREDDY is using their unborn baby, Jacob(Whitby Hertford), dreams to kill those close to her. The only person who can help her is the rest of her remaining friends and FREDDY's mother, who body has been missing since the birth of FREDDY.

Now the plot sounds like an average horror movie, but it's not. What most people complain about is how slow moving it is and not few people are killed like the other installment. This movie not about that at all, it's more on the human side than horror. Of course, you have those excellent one liners from FREDDY. So watch if your in for a horror/drama.

A decent enough effort but decidedly the weakest offering

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 7/10 · 4 May 2016]

Believing themselves free of Krueger's rampage, a group of friends find themselves targeted once again by the demonic killer by being reborn through their unborn baby's dreams and must find the final solution to get rid of him once and for all.

For the most part this one wasn't all that great even with a few decent enough parts to it. What this one makes the most is the film's rather impressive amount of special effects and kills being utilized for the most part. Freddy's deaths are very creative for a fourth sequel, which gives this one some uniquely enjoyable scenes as the motorcycle death sequence which is easily the best, but the comic book scene is also quite imaginative as both feature great special effects and new ideas, hallmarks of the series. As well, the fact that the opening, where the woman walks into the shower after a night of sex, and gets distracted by the brown gunk bubbling up from the bottom of the shower, finds nothing and gets attacked by the surging water from the shower-head, then is paralleled into a dream world for a spectacular scene. Others include the absolutely fun dream sequence where he takes over a car and merges the driver into a demonic motorcycle driving him into another car or the demented banquet scene that comes off really well. Even Freddy's rebirth is an atmospheric scene with lots of things crashing around in the middle of a room that feature Freddy appearing at the end playing off the finale of the previous effort which starts this off really nicely. It's where the film gets a lot to like, but otherwise there's not much else here with their being not a whole lot on offer here. This here is mostly to do with the fact that outside of the great special effects there's not a whole lot on offer. They all look very good and it looks like a lot of money was spent on the effects, but it's basically hollow since once you've seen the film once and you've got a handle on the story, it doesn't do anything on repeated viewings. Krueger's resurrection is handled with great care and thought, but it goes nowhere and doesn't make any sense as to why he would go after her. There's several different reasons for this that are logical and plausible, but we're never told if it's because he's trying to get back at Alice for the last time, or because he knows he can come back when her child is born. Either of these would work nicely, and it's never really explained what's happening, and that's a weak part of the story. As well, the inclusion of his birth and what that means is pretty confusing as to why it would need to come into play in this late of the series in the first place and really doesn't do much for the film as a whole with it being there simply for another way to defeat him when the last one worked so well. Another part that seems off is the humor. Freddy does off give a few good quips, but perhaps the humor is a bit blacker than in previous or subsequent films, with part six being the funniest, then comes part four in terms of comedy. A few of them are pretty good, but most are simply confusing as to why they are included. These are simply eye-rollers and aren't as clever as some of his far better quips. Otherwise this one wasn't all that bad.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, a shadowy sex scene, and Brief Nudity.

Alice in Bland Sequel-land

[Mr_Censored · 5/10 · 16 October 2008]

You just can't keep a bad guy down. They tried burning him, burying him, altogether forgetting him, but like the good cash-cow he is, Freddy just can't stay down. Hot on the heels of the successful "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master," this fifth installment finds our crispy anti-hero dwelling in the dreams on an unborn child. The unborn child of Alice, survivor of the last film, and seemingly the only way Freddy can still live on -- because babies dream in the womb, right? It's an interesting concept and a unique way of bringing Freddy back for another round, but let's not kid ourselves. The franchise was running out of steam by 1989 (much like the "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" franchises were) and it shows in this film. Despite some truly nightmarish imagery and a few memorable death scenes, "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child" doesn't have much else to offer. Director Stephen Hopkins has a good eye for dark, Gothic images, but obviously didn't know how to make a good horror movie, let alone a good "Nightmare" flick. What this film lacks is both suspense and character development. The previous installments in the series worked well because they had characters that seemed to reflect real-life teenagers and we got to know them as the film progressed. Unfortunately, despite some recurring characters, there isn't much to follow. Before we can even get to know the newest members of the ever-rotating cast, they are picked off before the movie even reaches the midpoint, and none of their deaths involve any suspense, or genuine horror, for that matter. Now, one of the film's strengths is that, despite the lack of tension, the nightmares in this film are quite nightmarish. Save for an A-Ha video re-hash, you will walk away from this film remembering it's stark, uninviting visuals. It's all style over substance, however, and it's easy to see why even New Line decided to put their money-maker to rest in the following film, even if it was temporary. "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5" is worth watching for the Freddy enthusiast, but is one of the weaker entries in the series, and sorry folks, but the series gets worse before it gets better...

....next stop: "Freddy's Dead"