Starring: Robert Englund, Lisa Zane, Yaphet Kotto, Shon Greenblatt, Lezlie Deane, Breckin Meyer, Ricky Dean Logan.
Director: Rachel Talalay.
I have the option of watching this in 3D(and I have 3D glasses because of my copy of the remake of My Bloody Valentine) but it really just isn't worth it. I mean, it's just Freddy's Dead. The worst of them all. THIS movie is the one where I'm with the general fan base: Freddy is literally a walking cartoon character her, and it's infuriating and insulting. But, whatever: there's a cool Goo Goo Dolls soundtrack? Breckin Meyer is in a pre-fame role? Yaphet Kotto kind of rules? I'm trying to find a bright side.
Rachel Talalay made the move from Production Manager for previous sequels to finally being allowed to direct one, and to her credit it's more or less well directed even if the whole movie has a serious case of Twin Peaks envy and is nowhere near as cute as it thinks it is...but good for Talalay. Moving on up. It's a well deserved spot, even if the movie isn't great. She worked really hard for this series. She earned it.
We open on an extended nightmare sequence-probably the only good instinct the film has-playing on a fear of heights and a common nightmare concept of falling. Actor Shon Greenblatt does a pretty good job of reacting to everything, The sequence is more expansive than a lot of the series: lots of ground is covered(I mean in the geographic sense: we move from an airplane, to a falling house, to the town of springhood, down a hill, to a bus stop...it's a pretty long sequence), and there's a cameo from New Line Cinema's founder Robert Shaye, which is cool. The images of Freddy as The Wicked Witch of the West and Commercial Bus Driver is just jarring and silly...basically, Freddy has become Bugs Bunny in his old age. To his credit, though, Englund is as good as ever with his hammy performance. He's certainly one hundred and ten percent committed, and it does take a little bit of the sting out of the whole thing.
How is this movie written by the same guy who wrote the excellent In The Mouth Of Madness? I'm glad Mike Deluca doesn't work at New Line anymore. I don't mean that, really, I was just frustrated. I really hope Mr.Deluca is doing well. Not TOO well, though: this movie really does suck.
Young, ponytail clad Breckin Meyer is playing a little handheld "Ninja Gaiden" video game...I remember those...I can't remember what they were called, or even how to describe them. It's like a game boy but it was one plastic thingy with a couple buttons and basically stick figure characters. They really sucked. One of the greatest disappointments of being a child of late eighties, early nineties. Breckin looks totally absurd and VERY 1991.
We're introduced to Lisa Zane, a therapist named Maggie. She works at a teen shelter...Breckin plays Spencer, the troubled rich kid(whose Dad apparently tried to set him up with the older sister of his Girlfriend which is...wow). Lezlie Deane plays the imbalanced martial arts girl Tracy, and rounding the group out is Carlos, who is deaf...and Jon Doe, our kid from the credits sequence, who is now amnesiac and is fairly certain wherever he's from is a bad place. Maggie also works with Doc, played by Yaphet Kotto, who knows a lot about dreams. That more or less covers the whose who and expositional stuff...oh, wait, Maggie has re-occurring dreams about a water tower or whatever.
Lisa Zane is really attractive here. She has great hair, and...ooh, business suits. Also, I legit like the Goo Goo Dolls(well, circa early nineties) and really wish I could find this soundtrack someplace. It really is one of the better things about the film. But, anyway, plot stuff: Maggie realizes there's a connection between Jon's dreams and her own, so she takes him back to Springwood. Somehow nobody did any research about the town before they left, where they would discover that it somehow continues to function despite every single member being shellshocked and insane, every child being dead(how is this not national news? EVERY kid is dead? Wouldn't the entire world be examining this bizarre rash of deaths?) and...well, okay, that's it but still. Every kid is dead, all adults have gone mad, and somehow nobody thought to do the research or have heard of it. But, okay, fine. Stowing away in the back of the van is the other characters, who attempt to drive off after a colorful interaction with Rosanne Barr and Tom Arnold and an obligatory reference to Twin Peaks and another cool Goo Goo Dolls song.
Two random thoughts coming from the school house scene: 1) Considering the state of the town and everyone's insanity, is it possible that Jon Doe would actually be a gibbering psychotic like everyone else if he HADN'T hit his head? and 2)If Freddy "erases" his victims as the movie later suggests, why are there newspaper clippings about all the murders and disappearances? Come to think of it, why is everyone so insane? Wouldn't they just not remember their dead children? I mean, I guess you could argue geographic proximity or that the amnesiac effect is caused voluntarily by Freddy and the people of Springwood remember because Freddy wants them to...only skilled dreamers like Doc can maintain full power? Y'know, sometime I'm going to just write down a full list of Freddy's powers...he's basically a Ravenloft darklord. If you know what I'm talking about. If not, google it. But, seriously, the general suite of powers Freddy possesses is huge, even outside the dream.
Carlos gets the dubious distinction of being the first to die. His hearing aid is removed by Freddy, who uses the kids deafness for obnoxious, fourth-wall breaking sight gags. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE sight gags, I just don't want them from Freddy. Anyway, Freddy gives the hearing aid back, it turns into a little creature that gives Carlos super hearing and Freddy screws with him before scraping a chalkboard until the kids' head explodes, which is one of the stupidest sentences I've ever typed.
Spencer gets high and sees a Johnny Depp "brain on drugs" ad
(For the much younger among you...here's what the ad looked like)
(For the much younger among you...here's what the ad looked like)
It has a kinda funny alteration of Freddy smacking Depp with the frying pan (must have seen Sweeney Todd), and asks "Yeah, what are you on? Looks like a frying pan and some eggs to me." Then In a gadda da vida starts playing and Spencer ends up in a video game reality where his Father snaps him with a towel and Freddy beats him up, while in the real world Spencer cartoonishly bounces around like a pinball. Jon and Tracy go into the dream to try and save him...but Tracy knocks him out to get there so, even after the fail to save Spencer, he's stuck inside.
Tracy tries to save Spencer by kicking the video game controller out of Freddy's hand but he has the Power Glove and...god, this movie is so horribly written. The sequence does look pretty good, though: the animation and all is pretty impressive looking. It's not even a bad idea, really: video games kind of makes sense, they just could have been a little less silly with it.
Anyway, Tracy and Maggie run off with Jon Doe's unconscious lump of a body until he pulls a rip chord in his dream and flies out of the van...and Freddy reveals he isn't Jon's Dad(Oh, yeah, forgot to tell you: Jon and Maggie became convinced that Freddy had a kid, who he reveals is a Daughter). Freddy's evil plan was to get inside Maggie's head so he could leave Springwood, which he couldn't do for some reason unless pulled over the threshold by a blood relative which...I mean, what?. Freddy cuts Jon's parachute and...sigh...pushes a bed of spikes underneath him. And does a fourth-wall breaking bit where he's out of breath and wipes sweat off his forehead. Insert Three Stooges noises here. Woooooo-wooo-wooo, knuck knuck.
Maggie figures out she's Freddy daughter, Tracy gets attacked in the dream...actually, Tracy's nightmare is actually pretty creepy, but mostly because it's about molestation and rape. Honestly, it seems a little out of place in this film, and it is quickly undermined by the cartoonish Freddy stuff. Nice of Freddy to let his prey escape so readily. Y'know, in the documentary, superfan and New Line guy Jeff Katz remarks: "Why does Lezlie Dean survive in that movie? She has no business surviving that movie." I couldn't agree more.
Freddy also decides to give Doc a bunch of exposition for some reason. Over five movies and he never told anybody about "the dream people who gave me this job" but decides to let that slip now? Oh, and 3D glasses because this movie is about irritating and confusing audiences. Not that I mind the Freddy flashback stuff-I really don't-it's just...why is this movie so ridiculous? It's the worst possible send off for this franchise. I feel like I should have done the 3D version, just to get the full effect of the irritation.
I feel like someday in one of my college classes I should just start chanting "Son of a hundred maniacs" at someone just for shits and giggles.
Fun little cameo by Alice Cooper. Another quote I should throw out at people is "Wanna know the secret of pain? If you just stop feeling it, you can start using it." It doesn't quite have the ring to it that the chant does but...yeah, I don't have a way to finish that sentence. I don't even know why I brought it up. Guess I just needed something to say because, well, y'know...this movie isn't giving me much to work with.
Pretty lousy last act to this thing. The over-the-top combat sequence between an apparently still superhuman Freddy and Maggie mostly just stumbles along. It seems to want to be something of an intimate battle, both physically and emotionally, but then descends into the two writhing around on the ground like children and resorting to name calling and biting. Would could have been a really emotional and intense fight to the finish...instead it's throwing stars and pipe bombs.
Final Thoughts: Way too silly to be scary, too stupid to be funny...other than the cast seeming pretty damned committed, this movie seems to fail on every conceivable level. There's some good effects work, too, I suppose, though it's undermined by the cartoonish violence and incessant mugging for the camera. And Dream Demons. Fucking dream demons.
Final Rating: Two Stars.
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