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200 reviews in total

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37 out of 51 people found the following review useful:
What happened?!, 11 November 2003

Author: Kristine (kristinedrama14@msn.com) from Chicago, Illinois

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

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17 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
More of A Soap Opera Than Horror., 13 April 2005

Author: jmcgee321 from United States

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.

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14 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Creepy and Underrated Sequel, 30 March 2009

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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")

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10 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
* * out of 4., 30 May 2002
Author: Brandon L. Sites (brandonsites1981@yahoo.com) from USA

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.

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15 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
And the series gets even worse..., 24 January 2002
Author: SpideyTerry from Ardmore, PA

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.

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21 out of 35 people found the following review useful:
Special-Effects Great; Story Stinks, 9 April 2006

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from United States

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.

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11 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Good FX, poor story, 4 June 2005
Author: slayrrr666 (slayrrr666@yahoo.com) from Los Angeles, Ca

"A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child" may be the weakest of the series.

**SPOILERS**

After graduating from High School, Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox) decides to go to Paris for the summer with her boyfriend Dan (Danny Hassle), but her nightmares about Freddy Kruegar (Robert Englund) still haunt her. A new set of nightmares about a woman named Amanda Kruegar (Beatrice Boepple) giving birth to Freddy make her question whether she dreamed them or not. While her friends Yvonne, (Kelly Jo Minter) Mark (Joe Seely), Dan and Greta (Erika Anderson) are partying at the school when Dan gets a call from Alice to come get her. While driving to get her, Freddy attacks and kills him in a motorcycle accident. When she says that Kruegar is the source, no one believes her. Once she learns that she's pregnant, she becomes even more distraught. As Freddy begins killing her friends one by one, Alice comes to believe that Freddy has invaded her unborn child's dreams to come back into the world and enlists Amanda to help her fight her son.

The Good News: The movie does open with a bang. Alice walks into the shower after a night of sex, and gets distracted by the brown gunk bubbling up from the bottom of the shower. Investigating, she finds nothing, then is attacked by the surging water from the shower-head. Becoming trapped in the shower, she tries to break free, but then is paralleled into a dream world. We then get a few small, pretty good jumps about Freddy. It is a great way to start a movie. I do have to admit that Freddy's deaths are very creative for a fourth sequel. The motorcycle of death sequence is easily the best, but the comic book scene is also quite imaginative. Both feature great special effects and new ideas, hallmarks of the series. The special effects are perhaps the best part of the movie. Freddy's rebirth is the best part, being an atmospheric scene with lots of things crashing around Alice in the middle of a room that feature Freddy appearing at the end. Even though the story isn't a very good one for this type of series, it provides a ton of opportunities for some jumps. By having Alice know of Freddy's reappearance for a long time, it gives her the ability to see Freddy in different places and convince her she is going insane. By having Freddy appear in new places around her and scare her, his appearance also scares us. The way to finally kill him is pretty creative, and I'm surprised this wasn't thought of before.

The Bad News: This is mainly thought of as the FX entry in the series, and by and far they are right. Whereas the first one was mainly based around the suspense and shock, the second on remaking the story with a few twists, the third one being a continuation of the first one and the fourth one based around the comedy of Kruegar, the fifth one is mainly used as an excuse to show off the elaborate special effects. They all look very good and it looks like a lot of money was spent on the effects, but effects driven films, to me, are 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. Effects films can only go as far as the quality of the effects, but here the weak story is the major defect. Kruegar's resurrection is handled with great care and thought, but it goes nowhere and doesn't make any sense as to why Kruegar would go after Alice. Is it because he's trying to get back at Alice for the last time, or is it because he knows he can come back through her when her child is born? It's never really explained why, and that's a weak part of the story. 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 too why they are included. These are simply eye-rollers and aren't as clever as some of his far better quips.

The Final Verdict: Even though this is a bit more FX driven than other entries, the quality of the other entries is so great that this fine entry is considered the weakest. The FX is pretty impressive, but the surrounding story is a bit weak. That aside, it is a bit better than you may think and deserves a chance from other "Nightmare" fans.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, some language, a brief, not well seen sex scene, and brief shadowy Nudity

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11 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
The series sinks a little lower, 12 September 2000

Author: tex-42

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.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
children can do anything..., 19 April 2006

Author: Lee Eisenberg (eisenberg.lee@gmail.com) from Portland, Oregon, USA

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...

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Watchable in a style-before-substance way., 19 May 2005

Author: StormSworder from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

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.

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